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| "Do you want fries with that?..." |
Want to know just how deep and widespread the "evils and designs" are in the hearts of "conspiring men" out there in the American Fast Food and supporting industries today? Read this book. Now.
Cooked books and uncooked meat. Meat that isn't fit for human comsumption. Meat that isn't fit for any consumption. Forged injury logs and perjured Congressional testimonies. Moral corruption. Political corruption. Gastrointestinal corruption. Broken Unions, backs, and lives. Mistreatment of animals, and treating people worse than animals - and that's just the beginning. You'd think this was just a retelling of an Upton Sinclair novel that took place at the turn of the century - but it is happening today.
Hardcover / paperback / eBook / audiobook, or even braille. Just read it.
Ignorance is bliss - unless ignorance means you don't know how the food you are eating from the Golden Arches or Wendy Bell King-In-The-Box is putting you and your family at risk, how the items on the Value Menu will cost you much more than $1.00 in the long run, or how even a single purchase can support secret combinations that the Gadianton Robbers would be in awe of.
Skip any fast food meal until you finish reading. Trust me - you'll be glad you didn't take little Billy and Sally to grab a drive-thru burger when you were running late or forgot to plan dinner.
You'll thank me.
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric SchlosserMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
On any given day, one out of four Americans opts for a quick and cheap meal at a fast-food restaurant, without giving either its speed or its thriftiness a second thought. Fast food is so ubiquitous that it now seems as American, and harmless, as apple pie. But the industry's drive for consolidation, homogenization, and speed has radically transformed America's diet, landscape, economy, and workforce, often in insidiously destructive ways. Eric Schlosser, an award-winning journalist, opens his ambitious and ultimately devastating exposé with an introduction to the iconoclasts and high school dropouts, such as Harlan Sanders and the McDonald brothers, who first applied the principles of a factory assembly line to a commercial kitchen. Quickly, however, he moves behind the counter with the overworked and underpaid teenage workers, onto the factory farms where the potatoes and beef are grown, and into the slaughterhouses run by giant meatpacking corporations. Schlosser wants you to know why those French fries taste so good (with a visit to the world's largest flavor company) and "what really lurks between those sesame-seed buns." Eater beware: forget your concerns about cholesterol, there is--literally--feces in your meat.
Schlosser's investigation reaches its frightening peak in the meatpacking plants as he reveals the almost complete lack of federal oversight of a seemingly lawless industry. His searing portrayal of the industry is disturbingly similar to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, written in 1906: nightmare working conditions, union busting, and unsanitary practices that introduce E. coli and other pathogens into restaurants, public schools, and homes. Almost as disturbing is his description of how the industry "both feeds and feeds off the young," insinuating itself into all aspects of children's lives, even the pages of their school books, while leaving them prone to obesity and disease. Fortunately, Schlosser offers some eminently practical remedies. "Eating in the United States should no longer be a form of high-risk behavior," he writes. Where to begin? Ask yourself, is the true cost of having it "your way" really worth it
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