Book: Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American
Meal
Author: Eric Schlosser
Published: 2002 (first edition; this one’s 2005) (Harper)
Pages: 288
Fast food is bad. Duh. Everybody knew this even before this
book came out – but I’m not sure if everybody knew exactly HOW bad it is.
Let’s run down the list: massive corporate sway over
agriculture practices, disturbing amounts of non-food being added legally,
terrible wages and back-breaking labor that attracts the highest desperation
and turnover rate of like all employment, deliberately targeting kids,
contributing to the obesity epidemic here and bringing America’s cultural
problems overseas…etc.
The creepiest parts to me were the bits about the conditions
of the slaughterhouses and how they keep getting worse to get more food
processed faster. It’s not as detailed but somehow worse than the stuff in The
Omnivore’s Dilemma because there are no good solutions offered here beyond
massive reform and expansion of food inspection agencies. (Which, come on guys,
bring it on.) I don’t especially feel like eating meat anytime soon.
Also creepy yet something I’m glad was added: the 2005
edition adds an epilogue about mad cow disease, since it became big news
between 2002 and 2005. Basically it was denied by a lot of important people
until it couldn’t be hidden anymore. Gah! Really?
With nonfiction, I know it’s good when I focus these reviews
on the subject rather than how the writing was, because that means the writing
was so excellent it was invisible and let the facts/story do all the talking.
Bookshelf!
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