Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

What’s in your food? How is it prepared? What do you actually taste? What do you eat?

“Today the typical American eats about forty-nine pounds of fresh potatoes every year – and more than thirty pounds of frozen french fries.” They are one of the most profitable items on the menu but hardly any of the profit goes to the farmer.

Hamburgers and french fries are now cooked in vegetable oil at McDonalds, but this didn’t used to be the case. They were able to keep the same taste by inserting flavoring.

Marketing to children

I never realized how evil it could be. Children are so impressionable and gullible. They live in a world of fantasy and can be made to believe many things. What are the roles of parents, governments and corporations? Should there be laws that govern advertising to children? Should advertising be allowed in schools?

Smell

“The aroma of a food can be responsible for as much as 90 percent of its flavor. Scientist now believe that human beings acquired the sense of taste as a way to avoid being poisoned. Edible plants generally taste sweet; deadly ones, bitter. Taste is supposed to help us differentiate food that’s good for us from food that’s not. The taste buds on our tongues can detect the presence of half a dozen or so basic tastes, including: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, astringent, and umami (a taste discovered by Japanese researchers, a rich and full sense of deliciousness triggered by amino acids in foods such as shellfish, mushrooms, potatoes, and seaweed). Taste buds offer a relatively limited means of detection, however, compared to the human olfactory system, which can perceive thousands of different chemical aromas. Indeed ‘flavor’ is primarily the smell of gases being released by chemicals you’ve just put in your mouth.”

“A person’s food preferences, like his or her personality, are formed during the first few years of life, through a process of socialization.”

The Flavor Industry

The way food is preserved dumbs down a lot of its flavor. “About 90 percent of the money that Americans spend on food is used to buy processed food.” It is the modern “spice” industry.

Is there a real benefit to using products with “Natural” instead of “Artificial” flavoring? Now, both are manufactured at the same chemicals plants. Even though they can be manufactured differently, they can contain the exact same chemicals. Regardless, it makes me wonder what am I eating? And, what is good for me? And I’m not just talking about fast food. I’m talking in general.

Processing Meat

Meat is processed so quickly that it is dangerous to the workers and many mistakes are made. It is also a great risk for the consumer because that is what will go into the body. A 1996 USDA study concluded “78.6 percent of the ground beef contained microbes that are spread primarily by fecal material…There is shit in the meat.” This is because when the meat is cut, frequently the contents from the stomach come in contact with the meat.

It is also somewhat disturbing to note that cattle that are put into feedlots are fed constantly for 3 months without much exercise and are “aided by the anabolic steroids implanted in their ear.” Feedlots are really crowded and cattle “live amid pools of manure.” Until 1997 “about 75 percent of cattle in the United States were routinely fed livestock wastes – the rendered remains of dead sheep and dead cattle.” However, it is still legal to feed them dead pigs, horses and chicken. Cows have 4 stomachs so they are designed to process vegetation not animals.

There are so many other issues the book addresses and I definitely recommend it. Quite a read.