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
expose 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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