Fast Food Nation

I started off the semester reading the book “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser. I was drawn to the book partly because we were studying about the politics of food and also I wanted to know the ins and outs of our beloved fast food industry. This book is all based on extensive research that Schlosser did of a couple of years. The book starts off with how McDonald’s started and how they have grown over the years. It goes into great detail of every aspect of that company starting from its origins, to the founder’s ideals about government and business and how it produces food. This book criticizes our culture’s love these fast food giants and how every burger made all over the country looks actually the same. He exposes some truths about the worker of that industry, such as the bulk of all fast food workers are either very young mostly in high school, living in a low income area, or an immigrant and Schlosser asserts that the fast industry takes advantage of both the consumer as well as their own employee. He also talks about the fast food’s connection with government as well as Walt Disney himself. He describes McDonald’s founders as want to customer to have an experience much like that our Disneyland even though both mega-companies were in a business agreement years ago; there are no McDonalds in the Disneyland parks. Schlosser doesn’t not just criticizes our fast food industry he applauds In N’ Out for its freshness, quality in make food as well as its integrity. Through out the book you can clearly see Schlosser’s point of view.
I do recommend this book to anyone who likes statistics or facts that will astound you. This book is packed full of interesting facts that will make you think twice before ordering a Big Mac. I personally was excited about the book at first but I grew restless with all of the fact and numbers that on every page. I also found that the author went on too long about all of his findings which also very boring. If you are into hard-hitting journalism then you might like this only because Schlosser writes in a very compelling and convincing way.