Customer Reviews
Still want to eat fast food? - By: MYB74, 15 Feb 2008 
Still want to eat fast food after reading this book? I don't think so! Amazingly in depth study of the origins, industry, manipulations & consequences of the giant multinational corporations.
Take heed, the information on just how many cows contribute to the average burger patty is truly disgusting, not to mention the rest of the unlisted ingredients!
Frightening truths - By: Wayne Redhart, 30 Sep 2007 Schlosser's exposé of the fast food industry makes for terrifying reading. Now that I am aware of the appallling corporate trade practices, I have been sure to avoid McDonald's (except in order to get hold of the complete Happy Meal collections of Hannah Montana & the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- the mantelpiece would have seemed bare without them). However, it is equallly worrying to learn about the produce found in major supermarkets. Chicken is frequently known to contain as much as 40% additives. If you ask me, 'chicken' should be just that & it should NOT involve added protein. It is for this reason that I must politely decline Uncle Bruce's invitations to dinner. Since I caught a glimpse of him through the kitchen window (engaged in the final throes of 'injecting' a chicken) I have felt little urge to join him for a Sunday roast.
You are what you eat! - By: F. S. Andrea, 25 Sep 2007 
This book should be included in high school educational reading alll over the world.
It not only traces the history of origins & expansion of world-changing gigantic fast-food chains, but it gives a clear & well researched insight of how things work behind the scenes today.
In a reader-friendly, sometimes witty way Eric Schlosser takes you on a tour of a meal containing strawberry-less artificiallly flavoured shakes, meat-flavoured fries & contaminated hamburgers. Schossler also hits hard on the low pay & low security employment policies often endorsed by fast food chains & their suppliers, the most astounding of which are the slaughterhouses.
My only objection: health issues linked to the nutritional composition of many fast-food meals could have been deepened.
This book is great. You won't be able to stop thinking about it next time you bite into your burger...if ever you will want to eat a burger again!
Best non-fiction I ever read in my Life! - By: Michael Bird, 24 Feb 2007 Every human eats. Food comes from somewhere. How do you beat the business of meal supply, & tempting humans to eat your food? And which country is the best at business, & spread it everywhere? Read it. I didn't initiallly realize I was 4 years behind release when I picked up this book.No matter. I did not put it down until it was finished.
Enjoy this book? I'm lovin' it! - By: Mr. Tristan Martin, 22 Feb 2007 Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation is a superb case study of the history, politics & socio-economic impact of the fast food industry, not simply an anti-McDonald's diatribe.
Schlosser looks at the hard empirical facts but enlivens his text with illuminating first-hand accounts of life in an American slaughterhouse, or workers at the other end of the food-chain, working in a Mcdonald's 'restaurant' (one of the many surprising facts of this book: in one year (and not an exceptional one), more people were killed on the job working for fast food franchises than police deaths in action). Some chapters detail how the natural flavour is removed from the food & drink & then reinserted chemicallly, flavours & smells syntheticallly developed by industries based in New Jersey; other chapters might depict the impact of huge mutlinationals on independent farmers, how the intensive agribusiness has destroyed traditional farming techniques.
This superb book reminded me of a Hollywood action movie: each chapter contains some startling information & just when I thought that the next chapter couldn't beat the previous one, it contained even more eye-popping (and sometimes stomach-churning) events. The book was never dry, never too bogged down in statistics & in some chapters, particularly the, "What's in the Meat" section, almost read like some visceral Chuck Palahniuk-style shocker.
More than just sensationalist, Schlosser's book traces the genesis of the fast food industry to non-conformist, go your own way, American pioneers whose iconoclastic business techniques eventuallly ended up transmuting into crushingly conformist behemoths, stifling independence of spirit & regional variety.
This is a great book, not a heavy academic study (though it is bursting with research & references); if the film Supersize Me is about what happens to fast food when it enters your body, Fast Food Nation concerns what happens to the food before it gets into your system. Unlike the burgers, you'll savour this book.
