Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

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of an expose. The meatpacking industry is explored as well. The meat packing industry, along with a lot of other industries tied to Fast Food, has evolved to provide more low wage jobs than jobs that provide for the middle class. The second to last chapter in this section is The Most Dangerous Job. The purpose of this chapter is to show how many employees that work in the meatpacking industry are injured due to poor management. He places some blame on the Reagan Administration for undoing advanced that were previously made. The workers in the plants routinely get sick due to hazardous chemicals, and that is just one of the many dangers there are to working in the plant. The author also seems to attempt to give the workers a voice, but fails to see the reasons that some people may want to work in the plants. The final chapter in this section is What’s in the Meat. This chapter starts by telling the reader about the biggest food recall in history, which consisted of 35 million pounds of beef containing E. Coli. Schlosser compares AIDS with E. Coli, which serves little to no purpose other than to scare the reader and spark an emotion. The chapter also goes over the downward spiral of quality as regulations plummet. Again, the author ties political parties into the chapter, saying the meatpacking and fast food industries financially contribute to the Republican party. Overall, this section really gets to the point about how low and disgusting the fast food industry is by mostly looking closely at the low quality foods they sell to the public.

Epilogue

The last section of the book is the Epilogue, which consists of one section; Global Realization. In this section, there are two moves. One point in the section is the global movement of fast food. The second move is the call to attention about the consumer role. America is the key export of many things, including fast food. The industry is creating a worldwide epidemic. Schlosser mentions how tourists automatically associate America and fast food together, as if the two are not complete without each other. The main point is explored as well. The author urged the reader to go against the fast food industry, which is not a new idea. Schlosser says that the government needs to put all the information together and realize that between employee deaths, rising robberies, negative effects on students, malnutrition and obesity, the fast food industry hasn’t done much good for this country. The important thing that the fast food industry has supported is the economy. That’s why the government needs to put more regulations in to make the industry less corrupted. The epilogue is an important section, as it wraps up the large amount of facts and research Schlosser put into the book.

Conclusion

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I felt extremely educated and almost betrayed at the end of the book. The backbone of our nation is such a twisted industry, and without this book I never would of known learned about the corruption. The section that spoke to me the most within this book was The American Way. The chapter about teenagers being a clueless workforce really hit me hard. Without reading this expose, I would still be among the manipulated minds of my generation. There wasn’t a single detail that I didn’t like throughout this book. The facts were shocking to me.. This book really sucked me in because it was so disturbingly fascinating. The organization of the book really contributed to the overall argument of the book. I haven’t eaten fast food since completing it, which proves Eric Schlosser succeeded with his purpose. Overall, I was extremely happy with this book and the organization of it. The amount of research that went into the book is insane and without the research, this book would be complete rubbish.