Product Description

Six Cassettes, 9 hrs.

Read by Rick Adamson

FAST FOOD NATION - the groundbreaking work of investigation and cultural history that has changed the way America thinks about the way it eats - and spent nearly four months on the New York Times bestseller list - now available on cassette!

Are we what we eat? 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 propelling 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. Along the way, he 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, 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1275693 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-08
• Released on: 2002-01-08
• Formats: Abridged, Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio Cassette

From Publishers Weekly
In this fascinating sociocultural report, Schlosser digs into the deeper meaning of Burger King, Auggie's, The Chicken Shack, Jack-in-the-Box, Little Caesar's and myriad other examples of fast food in America. Frequently using McDonald's as a template, Schlosser, an Atlantic Monthly correspondent, explains how the development of fast-food restaurants has led to the standardization of American culture, widespread obesity, urban sprawl and more. In a perky, reportorial voice, Adamson tells of the history, economics, day-to-day dealings and broad and often negative cultural implications of franchised burger joints and pizza factories, delivering impressive snippets of information (e.g., two-thirds of America's fast-food restaurant employees are teenagers; Willard Scott posed as the first Ronald McDonald until higher-ups decided Scott was too round to represent a healthy restaurant like McDonald's). According to Schlosser, most visits to fast-food restaurants are the culinary equivalent of "impulse buys," i.e., someone is driving by and pulls over for a Big Mac. But anyone listening to this audiobook on a car trip and realizing that the Chicken McNugget turned "a bird that once had to be carved at a table" into "a manufactured, value-added product" will think twice about stopping for a snack at the highway rest stop. Based on the Houghton Mifflin hardcover.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
This is all-out attack on the fast food industry. With great passion, Schlosser takes on this new American icon and greets with bitter sarcasm the statements of the fast food executives who say they care about workers and consumers. This is a lively book written in journalistic fashion, and Rick Adamson captures the character of the book in his reading. He reads with a clear voice and an even pace, never stumbling over the complex names of bacteria found in meat. Sometimes the pace seems too slow and his reading overdramatic, but that may be due to the character of the text. Schlosser's description of those injured at meat-packing plants is the most compelling portion, and his description of a caring restaurant owner shows that the industry is not entirely run by cretins. M.L.C. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
Praise for FAST FOOD NATION:

"...a fine piece of muckracking, alarming without being alarmist. . .Schlosser is a serious and deligent reporter." - The New York Times Book Review

"FAST FOOD NATION should be another wake-up call, a super-size serving of common sense..." - Atlanta Journal Constitution

"Schlosser is part essayist, part investigative journalist. His eye is sharp, his profiles perceptive, his prose thoughtful but spare; this is John McPhee behind the counter..." - The Washington Post

Customer Reviews

A bit slanted but worthwhile reading
Mr Schlosser lays out the history of the fast food restaurant in an interesting and somewhat personal manner. The book is revealing in terms of portraying the thorough integration of food production from the farmer right up to the counter top. This is actually the scariest part of the book, showing the nature and size of the corporate power behind food industry. It should come to no one's surprise that these corporations are amoral (as opposed to immoral) in their search for ever greater market share and consumer dollars. Mr Schlosser makes a good point about the economic/political power these conglomerates have attained. What keeps this from being a 5 star book is Mr Schlosser's obvious left wing bias. He frequently brings up the Regan administration and its short-comings in regulation (and over deregulation). He is almost maudlin about traditional family farms. He has a tendency to write in a way to create an emotional effect out of proportion to the available facts. (example: of 700 persons reported ill from Jack in the box food, four died. THe author spends time describing in detail the painful deaths of two children. But the deaths represent 0.6% of the persons who were ill enough to seek medical attention.) There are long details of some of the lives of workers in the meat packing factory and oddly gruesome stories of fast food robberies. While this puts a face on the statistics, it is a bit overdone. If you can deal with this bias, there is still a lot here worth reading.

The Truth about Fast Foods
Fast Food Nation, is divided into two main parts: first the history of fast food industry in the united states, from the car-addicted Californian youth to the world mass consumption market.
Then Eric Schlosser takes a deep look at what lies behind Ronald's smiley face.
Covering a huge amount of aspects (society, environment, health) these pages will frighten you.
We learn how the fast-food industry killed independent restoration businesses using public funds for its own profit. How it turned lovely landscapes into dark factories, infecting the land and minds with dangerous gases, turning quiet towns into hazardous cities.
We learn how faceless gigantic corporations can ignore the law, prohibit safety inspections from the meat factories that supplies food to schools. How illegal immigrate workers are treated without any dignity, tied to their companies by abusive contracts, like modern slaves.
We learn how the cattle is fed with it's own remains and dead animals (goats, sheep, chicken, pork's, dogs, cats).
We learn how capitalism can create liars.

Maybe the most horrible part of this study: untitled "What's in the meat", the chapter begins with a picture of a 6 year old boy smiling. This kid died from an infection caused by a hamburger, contaminated by the E. coli bacteria. Her mother saw him lose reason while his organs liquefied and his brain melted, doctors tried to drill holes in his head to loosen pressure. He died a horrible death.

Fast Food nation is a book that open's all the peoples eyes, You find out what your really eating.

The wrong narrator for this material
The subject matter is absolutely fascinating, but the audiobook version is almost laughably bad. That's because it's narrated by a guy who sounds like he should be doing motivational tapes. Just the wrong voice, the wrong inflective approach, for this material. Read the book--skip the audio version.