Fast Food Nation

By Eric Schlosser

Subjects: Snabbmat, trade marks, Sociology, Ess- und Trinksitte, Food industry and trade--united states, Media Studies, Fast Food, health, Popular Culture, Business & economics--industries--agribusiness, Health, Cooking & Food, sociology, Diet, western, health hazards, Industria alimentaria, Foods, American Cooking, Ess- und trinksitte, Current events, Fast food restaurants--united states--history, Food, Politics, feeding behavior, Voedingsgewoonten, Cuisine américaine, foods, Restaurants-minute, Régimes alimentaires, Nonfiction, Labor, Fast foods, Convienience foods, Large type books, Quality, Tx945.3 .s355 2012, Trade marks, quality, Fast food, Cooking, current events, 338.1/973, Food habits, Fast food restaurants--history, Health & fitness, Cooking & food, Health & Fitness, Popular culture, Media studies, food industry, Customs & Traditions, Food industry, Habitudes alimentaires, Aliments, Snabbmatsrestauranger, Restaurants, united states, Mcdonald's, Social science, Restaurantes de comida rápida, Diet in disease, Feeding Behavior, Cuisine, New York Times reviewed, Alimentos de conveniencia, Recipes, social science, Nutritive value, food safety, politics, Social science--popular culture, Diet, SOCIAL SCIENCE, Industria y comercio, Fast food restaurants, social aspects, Health hazards, United states, social life and customs, Convenience foods, Feeding behavior, Social aspects, Alimentos, McDonald's, History, Ernährungsgewohnheit, Comida basura, Business & economics--labor, Convenience foods--united states, popular culture, Comida de preparación rápida, Bus077000 bus070120 hea017000 his054000 his036060, Industrie et commerce, Ernährung, Cookery, Food safety, Food industry and trade, Lebensmittelfälschung, Fast food restaurants--united states, Fastfood, Agribusiness, Aliments précuisinés, Lebensmittelindustrie, cooking, food, American cooking

Description: To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar Amerca. Though created by a handful of mavericks, the fast food industry has triggered the homogenization of our society. Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled the juggernaut of American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning. Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from the California subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many of fast food's flavors are concocted. He hangs out with the teenagers who make the restaurants run and communes with those unlucky enough to hold America's most dangerous job -- meatpacker. He travels to Las Vegas for a giddily surreal franchisers' convention where Mikhail Gorbachev delivers the keynote address. He even ventures to England and Germany to clock the rate at which those countries are becoming fast food nations. Along the way, Schlosser unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths -- from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate. He also uncovers the fast food chains' efforts to reel in the youngest, most susceptible consumers even while they hone their institutionalized exploitation of teenagers and minorities. Schlosser then turns a critical eye toward the hot topic of globalization -- a phenomenon launched by fast food. FAST FOOD NATION is a groundbreaking work of investigation and cultural history that may change the way America thinks about the way it eats.