Fast Food Nation

Coordinates	51°43′27″N20°30′49″N
Name	Fast Food Nation
Author	Eric Schlosser
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Fast food
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Houghton Mifflin
Pub date	January 17, 2001
Pages	288 pp
Isbn	0-395-97789-4
Dewey	394.1/0973 21
Congress	TX945.3 .S355 2001
Oclc	45248356

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (2001) is a book by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser that examines the local and global influence of the United States fast food industry. First serialized by Rolling Stone in 1999, the book has drawn comparisons to Upton Sinclair's classic muckraking novel The Jungle. The book was adapted into a film of the same name, directed by Richard Linklater.

Summary

Schlosser opens the book with the ironic delivery of a Domino's pizza to the top secret military base, Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. He describes various high-tech capabilities of the base and its extensive defensive system, speculating that if the worst were to happen and the entire base were entombed in the mountain, anthropologists of the future would discover random fast food wrappers scattered amongst military hardware. Both, suggests Schlosser, would give important clues about the nature of American society. America is becoming an obese country and needs to act upon the fast-food chains. The book continues with an account of the evolution of fast food and how it coincided with the advent of the automobile. He explains the transformation from countless independent restaurants into a few uniform franchises. This shift led to a production-line kitchen prototype, standardization, self-service, and a fundamental change in marketing demographics: from teenager to family-oriented. Regarding the topic of child-targeted marketing, Schlosser explains how the McDonald's Corporation modeled their marketing tactics on The Walt Disney Company, which inspired the creation of advertising icons such as Ronald McDonald and his sidekicks. Marketing executives theorized this shift to market toward children would result not only in attracting children, but their parents and grandparents as well. More importantly, the tactic would instill brand loyalty that would persist through adulthood via nostalgic associations to McDonald's. Schlosser also discuss the tactic's ills: the exploitation of children's naïveté and trusting nature.

In marketing toward children, Schlosser suggests, corporations have infiltrated schools through sponsorship and quid pro quo. He sees that reductions in corporate taxation have come at the expense of school funding, thereby presenting many corporations with the opportunity for sponsorship with those same schools. According to his sources, 80% of the sponsored textbooks contain material that is biased in favor of the sponsors, and 30% of high schools offer fast foods in their cafeterias. The wound ration of youth employees within the United States is approximately two times greater to fully developed employees. Anecdotes are given suggesting that students that disregarded sponsorships could be punished, such as the case with high school student Mike Cameron. He was suspended from school for an incident on "Coke day"; while his fellow students wore red or white T-shirts and posed collectively as the word COKE while aerial photographs were taken, Cameron instead wore Pepsi-blue.

In his examination of the meat packing industry, Schlosser finds that it is now dominated by casual, easily exploited immigrant labor and that levels of injury are among the highest of any occupation in the United States. Schlosser discusses his findings on meat packing companies IBP, Inc. and on Kenny Dobbins. Schlosser also recounts the steps of meat processing and reveals several hazardous practices unknown to many consumers, for example, the practice of rendering dead pigs and horses and chicken manure into cattle feed. Schlosser notes that practices like these were responsible for the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, aka Mad Cow Disease, p. 202-3), as well as introducing into the food supply harmful bacteria, such as (ch. 9, What's In The Meat). In the later section of the book, the fast food industry's role in globalization is discussed, linking increased obesity in China and Japan with the arrival of fast food. A summary of the McLibel case is included.

In later editions, Schlosser provided an additional section that included reviews of his book, counters to critics that emerged since its first edition, and then discusses the effect that the threat of BSE had on Federal Government policy towards cattle farming. He concludes that, given the swift, decisive and effective action that took place as a result of this interest and intervention, many of the problems documented in the book are solvable, given enough political will.

Young Adult version

An adaptation of Fast Food Nation for younger readers entitled Chew on This was published in May 2006 by Houghton Mifflin. It is co-authored by Charles Wilson.

Editions

ISBN 0-06-093845-5 (paperback edition 2002, 400pp.)

ISBN 0-7139-9602-1 (paperback edition 2001, 368pp.)

ISBN 0-14-100687-0 (paperback edition 2002, 400pp.)

ISBN 0-395-97789-4 (hardcover edition 2001, 288pp.)

ISBN 0-06-083858-2 (paperback edition 2005, 383pp.)

See also

Super Size Me — a 2004 fast food documentary by Morgan Spurlock.

The Corporation — a 2003 Canadian documentary film critical of the modern-day corporation and its behavior towards society.

Reefer Madness — a 2003 book by Eric Schlosser examining migrant labor and the pornography and marijuana businesses in America.

Jennifer Government — a 2003 novel by Max Barry set in a hyper-corporate world, where schools, health care and almost everything else are run by major corporations.

My Secret Life on the McJob a book by Jerry Newman, a college professor, about low-wage work in fast-food outlets undercover.

Chew on This A young readers' adaptation of the book.

Food, Inc. (film) A documentary film based on this book.

- A 2008 documentary film highlighting obesity and weight loss.

References

External links

Excerpt from Fast Food Nation

Original articles from which the book evolved

"Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction" – video by Democracy Now!

Stuffed Nation | Food Industry, Food Policy, and Solving Obesity

Stuffed Nation blog

Category:2001 books Category:Current affairs books Category:Books about the United States Category:Economics books Category:Fast food Category:Health and wellness books Category:Films about animal rights