Review Draft

Mary Anne Marrero

Mr. Hayes

Eng 100 – 1:10

5/6/13

Word Count: 1072

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

       Who doesn’t love fast food? For the last few decades, fast food has become extremely popular for people all around the world. Originating from the U.S., the industry has spread out of the nation, making people crave for that irresistible and scrumptious taste of cheeseburger and fries. Aside from its cheap and very affordable price, fast food takes it all out on the consumers, who in the long run, seem to be unaware of what might be taking place behind the counter. Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation who also wrote the books Reefer Madness and Chew On This, presents to his readers an undesirable look on what makes up the contents of fast food by tracing it back from its history to its global impact on the world.

      The book is made not only for the purpose of reading about fast food, but also to inform its readers about the cruelty of fast food corporations, following the hidden pitfalls that destruct the people from being aware of all these. Schlosser argues that the growing emergence of fast food is sought to affect the youth, the way animals are being treated, and the fact that it changes the way we eat. It centers on the greediness of the fast food industry and the manipulation of the consumers. As a consumer of fast food, I personally think that Schlosser provides enough information that grasps the bad side of fast food. I can say that although he renders out the dark side of the fast food industry, including some very relevant sources to support his claim, he fails to acknowledge some of the good influences of fast food to the world as a cultural export. 

     Fast Food Nation is divided into two parts, the American Way, which talks about the history of fast food, the restaurant pioneers, and the techniques and strategies that advertising companies use in order to attract more costumers. Schlosser goes on into discussing the life of Carl Karcher, founder of the Carl’s Jr. Restaurant, and the development of the fast food empire, following it up with the emergence of the McDonalds Speedee Service to the complicated relationship of Ray Kroc and Walt Disney before rising to fame. In one chapter of the book, he mentions that, “twenty years ago, teenage boys in the United States drank twice as much milk as soda; now they drink twice as much soda as milk.” (use another quote) By comparing the modern world to that of today, he presents to us the dramatic change that fast food has caused us generation after every generation. I find it true for a fact that fast food is slowly taking over what seemed to be viewed as healthy in our society. The second part of the book, Meat and Potatoes discusses the production of meat in slaughterhouses, as well as the lives of typical employees in fast food restaurants. In this part of the book, he tags the fast food industry for having the highest rate of low-wage workers in the United States. Fast food companies are common workplaces for teenagers because of the fact that it pays the minimum wage and it doesn’t necessarily require a higher level of skills in order to work. Along with that, Schlosser critiques that working in a meat-packing industry can give you the most dangerous job ever because of the health and safety risks in which you have to go through. The last chapter of the book talks about the influence of fast food throughout the world and how it has been tagged as the primary suspect for the increasing obesity rates.

      As our group’s chosen book club text, having to read the book gave us a series of ups and downs. The book contains several technical terms that made it hard for us, readers, to grasp that amount of detailed information. Also, Schlosser constructs his argument by mentioning several stories that opens up in various topics. This makes it confusing for us to follow through the following paragraphs in a particular chapter. As a group, we also skipped some chapters, only identifying the important concepts and key facts. By extreme annotating and underlying some unknown vocabulary, it has helped us gain deeper understanding of the concepts making it easier for us to organize our thoughts.  

     To further address the book in someone else’s point of view, I found this book review from Goodreads:

“Fast Food Nation is a jaw dropping non-fiction novel.

The non-fiction book Fast Food Nation is a great novel if you are looking to stray away from McDonalds. Fast Food Nation is about a man who goes on a journey to research fast food and everything that goes along with it. The deep fried truth about the situation is that when an animal is out through hell to feed your stomach, it's not worth it. Some things I liked about the book was how many facts and the word choice that the author used. Some things I didn't like we're how long it was and how the author gives fast food such a bad rap. My overall rating of Fast Food Nation is a 7 1/2 because the book itself was great but it was too long for me to finish in a reasonable period. Although the book was a jaw dropper (as stated in the headline) there is many shocking things. One thing that hit me the most was the McDonalds chapter in the book. Look out because you will never want to eat McDonalds again. What I read didn't shock me, due to the face that I already knew some bad things about the company. Once you read this you will find out some things that you didn't know and probably didn't want to know. I do believe that people should read this book. Once you read this book you will never think of fast food the same way.”

-Caroline, 5 stars

I do agree with Caroline that the book was too long to finish in a short period of time.

The book made me realize the disturbing facts about fast food and what pushes people to keep buying. I recommend Fast Food Nation to the future students of English 100 since it carries a lot of topics that can be discussed as a group.