Fast Food a Multi Purpose Industry

One of the major learning points that the book talks about is that the man behind the frozen french fry business reinvented how french fries could be brought home, stored and eaten at a later date without going bad. That man was J. R. Simplot, he and a team of chemists came up with a way for french fries to be cooked frozen and then recooked and ready to eat. This all came about due to the fact that refrigerators started to have freezers built into them at the end of World War II. Once they had figured out how to achieve the freezing process of the french fry, he had control over the french fry business. Our team found it as a really good learning point because to us it shows that even something as small as the french fry can change the entire country. Like right now whether you agree with the political situation or not you can still fight for change no matter how small. And who knows what you are fighting for can change a lot in America, just like the frozen french fry changed the way they are eaten in an American household.

Another major key learning point that my group was able to find was that even though fast food might taste very good, it comes with a risk. And one of those risks other than gaining inches on your waistline is eating the bacteria known as E. coli 0157:H7, more commonly it is just call E. coli. E. coli while in your system it releases a toxin called “verotoxin.” The toxins attack the lining of your intestines and it cause you to evacuate your bowels. There have been reported cases where young children get E. coli from eating fast food and there bodies are developed enough to fight against it so it ends up killing them. This was a key learning point to all of our group due to the fact that it is a real world possibility that anyone of us can get E. coli. There is a real world chance that you the reader could go to a fast food restaurant or any restaurant for that matter and leave with E. coli without even realizing it. Be careful with where you decide to eat next time you get hungry.

The last major key learning point our group read about was that McDonald's is just taking over the United States it's taking over the entire world. The even started a marketing campaign called, “Global Realization.” They open approximately 5 new McDonald's everyday, 4 of the 5 are owned overseas, stated in “Fast Food Nation.” We thought about this and learned that no matter what you create if you market it right and get enough people on board you can make it into the world wide market.                                                                                

Why This Book Is An Important Read For Us All.

"Fast Food Nation" is an important read for everyone because it shows us, American citizens, how unhealthy fast food is, the tragedies that occur inside slaughterhouses, and how the book has paved a path to reform the fast food industry.

Much of what we talked about in our first post had to do with the dangers of fast food. It causes obesity, diabetes, and countless other diseases. It's a dangerous substance that has plagued the societies of today, and it should be consumed only a few times a week to ensure you remain healthy. Now we know this is common knowledge and it's been drilled into our heads that fast food is unhealthy, but it's so cheap and tastes so good. That's all fine a dandy but most people don't know about the horrors of the slaughterhouses.

In the slaughterhouses cows are put into single file and are brought to a conveyor belt. Next there's either a man or a machine that will shoot a metal stick the size of a pencil between the eyes of the cow rendering it brain dead. Then the rear legs will be chained and lifted on a trolley to be bled. A man will then cut the cow down the aorta, making sure that the cow is completely dead. The cow then goes to various cleaning stations because they live in their own manure and it could contaminate the meat while the hide is being removed. It's really shocking to see that once a cow is fat enough, it's just sent to be killed and made into a burger. Not only is it ending the life of an innocent creature, there's a possibility of the meat being contaminated and killing people.

Luckily, since the book first came out 10 years ago, people started realizing just how awful the fast food industry is. For starters many of the major corporations abuse government policy. They're influencing the government to gain de-regulations and government subsidies because of their greed for money. For years its threatened the workers safety and food safety, and now it threatens the whole economy.

Fortunately there has been people who really want to make a change. For example, The Coalition of Immokalee workers in Florida have been fighting to protect the rights of farm workers. Plus organic food has been widely recognized as being the replacement for fast food in many families. Even stores are beginning to purchase organic goods. People like Michelle Obama tried to spread the wood on organic foods to try and combat the fast food industry. In part it worked, but now that the Obama administration is out of office, it's going to be hard to get people to see anything other than fast food.

The Fast Food Problem of America

America, the global superpower, we have always been known to be the leaders of the free world and the home to the land of possibility. While of course this is still true America is also known as the home of obesity. When other countries think of this great country thoughts of freedom and prosperity, they are now diluted down and replaced with the thoughts of obesity, unhealthy lives, and the golden arches.

That is what the book “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser emphasizes. We as Americans are blinded and oblivious to the food we put in our bodies. We thoughtless put food into our bodies while unhealthy dietary, is also so ghastly and unhealthy for you based on the process in which the food on your plate is made.

We found that up to as many as eight cows can be in one burger increasing your chances of getting sick or even dying from E. coli. Can you as an honest American point to your food and tell me where it came from or even what it is? We are blindly eating food we know little or nothing about, this is what Schlosser tells us in his book. Schlosser quotes “The whole experience of buying fast food has become of routine, so thoroughly unexceptional and mundane, that it is now taken for granted, like brushing your teeth or stopping at a red light.”

The book explains fast food’s rise to power from it’s beginnings as drive trough's in Southern California, to when the McDonald brothers got ride of their carhops and shrank their menu to only items that could be eaten without silverware, and into the dominant force we know today that is more widely recognized than the cross from the bible. In the years that followed the drastic change in the fast food marketing that McDonald's started, hundreds of companies rose to fame after adopting what McDonald's had done. Because of this, not only has America seen the obesity epidemic that so many other countries see now, but every country has been infected with hundreds of fast food companies.

 The book describes thoroughly that the fast food stores marketing campaign is similar to Disney’s in which they present children with characters such as Ronald McDonald and hook them early on to make life long customers. "Fast Food Nation" really makes you think about what you eat on a daily basis and may make you think twice about the consequences of going to McDonald’s or Burger King next time you and your buddies are hungry.