Thursday, April 5, 2007
Fast Food Nation
Originally, Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation was on the reading list for the class, but I removed it in the final planning stages of the course. In case you purchased it and haven't yet returned it or in case you want another book along the lines of those we've been reading, I encourage you to check it out. To spur that possibility, here's a review from The New York Times Book Review for you to read. Whether you pick up the book or not, this review will give you an idea of what you're missing. For your response to the review, tell us what you think of the book in relation to the other things we've been reading this semester.
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8 comments:
I read this book a few years ago. It does a great job linking the french fry and it's sigifigance to Idaho. Actually it does a great job dissecting how a meal from a fast food restuarant makes it from the slaughterhouse to your stomache and beyond. I personally stopped eating at fast food restuarants after I quit my job at Wendys when I was 17. Theres a reason they don't let customers see what goes on behind the counter.
I bought this book. I haven't read it yet, but I got it. In fact, I was thinking about it last week when the Statesman put out it's top 20 book list, this one was on it.
Sounds like it's got some good info that you'd probably find more interesting than useful, like McDonalds being the world's biggest owner of commercial property. I never saw that one coming.
The one thing I liked about the review that will probably get me reading the book is this:
"Schlosser visits a “fry factory” in Idaho, watching as potatoes are washed and have their skins blown off by machines and are then fired through a Water Gun Knife — a hose that shoots potatoes, at 117 feet per second, through steel grillwork that cuts them into perfectly uniform fries."
First of all, I love Mickey-D's fries, which apparently get made here, and secondly, knowing that Idaho has something called a Water Gun Knife is awesome. I want one.
Scott
This deals alot with what we have read in other books and talked about in class. There are so many behind the scenes that the consumer never hears about, and maybe never will.
I found it interesting that McDonalds is, "the worlds owner of retail property" but i can definitely see it. With as many McDonalds there are. Just around BSU given a 10 mile raius i can think of 6. That is really crazy.
I do also enjoy the last quote, "if you dont know about a problem, then you dont know how to deal with it". This is so true. So many times there are things going on you never know about, and when you do its to late to change anything.
-Earls
Marcus...
The mini series Super Size me was a cool one to say the least the guy gained almost 30 lb in less than 3 weeks eating at Mc’ey Dees he couldn’t actually couldn’t say on the All Mc heart attacks in the sack diet due to the doctor’s advice. He was looking rough makes you wonder just how long our bodies could survive is we didn’t try to tear it up from the time we are old enough to make our own decisions. Marcus
That just goes to show that the fast food restraunts do have some influence over the fast food buisness. No matter what Mcdonald's will always be around.And it just goes to show that Mcdonald's has all kinds of people eating in their restraunt.
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Angela
This book is related, and at the same time is not. I see that it mentions the labels and the franchise a bit, but it is mostly looking at what happens at these fast food places. I understand that everything is processed and such now, and some of it I would really rather not know about, like I could have done without that fact that my McD's hamburgers may contain meat from up to 100 different cows... that's just not right.
I'd say you made a good choice in pulling the book from the course though, as it isn't as closely related as the other three are to each other.
Nick Conant
Well said.
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