Sean D. O'Laughlin Pekin Community High School

Fast Food Nation is a first-rate work of a modem muckraker. Eric Schlosser's work explores the dark side of the fast food industry. From the brutal conditions in the slaughterhouses to the underpaid, overworked teenagers and immigrants behind the counter, Fast Food Nation exposes the bright neon signs beckoning the hungry for the gilded signposts to obesity, environmental destruction, and cultural imperialism they really represent.

Fast Food Nation touches on a number of important themes. Of crucial importance to most consumers is the content of their food and the health risk implicit in the simple act of ordering a meal. The contents of hotdogs are firmly entrenched in the American consciousness and, of course, are the "butt" of many jokes, but Schlosser raises the stakes as he chronicles the presence of E. coli, defecation, and insects in our Happy Meals. These ingredients complement an assortment of bodily fluids and industrial cleaning products that season fast food, compliments of a disgruntled workforce.

Schlosser also examines the people who slaughter the meat, grow the potatoes, and cook and serve them. These jobs are among the lowest paying in the entire country, and there is a deliberate absence of unions and government regulations to ensure these workers' safety and fair treatment. Schlosser paints a harrowing picture of how the other half lives: uninsured, under compensated, under appreciated, working in dangerous conditions, and living lives of quiet desperation with few voices or champions to advocate for them.

Schlosser despairs that the young people working for these corporations are not receiving any training or marketable job skills. The fast food companies strive for zero training and in some instances one hundred percent turnover. These young people often suffer academically and socially as they work long hours, often late into the night. These youngsters are mortgaging their futures for low paying, dead end jobs.

Despite the rampant abuses and discouraging news, Schlosser maintains a degree of optimism about the future. He notes that while the fast food nation was our collective creation, it was not a historical inevitability, nor is it necessarily a permanent condition. In the absence of stringent governmental regulation, consumers are left with the personal responsibility of hastening change through their wallets. Corporations respond to public pressure, declining sales, litigation, and bad public relations. As more Americans become informed about the true cost of fast food their eating habits may change, and the fast food industry and the corporate philosophy that underpins it may go the way of the dodo. Schlosser's book may just help to create a generation of culinary luddites who refuse to eat at the table corporate greed.

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