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 getting his 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. After that he wrote Fast Food Nation in 2001 soon created it into a film in 2006 called Chew on This. As you can see, Eric Schlosser has a tremendous life and has written many articles and books, but only one thing has remained in common, they What is happening to our economy is that so many people are going to these fast food restaurants because they are basically on just about every corner. So, for adults that makes it easy if they didn’t have anything planned for dinner because they can just pick something up from the local fast food restaurant on their way home from work. Also, it is very cheap. For example, a bundle at McDonald’s can feed up to four people at one time and it only costs about fifteen dollars! So, in the long run, it is just easier to go pick up some fast food rather than wasting your time cooking an actual meal. Lastly, even though fast food is very cheap and on every corner, it is not healthy at all. Studies have proven that a person that ate McDonald’s for his meals for a full month ended up having some serious health changes. In conclusion, even though it is very easy to access and very cheap, fast food has some serious health issues and be very harmful. Tone: The author’s tone in Fast Food Nation is very informative with also an entertainment side. Throughout the book, Eric Schlosser is always giving facts about different things, but along with the facts comes excitement and entertainment. Eric Schlosser uses this strategy to keep the audience in check. In other words, to keep the person who is reading the book interested. Many authors use this kind of tone to their story because if they don’t, then people would stop reading their work, but instead, the reader wants to get to the interesting facts and keep on
Eric Schlosser enters the slaughterhouse in the High Plains to show behind the scenes of fast food and how it is made. He was not expecting what actually lies behind the cold doors of the factory. People remain to have the misconception of fast food being made in the restaurant. Nobody thinks about there being a dark side to it all. Schlosser pulls on his knee high boots and guides readers through a pool of blood to show where we manufacture our food.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. New York: Perennial, 2002.
Often people buy a book at a bookstore after reading the first few pages to make sure that the book is interesting enough to continue reading at home. That is why Amazon has a “Click to LOOK INSIDE!” button on each book. It is the most important part of a whole book in order to catch potential readers. One would expect that both In-N-Out Burger and Fast Food Nation must have strong hooks at the beginning since they were both New York Times bestsellers. Although they both focus on the fast food industry, there is quite a contrast in the way they are written. In the prologue of In-N-Out Burger, the author Stacy Perman writes not about the hamburgers or the company, but mainly about the phenomena that the burgers caused. On the other hand, in the introduction of Fast Food Nation, the author Eric Schlosser splits it into two different parts, a story about Cheyenne Mountain Base and a quick overview of fast food industry. Throughout the prologue of In-N-Out Burger, Perman successfully gets the attention of the readers by describing the facts in detail, which makes them want to turn the pages for further reading. On the contrary, despite Schlosser’s concise and precise narrative, the introduction of Fast Food Nation does not seem to make the readers want to read more due to his unsuccessful analogy and composition of the chapter. The introduction of In-N-Out Burger definitely draws more attention of the readers than that of Fast Food Nation due to the rhetoric and composition.
“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:
Chapter 1 discusses one of fast food’s developer, Carl N. Karcher. It begins by addressing his year of birth and place, Ohio; 1917. After eighth grade, he quit school and went through extending periods of time cultivating with his dad. At the age of twenty years old, he was offered a job by his uncle at his Feed and Seed store in Anaheim, California. He then went to California, which is when he met Margaret, his wife and started his own family. Carl and his wife purchased a hot dog cart, Margaret sold franks over the road from a Goodyear processing plant while Carl worked at a bakery. Amid this time, California's population was quickly growing, similar to the vehicle business. Carl in the end opened a Drive-In Barbeque eatery. The post-WWII
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.
‘Fast Food Nation’ by Eric Schlosser traces the history of fast food industry from old hot dog stands to the billion dollar franchise companies established as America spread its influence of quick, easy and greasy cuisine around the globe. It is a brilliant piece of investigative journalism that looks deep into the industries that have profited from the American agriculture business, while engaging in labor practices that are often shameful.
