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.