A modern treatise on why to become a vegetarian
Written: Sep 02 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Schlosser follows in Upton Sinclair's footsteps with this modern update to "The Jungle"
Cons: succeeds most with anecdotes, though the statistics he quotes are powerful
The Bottom Line: Upton Sinclair, who wrote the seminal expose of the meatpacking industry around the turn of LAST century, would be proud of what Schlosser has done in this quick read.
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| sgersh's Full Review: Eric Schlosser - Fast Food Nation Tie-in: The Dark... |
Fast food nation is not a book about the fast food industry. It's not even a book about food. It's rather a mirror of American society and how the industrial revolution has naturally progressed and evolved to encompass all aspects of our politics, industry, habits and desires.
Early on in the book, Schlosser discusses how fast-food companies take a loss on kids meals in order to entice their higher paying parents to come in and eat as well. But he also talks about the more nefarious goal of locking in taste preferences in children so they are hooked on the specific flavors of their childhood all throughout life.
And then I realized: I hold a warm place in my heart for McDonald's fries. But I never knew why.
Did you know that McDonald's used to cook their fries in beef fat? That the flavor that we all became addicted to in our youth was a meat-infused potato? That since they switched to 100% vegetable oil, the McDonalds corporation developed a meat flavoring to add to the fries to preserve their cow-like taste?
I was alternately fascinated and repulsed by such revelations in the book.
But as I said, it's not a book about the fast food industry. It talks about fast food's effect on our kids -- how teenagers are overworked in underskilled jobs that give them no lasting skills, skills that could help them later in life. The machines at these restaurants were designed to do most of the "thinking" so that when employees leave, they are easily replaced, and also can be lower paid while they're there.
He talks about food in general, how the additives known as "artificial flavors" in much of our packaged food is generated in New Jersey. How flavors are being designed in factories, with specific characteristics, rather than natural ones.
The book talks about fast food's effect on agriculture, about the homogenaity of crops, about a potato that is grown everywhere because it is the single source of the McDonald's french fry. About cattle ranchers who are going out of business because of the cutthroat margins in the meatpacking industry due to the giant chains' insistence on lower cost meat. And it talks, in gruesome, explicit detail about the meatpacking industry itself, and how the relentless pursuit of profit is rendering these plants dangerous to both their employees and, potentially, to consumers.
Schlosser doesn't just confine his microscope to fast food restaurants. He talks about how the soft drink industry is taking advantage of the underfunding of our educational system to invade our schools and pollute the minds of our kids. How the major companies' march toward profit leaves no venue for marketing untapped.
And finally, he discusses how America is rapidly exporting our style of fast food, industrial production to the rest of the world. Eventually, the US will be saturated with fast food. Luckily, there's a whole untapped world out there. And we're invading it, one Pizza Hut at a time.
The end of the book reveals Schlosser's prescriptions for the problem, remedies for a sick nation, threatened with greater sickness as the industry grows larger and more powerful. He is optimistic that government regulation and popular outcry can control the industry.
I'm not so idealistic. I think the industry has the government under control now. I think the people are brainwashed by the marketers. I think it's going to get a lot worse before it ever gets better.
I think I'll go for a gardenburger.
Recommended:
Yes
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sgersh
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Location: Bay Area, California
Reviews written: 120
Trusted by: 66 members
About Me:
Up until now, I did stuff, some of which I talk about on here.
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