According to Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, "Fast food has had an enormous impact not only on our eating habits but on our economy, our culture, and our values"(3). According to Roni Rabin on any given day, about one quarter of U.S. adults visit a fast-food restaurant. The typical American now eats about three hamburgers each week (2). Schlosser also writes that “thirty years ago Americans spent about six billion dollars annually on fast food. In the year 2000 they spent over one-hundred and ten billion dollars, more than on higher education, personal computers, or new cars (3). The reality of fast food is regarding the spreading and feeding of illness and disease; as well as the inhumane treatment of animals through modern meat farming practices. Our society imagines images of happy animals living on farms where the cows graze in lush green fields and the chickens run around as they please. This vision of free-roaming animals living out their days in sunny fields is very far from the reality. A majority of the animals that are raised for food live miserable lives in dark and overcrowded facilities. These facilities are commonly called "factory farms"(Maguire 5).
Eric Schlosser was obviously trying to make a change when he wrote Fast Food Nation. If he wasn’t then why would he write it in the first place? So, what was his main goal in his book? It doesn’t take a genius to understand that he was revealing the information that he did to convince people to be healthier via this startling information. But what’s uncertain about this is: what specific goal did he want to achieve with this book? Eric Schlosser’s main goal in Fast Food Nation is to bring awareness to the goings on in the food industry, he does this by revealing the largely excessive use of artificial ingredients in food, the treatment of the animals that provide said food, and the ways big companies can and do trap consumers into buying their products.
Sclhlooser felt as though this was related to the women right. There are more working in our time than ever before. This gives fast food corporations and advantage because worn out parents after a long day’s work often surrender to a cheap already prepared meal. He concluded that Americans in general are spending more money on fast food than any other form of entertainment. Sclhlooser was also concerned about how this fast food generation was impacting children. More children today than ever are being diagnose with life threating illness which may be a direct link to the fast food chain. Today’s busy pace world with parents working and too tired to prepare home cooked meals can be a possible link to childhood obesity and illness. If these things are already happening as they are still children we can only imagine what the future adults would look like and feel like. I think Sclhlooser weak points was not mentioning the fast process foods in our frozen aisle at our grocery stores. The introduction also didn’t seem to connect with the title and the main idea. I mean before I could see the connection between the title and the paragraphs didn’t really happen till page
Have you ever thrown up after eating fast food? If so, it most likely occurred after eating tainted or ill-prepared meat. Eric Schlosser, an award-winning journalist, explores the manufacturing, distribution, and consequence of today’s diet of convenience in his book Fast Food Nation. Throughout the text, Schlosser appeals to his reader’s emotion through troubling imagery, anecdotal evidence, and first-hand accounts, coupled with raw statistics to convey the terrifying truth about fast food in today’s world.
For millions, fast food restaurants are the source of positive associations with birthday parties, play dates and accessible comfort food. For others, they represent a lifeline meal on a busy day, or the secret to quieting a cranky toddler on a long trip because hurrying residents of cities have no time to cook a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner. Fast food presents even in the lives of people who are trying
The United States Department of Agriculture recommends that the average adult consume between 5.5-6.5 ounces of meat in a day. But has anyone ever considered what’s in the meat? In Fast Food Nation, a novel by Eric Schlosser, the author uses techniques like irony, appeal to emotion, and simileies to expose the meat of america- riddled with dirt, grime, and disease- to his audience composed of mostly parents and adults. By exposing the meat packing industry, Schlosser hopes to bring down the fast food industry along with it.
Ask a teenager what their favorite fast food restaurant is and most of them will probably say McDonalds. "McDonalds operates approx. 30,000 restaurants on 6 continents, and feeds about 46 million people in a single day! In the U.S. alone, McDonalds accounts for 43% of the fast food market." Manhattan alone contains 82 restaurants packed into the island (Super Size Me). McDonalds has been criticized by the media and other people for offering too many unhealthy choices on their menu, therefore leading to obesity in America. Eating too much McDonalds, or any other fatty food, will give you many long term health problems.
Works Cited Schlosser, Eric. A. Fast Food Nation. N. p. : Harper Perennial, 2001. Print.