Fast Food Naiton

Fast Food Nation

Patel H.

University Exp.

04-22-05

‘Fast Food Nation’ by Eric Schlosser traces the history of fast food industry from old hotdog stands to the billion dollars 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 billion dollars in the American agriculture business, while engaging in labor practices that are often shameful.

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 leaders. Karcher can be described as Wal-Mart’s Sam Walton. Karcher bought his first hot-dog stand and after the booming population of CA, he made a fortune in this business by establishing the gigantic Carl Karcher Enterprise Inc. It also illustrates how the fast food restaurants made big money by using new ideas, for example quick service, drive-in.

Scholsser analyzes how the fast food industry has affected and influenced today’s society as well as the advertisement process and the break down of individuals’ behavior and thinking process towards today’s fast