It is the largest single purchaser of beef, pork and potatoes. McDonald's is the largest owner of retail property. In the introduction, Schlosser offers a startling summary to bolster the importance of his study: one in eight American workers has done time at McDonald's. In other words, we (of the fast food nation) no longer know what we are eating and our ignorance imperils us. Carefully designed and chemically enhanced, the mysterious beefy essence that we associate with James Beard's favorite French fries, for instance, has less to do with men and women in chef's whites (or even polyester shirts and visors) than with those in lab coats. That taste, according to Schlosser, is emblematic of the problem. It imperils American health and individual livelihood. Schlosser is less concerned by issues of cuisine than about fast food's place as a "revolutionary force inĪmerican life." According to Schlosser, McDonald's, Burger King, et al, have radically altered American agriculture, economics and social life. We are a country of hamburger and French fry eaters, and the far-reaching consequences of this style of eating have not been adequately explored. "Tell me what you eat," Brillat-Savarin wrote in his Physiology of Taste, "and I shall tell you what you are." In Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser offers his own variation on this famous aphorism: "A nation's diet can be more revealing than its art or literature." There is an obvious link between national identity and cuisine. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
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