Emma Simpson

AP English

Mrs. Cotton

8/29/13

Fast Food Nation

Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation begins with the interesting progression of very early

fast food restaurants and franchises, but very soon takes a turn for the negative. Fast food in

general, while widely utilized by American citizens, has negative connotations in the society that

has grown with the fast food industry. As the industry has modernized and employed more

convenient, cheaper, and efficient methods of producing cheap and widely available food,

standards have lowered, both in product quality and work force.

I found that the truly unnerving information began in chapter five: Why the Fries

Taste Good. In this chapter, we are told that until 1990, all McDonald’s fries were cooked in a

mixture of seven percent cottonseed oil and ninety-three percent beef tallow, creating a potato

product that contained more saturated beef fat per ounce than an actual hamburger patty. When

this became common knowledge to the public, McDonald’s received heavy criticism. To reduce

cholesterol, they started to instead use one hundred percent vegetable oil, but this would

inevitably result in a change in flavor, so they found a loophole: “At the end of the list [of

ingredients in McDonald’s fries] is a seemingly innocuous, yet oddly mysterious phrase: ‘natural

flavor’”(Schlosser,120). Schlosser then continues on to tell you of his experience on a tour of a

factory in charge of creating natural and artificial flavorings. Companies in charge of these

flavorings are most often incredibly secretive. They are fiercely determined to make sure no one

unearths their “secret recipe”, which denotes that the people who are ingesting these flavorings

do not have access to the ingredients, either. People don’t actually know what they’re eating, and

for the most part, this lack of knowledge does not deter them. This says a lot about the mindset

of the American population; we don’t want to know, so we don’t ask questions. Meanwhile, the

food processing companies are profiting from our passive nature and willingness to eat junk food

mainly because it is convenient.

In chapter six, Schlosser moves on to discuss the production of fast food chicken, mainly

Chicken McNuggets. “Chicken McNuggets, which became wildly popular among young

children, still derive much of their flavor from beef additives--- and contain twice as much fat

per ounce as a hamburger”(Schlosser, 140). Everyone has heard of McNuggets, and they are

unquestionably very common meals for children. It seems so convenient, but what are we doing

to the future generation of America? Studies show that taste preference is acquired in the very

early years of life. If we consistently feed our children high fat and high calorie fast food, they

are going to acquire a preference for it, and that is what they may choose to eat on a regular basis

when they are able to make their own diet choices.

In chapter seven, Schlosser speaks of his meeting with Ruben Ramirez, the president of

the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). Ramirez originally immigrated to America

from Mexico, where he found a low-paying job at a processing plant. He eventually got

promoted to meat cutting. “He saw his friends get badly injured on the job, lost the middle finger

on his right hand while using a saw, got knocked unconscious when a side of beef fell off a hook

and struck him in the head”(Schlosser, 156). These intolerable working conditions are not

contained in small border processing plants, unfortunately. Later chapters reveal similarly

horrifying working conditions in large packing plants. Consumers are not the only victims of the

fast food industry; packing is a large part of the industry and ties in directly with fast food

production.

In chapter eight, we get an inside look into a hefty packing plant, much larger than the

one at which Ruben Ramirez was one employed. Schlosser describes walking through the plant,

watching an assembly line swiftly murdering cattle (three to four thousand per day) and was

horrified at what he witnessed. Blood soaked the cement floors and workers were soiled with

blood and other fluids. But perhaps the most disconcerting is the sanitation workers that are

employed to work the night shift under sickeningly unsafe circumstances. OSHA attempted to

regulate safety policies at one point, but, says Schlosser: “It merely encouraged companies, in

the words of a subsequent congressional investigation, ‘to understate injuries, to falsify records,

and to cover up accidents’” (Schlosser, 179). He speaks of workers having limbs mangled or

severed, and of many unfortunate (but preventable under safer circumstances) deaths on the job

at various meatpacking plants around the country.

Chapter nine tackles the issue of foodborne illnesses and the threat that they pose when

fast food restaurants are taken into account. Every day in America, 200,000 people are infected

with a foodborne illness. 900 of these people are hospitalized, and roughly 14 of them die.

Recalls are uncommon, and only happen when people become ill. The government has little

power over meatpacking plants, and can do almost nothing until people have already been

harmed. “Today, the U.S. government can demand the nationwide recall of defective softball

bats, sneakers, stuffed animals, and foam-rubber toy cows. But it cannot order a meatpacking

company to remove contaminated, potentially lethal ground beef from fast food kitchens and

supermarket shelves” (Schlosser, 196). Clearly, we live in a society dominated by big businesses;

you might even call them monopolies. But the meatpacking business is far less public than

anything like retail or the fast food restaurants themselves, and the abominable happenings that

go on in and surrounding them are most often overlooked.

The book closes with a discussion of obesity in chapter ten. One of this nation’s biggest

problems, obesity is now only second to smoking in causes of mortality. Obesity rates in the

United States have more than doubled since the 1950s. With the rise of fast food, Americans

have seemed to rise in weight consistently. In countries where American fast food has become

popular, there has been a rise in weight gain overall as well. “Nevertheless, it seems wherever

America’s fast food chains go, waistlines start expanding”(Schlosser, 242).

At first glance, a place like McDonald’s is fun. I remember that when I was a small child,

about five or six, I would beg to go to the play area every time I drove past the Rochester

McDonald’s with my mom. For me it wasn’t about the food; it was about the experience. Now, I

barely ever eat fast food (and after reading this book, you can be I never will again) because it is

so high in fat and low in nutrition that it makes a person feel slow and induces nausea. A lot of

people take convenience over not feeling well. I believe that the biggest problem here is laziness:

Americans’ laziness that makes fast food seem like a good idea to them, and meatpacking plants’

laziness in not following health or safety codes, allowing injuries and foodborne illnesses.

I think it very clear what stance Schlosser has taken on the fast food industry. America

would be better off without fast food altogether. It has corrupt the meatpacking industry, causing

many workers to be seriously or fatally harmed, it has enabled foodborne illnesses to infect

thousands with one bad batch of meat, and it has driven the obesity rate of this country to a never

before seen high. Once an exciting and growing industry, fast food chains have corrupted the

American society.