nutrTiffany Hickey Touro College Nutrition January 3, 20012

Fast food nation by Eric Schlosser is a book about the American way of life. The
Dark Side of the All-American Meal, he argues that today’s slaughterhouses and meatpacking industries are revoltingly unsafe, unsanitary, and employees are treated unfairly and with little or no respect. He gave me as a reader a lot of solid factual material. He did his own research so all of the information came from him. I strongly feel it should be necessary that the food as well as the working conditions be regularly monitored. Fast food restaurant should not be allowed to add so much salt and sugar to their food to make people addicted. I feel like they are targeting young children and adolescents because they are their biggest consumers. The working conditions need to also be watched carefully. People should be able to work in a safe environment and be provided with medical care if they are injured at work. The book is broken down into two sections. In the first section, The American
Way, Schlosser examines the beginnings of the fast food industry in America post-
World War II. The second section, Meat and Potatoes, looks at the specifics of the fast food industry, including the chemical flavoring of food, the production of chicken and cattle, the working conditions within the beef industry and the dangers of eating meat. In the first part of the book, Schlosser discusses how McDonald’s came to be and how Carl Karcher and the McDonalds brothers pioneered the fast-food industry in southern California. He then examines how Ray Kroc and Walt Disney both rose to fame at a when their relationship with each other was complicated. Schlosser also spends time looking at how the food industry makes child friendly advertisement because that is where most of the business comes from.

Schlosser then visits Colorado Springs, CO to see the working conditions of the food employees. He found out that out of all industries, the fast food industry employees has the highest rate of low-wage workers, has the highest employee turnover rates, and pays minimum wage to more of its employees than any other industry. The first section of the book is ended by Schlosser discussing how the enormous success of McDonald’s has generated numerous restraunts trying to imitate them. He discusses how franchises work and how they become successful. Teenaggers play a lead role in our fast food nation. The average kid begins working at 16 doing a very low wage job. These restraunts prefer to hire teenagers because they are easily trained and will do more work than adults. All the fast food chains want is for the food to be prepared faster they do not care about the quality of the service. The teenagers get treated very bad not only by their empolyers who could care less about them but also by the customers who on a daily basis will scream at them for a snadwitch that took to long or to much ketchup on there burger. From my own personal expeirenece I worked at burger king when I was fifteen years old. I worked long hours for $5.15 an hour a thirty minute break if I worked eight hours or a fifteen minute break in I worked less both which I had to punch out my card and I was not paid for. My manager watched me closely all day to ensure I did not stop working for a second and that I moved quickly. The owner watched from the camera at his home. If I didn’t get a order correctly I would get screamed at even if it was not my fault. I also had the expierence of preparing the food in the back, most of the reason I would never recommend anyone to eat at burger king. The bread came in large plastic bags about 6 feet tall and the mice would eat through the bag to get to the bread. The meat was already prepared we just put it through a broiler which I never seened cleaned in the year I worked there. The staff