Fast Food Nation

Passages: 1- A character on the McDonalds Web site told children that Ronald McDonald was the ultimate authority in everything. The site encouraged kids to send Ronald an email revealing their favorite menu item at McDonalds, their favorite book, their favorite sports team- and their name. Fast food Web sites no longer ask children to provide personal information without first gaining parental approval; to do so is now a violation of federal law, thanks to the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act, which took effect in April of 2000. Schlosser,

Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Perennial, 2002. 45. Print.
This passage is very important in the text because by McDonalds asking kids to send a supposable Ronald an email puts the childrens safety at risk. McDonalds was basically reaching out to children without any parental consent, asking for personal information where it was not needed. The author wanted to emphasize on the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act to show how far fast food restaurants were and still are willing to go to profit from their companies as much as possible!

2- A handful of fast food workers are paid regular salaries. A fast food restaurant that employs fifty crew members has four or five managers and assistant managers. They earn about $23,000 a year and usually receive medical benefits, as well as some form of bonus or profit sharing. They have an opportunity to rise up the corporate ladder. But they also work long hours without overtime-fifty, sixty, seventy hours a week. Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark

Side of the All-American Meal. Perennial, 2002. 74. Print.

This paragraph implies how unfair and selfish the fast food industry is in not even paying their workers the amount their suppose to be getting paid for overtime hours. The purpose for fast food companies to employ over fifty crewmembers is to be able to send them home before they even reach 40 hours just so they can stay paying them labor wages. This easily shows how all the fast food companies care about is money and not anything else. From workers having to have Team spirit to getting psychological training is all thats surrounded around fast food industries is ways to get better money income and nothing else, which is what the Author is mostly trying to imply.

3- During one experiment in the early 1970s, people were served an oddly tinted meal of steak and French fries that appeared normal beneath colored lights. Everyone thought the meal tasted fine until the lighting was changed. Once it became apparent that the steak was actually blue and the fries were green, some

people became ill. Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the

All-American Meal. Perennial, 2002. 125. Print.

This experiment directly showed how the appearance of fast food and supposable natural taste is all thats surrounded around these frozen, preserved meals. Due to food and drug Administrations not having to know exactly whats in the foods except that the ingredients have to considered safe; the food industries have the liberty of putting as many ingredients as they want to make the foods look and taste appealing, when in reality there all just made of artificial ingredients. Thats basically the exact reason why they look blue and green under a light and why the author really wanted its readers to know what theyre really eating.

4- Today large slaughterhouses and grinders dominate the nationwide production of ground beef. A modern processing plant can produce 800,000 pounds of hamburger a day, meat that will be shipped throughout the United States. A single animal infected with E. coli O157:H7 can contaminate 32,000 pounds of that ground beef. Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-

American Meal. Perennial, 2002. 204. Print.

Just knowing that Slaughterhouses produce 800,000 pounds of meat a day makes a person think about what their putting in their stomachs as well as how all these animals are getting killed daily for us to be able to eat these unhealthy burgers. People have the right to know where there foods are coming from and especially if its infected with E. coli, which can contaminate us deadly. By the author explaining in details the harmful effects of E. coli and how it can be transmitted to us in so many ways makes me and I hope other readers rethink about our health and what were really eating in fast food locations.

5- The cost of Americas obesity epidemic extends far beyond emotional pain and low self-esteem. Obesity is now second only to smoking as a cause of mortality in the United States. The CDC estimates that about 280,000 Americans die every year as a direct result of being overweight. Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation:

The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Perennial, 2002. 241-242. Print.
The reality check the author puts in perspective here shows how realistic Americas obesity epidemic is extending to and keeps going. Today in day its not all right to smoke but apparently its still all right to be obese when in reality you could die any day from either. Thats exactly what the author is trying to show here; when is it going to get to the day where its not alright to be overweight and time to stop eating wrong and start eating right. America has passed over being obese is just an emotional pain its gotten to the point where health insurances are going up due to having to pay for peoples treatments of obesity even though most of the time its their fault their fat not anyone elses.