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Eric schlosser essay on the fast food nation
Eric schlosser essay on the fast food nation
Eric schlosser essay on the fast food nation
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Tyra Robinson
20 November 2014
Soc 100 2-F
Book Review
Fast Food Nation
Fast Food Nation, published in 2001 by Eric Schlosser, is a book that exposes the problems in the fast food industry. The book has two sections, The American Way which discusses the economy in America before World War II and Meat and Potatoes which gives indepth details of the problems inside fastfood and also globally.
The American Way introduces the development of fast food restaurants. Schlosser depicts the post World War II American society as a simple natural economy where the goals are high and the American Dream is attainable to everyone. It is in this section that he introduces the founding fathers of fast food which includes Carl N. Karcher and the McDonalds brothers. He successfully illustrates the hard work ethic and determination it took them to become successful which contradicts the relationship between what it took to achieve the “American Dream” then and now.
This section also introduces Ray Kroc, a big time business man who accompanied McDonalds and Walter Disney, also a businessman and founder of Walt Disney. The chapter then transitions to the means they used to advertise to children. Ronald McDonald became a popular symbol for the McDonalds marketing strategy that was created to
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attract children and engage parents to go there. It also describes how the McDonalds franchise integrated with the school system which also aided in marketing.
Schlosser then describes the working conditions for the average fast food employee which the term“McDonaldization” derives from. He examines the job conditions of the teens and forms an analysis from interviewing teens at a local high school in Colorado. He also observes that many teens do not consider forming a union, instead they’d rather quit their job and work somewhere else. He also discusses how much teens value their jobs just as much as their education. He then discusses the unfair advantages of the McDonald's franchisees which tainted the significance of the “American
Dream”. Meat and Potatoes gives readers a detailed description of what the food is made of and why it is so appealing to consumers. In the first chapter, Schlosser explains how a natural potato is manufactured into an fry that only has 7% of its real content. Schlosser also describes the fast food chain’s expansion in rural areas, their responsibility of hazardous waste, and the unfair treatment of outside businesses who thrive to achieve the American Dream such as local ranchers.He then attempts to give the readers an understanding of the hazardous conditions and injuries of meatpacking workers by interviewing them. This section also discusses the recall of about 35 million pounds of ground beef which contained E. Coli due to the lack of proper sanitation in meat factories; however, 25 million had already been consumed. Schlosser later discusses the increase of obesity rates globally due to the impact of fast food restaurants. In conclusion, I enjoyed Schlosser’s explanation of how fast food affects our society. He gave a great concise description of history on how simple American life was before the fast food industry began which greatly contrasts how American society is now. It was also informative on just how evil corporations can be. I also liked that Schlosser chose to interview average people whose lifestyles are heavily impacted by fast food corporations. This book demonstrates how the idea of the American Dream was diminished.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. New York: Perennial, 2002.
“Out of every $1.50 spent on a large order of fries at fast food restaurant, perhaps 2 cents goes to the farmer that grew the potatoes,” (Schlosser 117). Investigative journalist Eric Schlosser brings to light these realities in his bestselling book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Schlosser, a Princeton and Oxford graduate, is known for his inspective pieces for Atlantic Monthly. While working on article, for Rolling Stone Magazine, about immigrant workers in a strawberry field he acquired his inspiration for the aforementioned book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, a work examining the country’s fast food industry (Gale).
Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson’s Chew On This explores the dark secrets of fast food. The authors first describe the background of fast food and their tactics with customers, and then elaborate on the impact of fast food on society today. Their view on fast food is a negative one: through describing various aspects of fast food, the authors ultimately reveal how the greediness of businessmen has caused the loss of individuality and the growth in power of corporations. They explain the effects of fast food on health, traditions, and animals, clearly showing fast food’s negative impact.
In the book Fast Food Nation: The Darks Side of the All-American Meal, Eric Schlosser claims that fast food impacts more than our eating habits, it impacts “…our economy, our culture, and our values”(3) . At the heart of Schlosser’s argument is that the entrepreneurial spirit —defined by hard work, innovation, and taking extraordinary risks— has nothing to do with the rise of the fast food empire and all its subsidiaries. In reality, the success of a fast food restaurant is contingent upon obtaining taxpayer money, avoiding government restraints, and indoctrinating its target audience from as young as possible. The resulting affordable, good-tasting, nostalgic, and addictive foods make it difficult to be reasonable about food choices, specifically in a fast food industry chiefly built by greedy executives.
In Fast Food Nation, Schlosser goes beyond the facts that left many people’s eye wide opened. Throughout the book, Schlosser discusses several different topics including food-borne disease, near global obesity, animal abuse, political corruption, worksite danger. The book explains the origin of the all issues and how they have affected the American society in a certain way. This book started out by introducing the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station beside the Colorado Springs, one of the fastest growing metropolitan economies in America. This part presents the whole book of facts on fast food industry. It talks about how Americans spend more money on fast food than any other personal consumption. To promote mass production and profits, industries like MacDonald, keep their labor and materials costs low. Average US worker get the lowest income paid by fast food restaurants, and these franchise chains produces about 90% of the nation’s new jobs. In the first chapter, he interviewed Carl N. Karcher, one of the fast food industry’s leade...
