The Bitter Truth About Fast Food
It's no good denying it: people like fast food because it can taste pretty good. But what they may not know about is the cocktail of chemicals that gives the French fry its taste - nor the grisly events in the slaughterhouses that can put something nasty in the burger along with the beef. Eric Schlosser follows the food chain in the US, home of the fast food franchise
Pull open the glass door, feel the rush of cool air, walk in, get in line, study the backlit colour photographs above the counter,place your order, hand over a few dollars. Watch teenagers in uniforms pushing various buttons, and moments later take hold of a plastic tray full of food wrapped in coloured paper and cardboard. The whole experience of buying fast food has become so routine, so thoroughly unexceptional and mundane, that it is now taken for granted, like brushing your teeth or stopping for a red light. It has become a social custom as American as a small, rectangular, hand-held, frozen and reheated apple pie.
Over the past three decades, an industry that began with a handful of hot dog and hamburger stands in southern California has spread to almost every corner of the globe. Fast food is now served at restaurants, stadiums, airports, zoos, schools and universities, on cruise ships, trains and aeroplanes, at supermarkets, petrol stations and even in hospital cafeterias. Americans now spend more money on fast food - $110bn last year - than they do on higher education. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos and recorded music - combined.
What people eat (or don't eat) has always been determined by a complex interplay of social, economic and technological forces. The early Roman Republic was fed by its citizen-farmers; the Roman Empire, by its slaves. During a relatively brief period of time, the fast food industry has helped transform not only our diet, but also the landscape, economy, workforce and popular culture. Fast food and its consequences have become inescapable, regardless of whether you eat it twice a day or have never taken a single bite. In some cases (such as the malling and sprawling of the west), the fast food industry has been a catalyst and a symptom of larger economic trends. In other cases (such as the rise of franchising and the spread of obesity), fast food has played a central role.
Hundreds of millions of people buy fast food every day without giving it much thought, unaware of the subtle and not so subtle ramifications of their purchases. They rarely consider where this food came from, how it was made, what it is doing to the community around them. I think people should know what lies behind the shiny, happy surface of every fast food transaction. They should know what really lurks between those sesame-seed buns. As the old saying goes: You are what you eat.
4:21:56 PM 
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