Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012 - Business & Economics - 362 pages
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER



The jaw-dropping food industry exposé on how America's fast food industry has shaped the landscape of America.



This fascinating study of corporate power reveals how the fast food industry has altered the landscape of America, widened the gap between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and transformed food production throughout the world. Eric Schlosser inspires readers to look beneath the surface of our food system, consider its impact on society and, most of all, think for themselves. This book has changed the way millions of people think about what they eat and helped to launch today's food movement.

Schlosser's groundbreaking investigation uncovers the hidden costs of the All-American meal:

  • The American Diet Transformed: From the origins of the drive-thru to the reasons why the fries taste so good, see how our eating habits have been reshaped in a few short decades.
  • The Meatpacking Industry: A journey into the meatpacking plants of the High Plains, revealing the shocking safety issues and difficult labor practices behind the ground beef in a typical burger.
  • The Obesity Epidemic: An unflinching look at how the industry has fueled a public health crisis by widening the gap between rich and poor and marketing to children.
  • Food Safety Under a Microscope: Discover the hidden science of food flavorings and the risks of foodborne pathogens like E. coli that lurk beneath the surface of our food system.
 

Contents

I The American Way
11
II Meat and Potatoes
109
Have It Your Way
255
End Matter
277
Photo Credits
279
Notes
280
Bibliography
336
Acknowledgments
342
Index
345
Copyright

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About the author (2012)

Eric Schlosser, a contributing editor at the Atlantic Monthly, won a National Magazine Award for an article he wrote on strawberry picking for that magazine. His work has been nominated for several other National Magazine Awards and for the Loeb Award for business journalism.