Fast Food Nation Book Review


Eric Schlosser provides for America the story of fast food restaurants, in other words the 'dark side of the all-American meal.' With many specific details, whether things you may or may not have wanted to know, Schlosser is gruesomely honest when painting vivid pictures about fast food through his words.'


Schlosser is able to effectively display all the different views and sides to the production and consumption of fast food through his chapters. Starting with the founding fathers and the business aspects of starting the fast food business, leading into part two of the book, labeled 'Meat and Potatoes'.

In book one of Fast Food Nation Schlosser shows exactly how the entrepreneurs of the fast food nation brilliantly found a way to lead America from the bellhop service they were accustomed to, to the self-service concept the McDonald brothers introduced to the world. Schlosser is able to show through specific examples just how outrageously influential and large McDonalds has become. He tells us that one in eight Americans have at some time or another worked at McDonalds. One by one, its is stated how the self service concept started by McDonalds influenced Taco Bell, Dunkin Donuts, Wendy's, Burger King, and so much more. The scope of those two brothers' success will never fully be realized. Yes, McDonalds served as an easy way for low-income families to have a nice, 'restaurant' meal, but the innocent fast food consumers of the 1900s had little information on what exactly they were eating.

This idea is what leads Schlosser into the second part of his expose. Not many fast food ravagers stop to ask themselves exactly what they are eating. Schlosser bluntly explains that'' they rarely consider where this food came from, how it was made, what it is doing to the community around them.' Without a care in world, Americans eat almost one million animals every hour. Schlosser leads the reader through gruesome stories regarding the slaughterhouses in which the meat is butchered. He explains that with the way in which Americans now raise cattle and send their poultry across the country, epidemics from diseases such as E. Coli are more likely. He shows just how pressure filled this business has become, with the suicide of a cattle rancher that just couldn't stand the industry anymore. It's sad that the 46 million people that McDonalds feed daily have no idea about the unsettling truths of the fast food trade.

Schlosser is an award winning American journalist whose muckraking journalism is honest and brutal. With first hand accounts, specific information shown through statistics and numbers, and just by looking at America today, Schlosser's work is inevitably truthful and quite frankly scary. Everyone who eats fast food should read of the unsanitary and bigoted business that it truly is. The title Fast Food Nation is a true depiction of what America has become. Whether it be the children targeted advertisements, or simply the rushed lifestyle of the times, there are certainly ramifications that come from consuming these products. Schlosser sets it out plain and simple for anyone who cares to take the time to actually inquire about the food America obviously has no problem gobbling down. After reading this piece, you might just thing twice about that hamburger you have become so accustomed to.