A very comprehensive book about industrial farming and its consequences. Both for our health, for the farmers, the workers and animals that are served on our table. It's quite shocking in places. Particularly how IBP abuses illegal immigrants and low-skilled labor in dangerous jobs with no benefits. The turn-over in a year is 100%. As in the "Ominvore's dilemma", my main conclusion is that we do not pay anywhere close the real price for the meat on our tables. It's the middle men who run away with most of the profit and the cost of everyone else. The farmers are up to their necks in debt and with few options. Eat what you want, but do consider the real cost of it, and the risk to your health.

Eye opening

Wow... it has taken me months to get through this book. Up until the last 2 chapters, I couldn’t go more than a couple of sub chapters at a time because I just got so mad and so heartbroken at the eye opening and really horrific details that the author goes into.

Every time I opened my Kindle, I had to take stock of how I was feeling that day, if I could handle more information that would make me want to tear my hair out or break my already fragile heart. And most days, I opted to skip Fast Food Nation because I just couldn’t handle it.

But I soldiered on. I realised we just needed to face the ugly truth and being ignorant is NOT bliss. It does more harm than any good. So about once a week, I steel my nerves and read maybe 5 to 10 pages and quit before I do irreparable damage to my nerves and my heart.

I do have to commend the author for a thorough investigation into this entire segment of business. While I knew it wasn’t healthy to eat, I did not know quite the extent of it. Nor did I realise just how much it hurt those who worked in the industry.

Sure, life is money and money is business. But, I’m increasingly cognisant of the fact that we can still make money while having a conscience and being fair towards others. This whole scarcity mentality is NOT real and we should rise above this self-centredness we’re all guilty of. Nobody has to lose for you to win. We can all win together.

Regardless, sticking to the topic at hand, this book was truly an eye opener and should be read by everyone! Even if you don’t agree with the book. Just read it. Doesn’t hurt to have a different perspective, k.

Something occurred to me while finishing this book. While I was reading Fast Food Nation, I was also finishing the seventh Harry Potter. Everyone who had already read HP told me how good it is, how they cried, etc. And yes, HP was endearing. But FFN was to an even greater extent I feel.

While most readers engage themselves in fiction, nonfiction is highly ignored—and I’m guilty of this maybe more than anyone else. But reading FFN gave me all of the same strong emotions that reading fiction does. I am angered at the villain (in this case large corporations that will do anything for money, including lie to their clients), and I feel emotionally attached to the victims—the rancher, the meatpacker, the fast food franchisee, and the consumer of this meat. But then the realization hits me—this is real.

These huge corporations are really recruiting poor, unskilled laborers, often immigrants to perform very dangerous jobs, refusing them decent wages, insurance, or worse yet, workers compensation when they hurt themselves. While it is true that the evidence is anecdotal, it is perhaps the only evidence that will ever be available, since these companies have a long unpunished history of lying. Lying to their workers, lying to the government, and lying to their customers.

At first I was simply horrified by the human aspect. How terribly these companies treat their workers. It is extremely despicable, but even I cannot capture all of the terrors. You’ll have to read the book to understand.

But after the human aspect, FFN took a twist toward The Jungle. Sinclair would be truly pleased. The fact that these companies are so powerful, they don’t have to test their meats for salmonella or e. coli is awesome: unless you’re one of the millions of unsuspecting meat eaters in the world. It’s truly sickening how much power these companies have. The government has the power to recall all kinds of defective merchandise, but not potentially lethal meat.

Obviously this book has a very liberal bias. But so do I, so I don’t mind much. It took a LONG time to read, but is worth it I feel.

Lots of horrible stuff in this book. Lots of interesting facts too. It’s more about the corporate side of fast food than the actual health and food science side, but I didn’t dnf it so that’s something. The book is also outdated— many laws and regulations have changed or been added in the 20+ years since it was written. The Jungle comes up all the time both in the book and in reviews of it, but there’s a clear comparison. Read this like the Jungle— a snapshot of the meatpacking industry at a certain point in history (again? Why didn’t they learn their lesson the first time?)

