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Living Section of the San Bernardino SUN January 5, 2003 Issue 
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser 
Fast Food: Does the End Justify the Means? As weary as some of us might be of talk about New Year resolutions, it is not possible to either escape them altogether or not to make some personal resolutions even if privately, without announcing them to the entire world. Most people's resolutions have to do with health and fitness and in the spirit of that, I decided to write about the controversial, shocking and on-its-way-of-becoming a perennial best seller - "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser. It is a history of the development of the uniquely American fast food culture as well as an expose of its sometime unintentional and inevitable and at other times blatantly deliberate destructive characteristics. Weighed with tons of irrefutable research and facts, the book underscores a truth, which until reading it has existed only as undocumented rumors spread by not-so-credible neo-hippies and other 1960s anachronistic types. Upon finishing the book the sneaky feeling that we have been duped by the masterful propaganda, i.e., commercials of the fast food industry, gnaws on us compelling us to make some sort of resolutions about indulging in fast food. Fast food has proven to be a revolutionary force in American life;" writes Schlosser. "I am interested in it both as a commodity and as a metaphor." What started out as an ingenuous enhancement of philistine life, has become a social anomaly that in 2000 swallowed up $110 billion. "Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars," Schlosser points out. "They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music - combined." The fast food industry exploits the already economically disadvantaged, has eliminated the real spirit of a free market economy, affects diet worldwide adversely, helps spread obesity, and fosters a consenting uniformity that rivals that imposed by the communist party. "We cannot trust some people who are nonconformists," Ray Kroc of McDonald's proclaimed, "the organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization" - not at all different from communist party dictates. And yet, initially it was a positive, if radical change in response to new needs. After World War II housewives went to work outside the home en mass and the public transport rail system, battered by conspiracies and other unethical dealings of the large auto companies, disintegrated. At the same time technological advances made mass production possible which in turn made fast food affordable. Fast food restaurants emerged in response to the cultural transformation brought on by the automobile. It was also a given, that the fast food industry would have its beginning in southern California which already boasted the first motel and drive-in bank. The already familiar story of San Bernardino's Richard and Maurice (Mac) McDonald is told in detail. Amongst numerous other innovations, they are credited also with originating the assembly line method in food services. In the one-page description of San Bernardino the author notes: "the same town that gave the world the {McDonald's} golden arches also gave it a biker gang" - Hell's Angels. Today's conglomerates of the likes of McDonald's are eons removed from the pioneering fast food restaurants of the original McDonald's. They employ predominantly teenagers as part-timers at very low wages. Although McDonald's aims to reduce the already minimal workers' training to zero, it routinely receives government funding for workforce training. Breaking federal labor laws and exploiting teens not withstanding, the situation becomes more frightening when it comes to the actual preparation of the food. It is undeniable that the taste of fast food is seductive. And although we assume we know all the ingredients that go into food in general, there is one ingredient which remains elusively secret - that of flavor. The flavor in most of the food we consume is created by a select group of scientists, called flavorists. "A flavorist," Schlosser writes, "is a chemist with a trained nose and a poetic sensibility." The meatpacking and meat grinder industry is just as culpable in the exploitation of workers and disregard of public health in the name of profit. Its low-paid employees are frequently injured on the job. The injuries are often minimized or dismissed, and the ubiquitous ground beef for burgers caries many potential health hazards - from accidentally ground manure and dirt to accidentally ground contaminated stomachs and intestines. "The pathogens from infected cattle are spread not only in feedlots," Schlosser found out in his research, "but also at slaughterhouses and hamburger grinders." One might also wonder if any of those severed employee fingers or limbs might not occasionally find their way, accidentally of course, into the meat grinders. A 1997 investigation by KCBS-TV taped secretly workers in a L.A. restaurant sneezing and flicking cigarette ashes into the food they were preparing. And in May of 2000 three teen employees of Burger King in Scottsville, New York were arrested for putting spit, Comet, Easy-Off Oven Cleaner and urine into the food. This twenty-first century horror story brings to mind Upton Sinclair's "Jungle" published nearly a century ago (1906). Reading this book on the heels of the Enron and Co. fiascos makes one wonder about human nature and the many faces of greed it hides. Some of us who read this book may never again buy ground meat or eat a fast food hamburger or a taco, but it would be hard to reject the french fry. It may not taste exactly the same as the pommes frites Jefferson introduced in America in 1802, but those flavorists have managed to make it a succulent thing even an Epicurean could not refuse. Ophelia Georgiev Roop Library Director San Bernardino Public Library |
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