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'''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''.

Contents

Synopsis

Detailed Summary

Young Adult version

Editions

See also

External links

Synopsis

Schlosser examines the history and growth of fast food restaurants in American culture. Schlosser argues that the fast food industry wields powerful economic — and therefore political — influence on American culture and exploits that influence to increase profits at the expense of public health and of the social conditions of its workers. In making that argument, however, he insightfully portrays the fast food culture as a unique product of American history and the culture's relation to the emergence of the automobile, the homogenization of corporate culture, changes in labor conditions, and economic globalization. He also provides respectful biographies of some of the industry's "founding fathers", including Carl Karcher, Ray Kroc, and others. The fast food industry, writes Schlosser, "has helped to transform not only the American diet, but also our landscape, economy, workforce, and popular culture." (p. 3)

Detailed 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 the marketing tactics of 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. 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 (competing brand) 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 Monfort. 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.)

See also

★ ''Super Size Me'' — a 2004 documentary by Morgan Spurlock on a similar topic.

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

★ ''The Jungle'' — a 1906 novel by Upton Sinclair on the meatpacking industry. ''Fast Food Nation'' makes various references to it.

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

★ ''McLibel: Two Worlds Collide'' — a 2005 extended update of film by Spanner Films documenting the McLibel Trial and Campaign.

★ ''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'' is a book by Jerry Newman, a college professor, about low-wage work in fast-food outlets undercover.

External links

★ Excerpt from ''Fast Food Nation''

★ Original articles from which the book evolved