One of the most shocking books of the generation is Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. The novel includes two sections, "The American Way" and "Meat and Potatoes,” that aid him in describing the history and people who have helped shape up the basics of the “McWorld.” Fast Food Nation jumps into action at the beginning of the novel with a discussion of Carl N. Karcher and the McDonald’s brothers. He explores their roles as “Gods” of the fast-food industry. Schlosser then visits Colorado Springs and investigates the life and working conditions of the typical fast-food industry employee. Starting out the second section, Schlosser travels to the western side of Colorado to examine the effects presented to the agriculture world in the new economy. Following Schlosser’s journey across the nation, he leads everything up to slaughterhouses and the main supply of income for fast food franchises – the meat. After visiting the meat industries in America, Schlosser explores the expansion of fast food around the eastern hemisphere – including the first McDonalds in Germany. Throughout Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser presents in his point of view and informative tone, a detailed disscussion of the conditions using various examples imagry and flowing diction/syntax to help support and show his audience the reasoning behind the novel.
Over the last 50 years, the fast food industry did not only sold hamburgers and french fries. It has been a key factor for vast social changes throughout America. It has been responsible for breaking traditional American values and reinstating new social standards that specifically aims to benefit the industry’s growth. These social standards have inevitably changed the way the American youth respond to education and self-responsibility. Eric Schlosser, an author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, excellently uses logic to present the tactics used by the fast food industry to cheapen and promote labor along with the social changes that occurred in the American youth as a result. Schlosser aims to dismantle and dissect
Fast food nation is divided into two sections: "The American Way", which brings forth the beginnings of the Fast Food Nation within the context of after World War Two America; and "Meat and Potatoes", which examines the specific mechanizations of the fast-food industry, including the chemical flavoring of the food, the production of cattle and chickens, the working conditions of the beef industry, the dangers of eating this kind of meat, and the international prospect of fast food as an American cultural export to the rest of the world. Chapter 1 opens with a discussion of Carl N. Karcher, one of fast food’s pioneers. Carl was born in 1917 in Ohio. He quit school after eighth grade and spent long hours farming with his father. When he was twenty years old, his uncle offered him a job at his Feed and Seed store in Anaheim, CA.
From a study completed by Chicago-based Research International USA completed a study called “Fast Food Nation 2008. The panel consisted of 1,000 respondents of ages 16-65 who provided their inputs with an online survey which was conducted between March 13 through 2008. Which was based on results on fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s are gaining popularity even through the economic hardship and recession. Marketing strategy has become more of influence on kids and young American’s. As population grows and the demand increases of fast food restaurants are expanding their stores to capturing more consumers. Fast food chains are also willing to change their menus to continue to gain and retain repeating customers. With each generation that passes, brings fast food chains into more homes and continues impacting lives.
Fast Food Nation The Author and His Times: The author of Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser, was born on August 17, 1959. Eric grew up in Manhattan, New York and also in Los Angeles where his father, Herbert Schlosser, was President of NBC. He attended the college of Princeton University where he studied American History, and soon got his degree in British Imperial History. Eric’s career soon took off when he became a journalist for The Atlantic Monthly, quickly earning two medals in a matter of two years.
Over the last three decades, fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society and has become nothing less than a revolutionary force in American life. Fast food has gained a great popularity among different age groups in different parts of the globe, becoming a favorite delicacy of both adults and children.
Section 1: Typically, we need a well-balanced meal to give us the energy to do day-to-day tasks and sometimes we aren’t able to get home cooked meals that are healthy and nutritious on a daily basis, due to the reasons of perhaps low income or your mom not being able to have the time to cook. People rely on fast food, because it’s quicker and always very convenient for full-time workers or anyone in general who just want a quick meal. Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation argues that Americans should change their nutritional behaviors. In his book, Schlosser inspects the social and economic penalties of the processes of one specific section of the American food system: the fast food industry. Schlosser details the stages of the fast food production process, like the farms, the slaughterhouse and processing plant, and the fast food franchise itself. Schlosser uses his skill as a journalist to bring together appropriate historical developments and trends, illustrative statistics, and telling stories about the lives of industry participants. Schlosser is troubled by our nation’s fast-food habit and the reasons Schlosser sees fast food as a national plague have more to do with the pure presence of the stuff — the way it has penetrated almost every feature of our culture, altering “not only the American food, but also our landscape, economy, staff, and popular culture. This book is about fast food, the values it represents, and the world it has made," writes Eric Schlosser in the introduction of his book. His argument against fast food is based on the evidence that "the real price never appears on the menu." The "real price," according to Schlosser, varieties from destroying small business, scattering pathogenic germs, abusing wor...
It has been noticed throughout the running of McDonald’s that they tend to market to the eyes of children with Ronald McDonald as their notorious “spokesclown” that is recognized by 96% of American children. Also, in 1998, McDonald’s signed a long-term deal with the Walt Disney Company to include Disney merchandise as giveaways in its Happy Meals.
Kincheloe, Joe. The sign of the burger: McDonald's and the culture of power. Philadelphia: Temple Univ Press, 2002. 9-185. Print.
Works Cited Schlosser, Eric. A. Fast Food Nation. N. p. : Harper Perennial, 2001. Print.