Many decades ago the world was provided with a curse, the curse penetrated our universe invaded our nation, robbed our banks, altered our cultures and poisoned our minds; Being the world's busiest and most successful nation, Americans need to be kept fed and with a busy schedule, the food needs to always be available, cheap, tasteful, and filling and the eternal curse manages to accomplish the task quite successfully. revealed in a book by eric schlosser's ¨ Fast Food Nation¨ In 1970 Americans spent about $6 billion on the curse; in 2000, they spent more than $110 billion.; and the number keeps increasing rapidly, I've always known fast food was bad for you but I've never really thought of it as downright evil until now. It has become as American as an American flag.
The start of the fast food industry is parallel to the era when driving cars became common. In the era of the 1950s, America was a top world power that was flourishing economically. There were new houses, industries, and cars. With the invention of the car, people started to want things faster and on the go. The car changed the pace of America, everything needed to be faster and that included food. It all began with drive-ins, specifically Carl’s Drive-In Barbeque in Anaheim, California. Customers were able to park their car and honk their horn while someone would come out to take their order and then deliver it.
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Eric Schlosser begins his account of the American fast food industry by focusing on one region of the United States in particular: Colorado’s “Front Range,” or a group of cities including Denver, Colorado Springs, and Fort Collins, just east of the Rockies. Schlosser believes that this expanding, suburbanized region of the Mountain West is an emblem of late 20th-century economic growth and the problems that go along with that growth. In Fast Food Nation: the Dark Side of the All-American Meal, Eric Schlosser discloses quite a startling problem. His points of view are substantiated with more than adequate research and statistics, but the most compelling factor in his evidence is the common use of examples. By putting a “human-interest” factor in the book, Schlosser makes the reader understand his arguments. These examples are more than mere anecdotes used to catch the reader’s consideration. By putting a face to the issues presented in the story, Schlosser illustrates the values—and lack thereof—in American culture. This paper will focus on the use of personal examples that Schlosser employs throughout the book by taking a look at how he uses these examples in each chapter to support his points of view.
Many people do not realize that the jobs in the fast food industry are very dangerous. These are the jobs that no one realizes what it’s like behind the scenes. The workers face high rates of injury in the factories and in fast food restaurants, so we feel like we shouldn’t support the fast food industries. In chapters three and eight of “Fast Food Nation,” Eric Schlosser uses pathos to highlight the fact that fast food jobs are difficult as well as dangerous. Schlosser sneaked into a slaughterhouse at night to watch employees working within inches of each other, standing ankle-deep in blood, hacking away at carcasses. Sometimes the blood is their own. In addition, to stab wounds, there are incidents of lost fingers, lost limbs and death. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that one out of three slaughterhouse workers suffers an injury or illness that requires more than first aid and Schlosser thinks that many injuries and illnesses go unreported.
Slaughterhouse workers toil in subhuman conditions, animals are turned into cannibals (cattle are routinely fed to each other to promote faster growth, The claims may be shocking but Eric Schlosser’s measured tone and thorough research are extremely convincing. Schlosser talks about how meatpacking is the most dangerous job in the United States. He says “The injury rate in a slaughterhouse is about three times higher than the rate of a typical American Factory” (172). Every year more than forty thousand meat packing workers get injured (beyond first aid) in the US alone. That is a lot of people getting hurt for just doing their jobs. Some of the injuries that get reported are fatal, but “thousands of additional injuries and illnesses most likely go unrecorded” (172). The workers who apply for such jobs tend to be illegal immigrants who try to earn some money to send back home to their families. Because these immigrants do not “exist”, there would be no problem if one might get into an accident and died, Too bad that, other than a few fringe groups, customers don’t seem to really care.
Fast Food Nation, written by Schlosser, lets the reader come up their own conclusions, but he does give a fair warning to those reading his book. The book is all about the “dark side of the All-American meal” (cover page). Schlosser points out that “over the last three decades, fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of the American society” (page 3). Unfortunately has become reality, nowadays there is usually a fast food place within a ten-block radius, especially near high schools. Kids are obvious targets as customers see that a “typical American child spends more time watching television than doing any other activity except sleeping” (page 46) that leads the fast food industries; to put more commercials as well as cooperate with sports teams, cartoons, movies, and anything that can lead to a kid want to buy food.
The fast food industry is aware of the risks of consuming fast food but blames consumers’ eating habits. Defendants of the fast food industry claim that food cannot be good or bad. It is the diets of the consumers that matter. The industry is aware of the negative consequences but places the burden of those consequences on the eating patterns of consumers. Their position is that the customers are well aware of the nutritional values of the food, yet still choose to eat it. The fast food industry is something that is familiar to everyone. Living in the United States, you can usually only go a few miles without seeing a multitude of fast food restaurants popping up. The bright neon lights flash and entice all to come and have a quick, easy and cheap meal. Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation, points out, “Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music - combined.” Without the fast food industry our country would be significantly different, it has changed the nation environmentally, economically, and culturally and has done many beneficial things for the United States in the form of philanthropic works, building up the economy, and making things more convenient for the American people. However, the industry has focused more on gaining revenue than the satisfaction and health of its customers and has done more harm than good.
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