Fast Food Nation

The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

By: Eric Schlosser

Narrated by: Rick Adamson

Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar America. 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.

Fast Food Nation is a groundbreaking work of investigation and cultural history that may change the way America thinks about the way it eats.

©2001 by Eric Schlosser
(P)2001 Random House, Inc.
Random House Audible, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Book Sense Book of the Year Award Finalist, Adult Non-Fiction, 2002

"... a fierce indictment of the fast food industry." (The New York Times)

My Opinion

I loved the book, I had to read it over the summer and I couldn't and Audible saved me. It was amazing, the story was well read and I was done in no time 💕💕

All he asks is that you think about it!!

This book is what I was expecting and more! I wanted to know the unspoken background about America and it's fast food craze!! It really helps one think before your next order! I could not stop listening because every topic was soo captivating, whether it was happy or a gross reality of fast and processed foods! I would recommend this book to anyone who cares at all about your own health or that of your loved ones!! These are facts everyone should be armed with in order to make better and healthier choices!!

What you don't know may kill you!

Time to be informed and save our bodies and our health. Wake up America and make wise choices! Everyone matters!!

equally interesting and boring

What did you like best about Fast Food Nation? What did you like least?

it was very informative, I learned a lot about the fast food industry. About halfway through the book i just started to get tired of it, it just seemed like the author was just ranting.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

The narrator was very passionate, but it got annoying after awhile

Did Fast Food Nation inspire you to do anything?

I realized maybe this isn't my type of book, I don't think I'll be listening to social commentary for a while.

Eye Opening

Tackling a book to read became easier with this audio book. The novel opened up my eyes to the hard truth behind the fast food industry. From poor working conditions, minimum wages, and what is actually in the food that consumers eat. Definitely should check out this book if you ever want to work at a fast food industry, meat packaging industry, or cleaning industry. See how workers were exploited and how franchisers found loop holes through laws and acts that were passed against them. See how they avoided the unions that were formed.

Great book.

I thought the narrator did a great job and I thoroughly enjoyed the reading. The content was eye opening and I have found myself recommending this book to numerous people. It was fascinating to learn how the giants of the fast food industry were started and how they continue to reign today.

Eye Opening!!!!

This is an extremely graphic book depicting just how much we really should NOT trust our meat industry and question everything we eat....sanitize everything again and again and again.

Narration style is bizarre!

The narration style is very distracting. Every sentence is inflected as if it were the MOST AMAZING THING EVER! This narrator would do wonderfully with stories about unicorns and magical lands. Social commentary, not so much.

The text itself is great, though.

Perfect Audiobook

This is the type of book you would never be able to read cover to cover because it is so long. Listening to it in chunks is a perfect way to get through all the points.

I expected something similiar to the documetary "SuperSize Me" but got instead an enlightening/entertaining history of the fast food giants. I loved the drama and the personal touches of the success stories of how the work of a few innovative men could affect the lives of billions.

Instead of harping about the poor nutrional value of fast food, the author instead focuses on the risk of food born illnesses from contaminents like E Coli, a concern supported by CDC statistics. This book is a modern day "The Jungle."

You will be glad you read this book if you have any interest in sociology and/or health and nutrition. Docudrama at its best!!!

Informative

Anyone interested in the food that we consume should read this book. Not only does he give a great history of the fast food industry, but health, safety and other issues are brought into topic.