I took about 2 months to read Fast Food Nation. The information in it is very disturbing and needs time to settle. I’m positive the author wanted it that way.

Fast Food Nation begins by discussing the origins of fast food. The McDonald brothers and their Speedee Service idea, Ray Croc. Reading through that part I was wondering if I had the right book because it seemed so in favor of fast food. But hold on. From there we go in to how well trained the grill cooks are (not at all) and how the food is prepared. Then we move in to farming and what McDonalds and others have done to farming. Did you know that American farming is ripe for another potato famine? The potato famine was caused by a single fungus that only killed one type of potato. Those fries you were eating? They are the same from sea to shining sea because they are made from the same type of potato. From sea to shining sea and further. Then we move into where the meat comes from. He didn’t spend much time on chickens, so my Wendy’s Spicy Chicken addiction is safe, but he pored over beef slaughter houses. You’ll want to skip this if you have a weak stomach. Then we move back to the restaurants and the staff. He tells one story about employees being arrested for putting foreign objects in the burgers (you don’t want to know what, ok?) Then he moves up to upper management and takes a look at the Sam Covelli’s of the world. (FYI Sam Covelli is the franchise owner in the Youngstown Ohio area. He boasted the World’s Most Beautiful McDonalds for a while there. Boy, was it an eye sore.) The last chapter is an order on what to do which is, stop eating fast food.

Now, the biggest problem I had with this book was the sensationalism. The writer was originally commissioned to do this story by Rolling Stone so we’re not talking US News & World Report level journalism. While many of his points are reasonable I often felt like I was being shocked into the right conclusion. At one point I was describing to Ruin13 one of the items routinely found in beef and she said "That’s why you cook it." After that point I put on my former farm girl hat and started reading a little more critically. I started seeing how Eric would say something that might seem shocking to people who think meat rains from the sky in plastic wrapped Styrofoam trays and have never looked into the dull eyes of a cow.

His information is quite accurate. The hazards of factory farming, the inability of the USDA to do anything really useful, the fact that Americans are more obese now than they ever have been before. And he’s right that Ronald McDonald, the Burger King, and Wendy have had a lot to do with these things. However, it bothers me that the writer felt the need to prod me to the correct conclusion with an electrified cattle prod.

I was also annoyed by the last chapter which basically told me that I should never set foot inside another fast food outlet if I wanted to avoid apocalypse. I know what factory farming is doing to the environment, I live in the second largest egg producing state in America. I know that Americans are fat, last month it was on the cover of Walking Magazine for heaven’s sake. And I know the employees tamper with the food, I was one. (I once accidentally sneezed in a vat of milkshake mix. If anyone reading this bought a milkshake at the McKinley Heights Ohio McDonalds in the summer of 1986 and came down with a really nasty cold a few days later, I’m sorry. It really was an accident.)

I recommend this book with a caveat. It is sensational. He will say things that, stated another way, would be quite innocuous. But don’t let that hurt the message of the book. Everything he says is true.

For more information you might be interested in Deadly Feasts by Richard Rhodes. See my review here http://www.epinions.com/content_223399546500


Recommended: Yes