Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser
Created | Updated Jul 15, 2002
Okay, so I picked this up on the back of an unrelated BBC tv programme, when I was in a book shop in Cambridge. They should be handing this out outside every McDonalds in the world!
Essentially this is a book about the rise of the fast food companies of the United States. But its more than that. Its an expose of the practices at the heart of the American social imperialism that is making high streets and parades homogenous across the world. The first chapter is a simple record of the opening of some of the first fast food restaurants. Then the knives come out. Systematically the book takes the consumer through the practices that make the system possible. From the cartel behaviour of the meat companies that mean ranchers can't make a living, through to the use of illegal imigrant behaviour in slaughterhouses, from the tax breaks that the corporations use to fund training that they never give to the anti-competition practices they use to keep franchisees in line. Then the book twists the knife with information on the spread of food borne pathogens (food poisoning to you guvnor!) and the number of people who die every year from eating this stuff.
I'm a vegetarian. I have been for 15 years, but if I hadn't been then this would have gone a long way to persauding me!
The end of the book is a kind of 'what can you do...' guide. Which is basically hit them where it hurts. Spread the information, boycott the purveyors of this junk and let others know why!
Although the book is full of stuff that any reasonable person could get furious about the style remains calm, measured and well reasoned throughout. It never even throws a fit with the story of Kenny (a worker who, for the company is gassed, has his back seriously damaged, his ankle broken and is in a car crash!). It leaves the reader to be incensed, and it works.
Read it, and see the reality behind the happy meal!
Essentially this is a book about the rise of the fast food companies of the United States. But its more than that. Its an expose of the practices at the heart of the American social imperialism that is making high streets and parades homogenous across the world. The first chapter is a simple record of the opening of some of the first fast food restaurants. Then the knives come out. Systematically the book takes the consumer through the practices that make the system possible. From the cartel behaviour of the meat companies that mean ranchers can't make a living, through to the use of illegal imigrant behaviour in slaughterhouses, from the tax breaks that the corporations use to fund training that they never give to the anti-competition practices they use to keep franchisees in line. Then the book twists the knife with information on the spread of food borne pathogens (food poisoning to you guvnor!) and the number of people who die every year from eating this stuff.
I'm a vegetarian. I have been for 15 years, but if I hadn't been then this would have gone a long way to persauding me!
The end of the book is a kind of 'what can you do...' guide. Which is basically hit them where it hurts. Spread the information, boycott the purveyors of this junk and let others know why!
Although the book is full of stuff that any reasonable person could get furious about the style remains calm, measured and well reasoned throughout. It never even throws a fit with the story of Kenny (a worker who, for the company is gassed, has his back seriously damaged, his ankle broken and is in a car crash!). It leaves the reader to be incensed, and it works.
Read it, and see the reality behind the happy meal!