Written on May 29, 2012:

I am glad that I had a large Pizza and a KFC burger at the Delhi airport before I started this book. Adios fatty fries, triple-decker domes and cheesy discs, you will be missed. Ignorance is indeed bliss sometimes.

Update: June 22, 2014

I am happy to report that I have largely stuck to this. Ever since reading this I have virtually avoided this sort of trash and must have eaten a maximum of a couple of burgers and pizzas in the last two years (and that too most reluctantly, when unavoidable). Thanks, Schlosser.

In some ways obsolete because its deed is done; Schlosser may have been blowing the lid off the industry 20 years ago, but now even the most unsavory details of his book are common knowledge. Americans are fat, corporations are greedy, fry cooks sometimes spit in the food, “there is shit in the meat,” etc. The book also is, honestly, kind of an inelegant info dump.

Why read it? For those human moments. I will never forget the story of Kenny Dobbins.

There was this flash of memory about this book as I stood in line to buy a pizza of late. With the tight social distancing protocols in place, the outlet was deserted and the energy of the place was subdued. The teenager taking my order (as is the norm) told me about the offers for the day and then typed away at the keyboard. While he was getting the order ready was when a lot of things from this book sprang to my mind. Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation could most easily be called a book long argument against fast food chains. While he trains his guns against the major American chain restaurants : McDonald’s (specifically)and KFC (peripherally), the topic he tackles almost extensively is the Americanization of the fast food industry. It is not just the chains that he gives a critical view of but also what goes on behind the scene including meatpacking, manual labour, aesthetics of the food items too. The homogenization of this industry is achieved through a chain of activities almost all of which are highly exploitative in nature. It is these acts of exploitation that really make the case against fast food stronger. Schlosser calls out the below :

Advertising : The core consumers for fast food remain children and focused advertising campaigns are now the norm for the industry. In the decades since this book, advertising has become for subtle and yet incredibly intelligent in the way it entrenches the idea of fast food into the psyche of children. With the way the internet has now become a necessity, focused ads have now become more personalized. Schlosser talks about how this is an area that is extensively researched and was ruthlessly exploited for monetary gain. This is a bizarre way of catching them young whereby a whole generation of children become addicted to fast food and thereby to health risks.

Labor : The section on labor exploitation covers almost 65% of the overall narrative of the book and that makes sense since these chains thrive on a cheap and unskilled labor force. For a big chunk of teenagers the fast food chain is a spring board into finding their career options later in life but they are literally squeezed dry for the time that they work with these outlets. To unearth the bigger problem areas, Schlosser widens the scope of his investigation and looks not only at the outlets but also at almost all the associated aspects of what powers a fast food restaurant. The meatpacking and french fry industries rely heavily on an illegal immigrant population to keep their systems going is something that Schlosser uncovers. Being a very dangerous type of work, the conditions on the job are next to unbearable as it treats employees like a replaceable asset. A few of the case studies that Schlosser calls out are heart wrenching examples of how individuals who are past their healthy phase of being able to work are discarded unceremoniously.

Food Hygiene : One thing that I have always liked about the chain fast food restaurants is how quickly they can turn around an order. Personally I am a to-go person when it comes to fast food and this happens only when I am travelling. Having said this though, the descriptions of how some of the food items are prepared and what the dish could probably include was enough to make me gag. Since this is a US-centric book, it also calls out some of the worst food related illnesses that fast food has been a cause for in the US. What really pricked my conscience was in understanding how vehemently the chains and their suppliers denied any form of accountability and went great lengths to do so. I shall look at burgers warily for a while now !

The author really has an axe to grind against the Republicans and never fails to hide that. The GOP gets the second best flak in the book and that did make me question the unbiased nature of the narrative. In the afterword, Schlosser clarifies this and also calls out some of the transgressions from the Democrats too. That makes it only slightly even !

