coli, and other viral and bacterial contagions throughout the food supply. Large-scale meat and poultry plants often allow fecal matter to contaminate animal food sources-this has led to outbreaks of Salmonella, E. Indeed, for Schlosser, safety and hygiene become important issues for consumers. Schlosser then moves to later stages of the beef and chicken production “systems” throughout the country, which, like fast-food production itself, has come increasingly to rely on unskilled labor (without union protections) and mechanized processes, often at dizzying and unsafe speeds. Schlosser describes the lives of small-time, independent ranchers, and the changes in large-scale ranching that have made independent farming so difficult, almost impossible, economically.

Schlosser tracks the lives of fast-food employees, franchise owners, and fast-food company executives, then shifts his attention to the meat and potato economies north of Colorado, in Wyoming, Idaho, and its environs. Schlosser writes that most fast-food companies make the bulk of their profits from the “franchise” system, wherein the conglomerate is actually the landlord for the franchisor, who “rents” the brand. Increasing mechanization of fast-food production in the 1960s and ‘70s ensured that companies could easily replace fast-food workers-that these workers would be a transitional workforce, employed nationwide without union benefits. McDonald’s “speedee service system,” a way of making burgers more efficiently and with little skill on the part of employees, marked, as Schlosser writes, a series of sweeping changes in fast food, causing it to become ubiquitous in America. The explosive growth of many of these chains was coupled with the expansion of the American suburbs, especially in California, as soldiers returned from the war and began settling with their families in car-based communities, along highways between major cities. Schlosser begins by noting the emergence of major American fast-food companies, like McDonald’s (with its Golden Arches), Burger King, and Wendy’s, after World War Two. Schlosser charts this transformation by tracking many different people: fast-food employees at franchises, and well-paid executives at fast-food conglomerates ranchers and potato farmers in Colorado and its environs large-scale farming and ranching operations workers at meatpacking plants food scientists tasked with creating new “natural” flavors for food products. Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation is an attempt to describe how American eating and food-production patterns have changed since World War Two.

Fast food nation book cover