Reading Response: Fast Food Nation

You are what you eat. This is what Eric Schlosser is trying to portray in this book. He states in an interview with Dave Weich, “I hoped that I could use this one subject to look at all these other themes of American life.” Eric Schlosser used his research to tell a story of a nation that has been transformed by the fast food industry. He covers topics ranging from our health to working conditions related to the fast food business.

Schlosser could have easily just wrote a book about the dark side of the fast food industry, but we are aware that fast food is not exactly the healthiest food for us to eat. He uses specific facts about the history of fast food, how much we consume a week, and the conditions that migrant workers are employed. This helps the reader to assume that the author really does know what he is talking about, based upon the research he includes to back up the story.

Fast food industries are found every where. The most influential fast food restaurant has been McDonald’s (there are three different one’s in Indiana). Children pester their guardians for the toys that come with the kid’s meals; and of course, those toys come with a high calorie intake. Deirdre Donahue of the USA Today writes, “Toy companies and Hollywood have forged an alliance with fast food to enhance children’s “pester power.” Obesity has been another transformation since the fast food industry has started booming. Hello, correlation.

This quote, from page 284, “…about a hundred people have died from the human form of mad cow disease. Roughly the same number of people die every day in the United States from automobile accidents- and yet we do not live in fear of cars.” suggests that Americans would rather just take the chance. Schlosser makes it a point that the fast food industry is aware of the obesity rate increasing, among other diseases (such as E. Coli and Mad Cow Disease), but have done little about it. “The British decision to keep some of the most infective cattle parts out of the human food supply was prompted not by health or agricultural officials, but by a leading manufacturer of pet foods (285).”

Works Cited

Donahue, Deirdre. “Read this and you won’t want fries — or anything.” Rev. of Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser. USA Today 2 Jan. 2001.

Schlosser, Eric. “Eric Schlosser Knows What You’re Eating.” Powells.com 23 Jan. 2002

Schlosser, Eric.  Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005.