Recommended. It is a very incisive work that helps you understood what goes on behind the counter in fast food chain restaurant.

There's a witty and disturbing satire by Stanislaw Lem called The Futurological Congress. It's one of those books where the hero gradually comes to understand that the world isn't as it seems. He's ended up in this future utopia, but there are some puzzling details that don't quite fit. For example, why do people often appear out of breath when they get out of the elevator?

In the end, all is revealed. He's sitting with a friend in a fancy restaurant, and the guy says that yes, much of their life is an illusion. This is well known, though people prefer not to talk about it. But if he's so curious, there's a thing he might want to try. It's a chemical that will strip off all the multiple illusions that are projected in order to make life look pleasanter than it really is.

So the hero hesitates a moment, and then he takes the red pill. (In this book, it's a preparation based on very intense smelling salts, a touch I liked). The real world appears. He suddenly sees why you're breathless when you get out of the elevator. There are no elevators: people are swarming up and down the grillwork of the shafts like climbing apes. His friend, who a moment ago looked like a healthy, successful, middle-aged scientist type, is revealed as a hideously deformed cripple. The cordon bleu meal in front of them turns out to be a ghastly pile of chemical slop.

His friend looks at him in alarm.

"Was I... much changed?" he whispers.

Well, it's not quite as bad as that with Fast Food Nation, but, as Gulla says in the comment below, you won't want to eat a hamburger again. It will be much changed.

This book was written at the early rise of fast food culture and corporations in the early 1900s hence a lot of stuff may no longer apply in existing practices of junk food industry, but it's still quite informative if one's interested in learning how they came to thrive. Behind each hamburger consumed was a whole lot of drama about toxic capitalism, working class struggles, children exploitation and poor practice of food security. But people were barely aware about it. Eric spent 3 years writing this book and he was successful in providing detailed narratives, interviews and research to draw a whole picture of what 'elements' contributed to a McDonal's beef hamburger, even though his writing is more or less a presentation of chronological events rather than a captive storytelling.

The tales of how the very first grandfathers of fast food industry built their own empires were very inspiring and full of entrepreneurial spirits. Once came into power however, those corporations focused itself on making profits at the expense of children's health and immigrants' working conditions. Advertising was used as a manipulative tactic to allure American children into consuming more junk food, resulting in the US having the highest rate of obesity ever. Meanwhile low-skilled immigrant workers were found to work in horrendous working conditions in meatpacking industry, sacrificing their blood and flesh to make sure the hamburger one ate was charged at lowest cost.
The book also mentioned the extinction of American rangers, who were found to be the victims of malicious businessman working in junk food industry.

Fast food consumers probably barely contemplate on the behind-the-scene production of a hamburger. And it is eye-opening to see how a beef hamburger could be a pinnacle of an unjust capitalist society

so basically i’m becoming a vegetarian after reading this

"Are you eating? Don't start reading this book. The inside track on all things fast food from the marketing tricks to get kids hooked on the food (toys in happy meals), all of the way through to some of the REAL nasties. Minute changes between rat poison and flavouring for strawberry thickshakes, cow carcasses not properly cleaned before being shipped off to be processed - I told you not to eat!! See the power these major companies have to squeeze every dollar out of producers, read about the humble beginnings and how corporate greed drove the market. And what is the most complained about fast food chain in the whole of the U.S.A?? Hint - it's not McDonalds or KFC - you'll be surprised. An amazing book for of facts and horror stories, w
ell worth a read."

This is one of those books that should open the eyes of most readers to the food and flavor industry in America.

As with so many aspects of American life, Schlosser deftly examines how humans are studied and then manipulated into following our drives, both conscious and subconscious, and how those that profit from learning about our behavior, continue to do so.

In reading this book, people will see food, production of food and the marketing and selling of food, in a new light.