Analysis Of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation is a well written novel that describes how the fast food industry has revolutionized the United States. Within the novel, Eric Schlosser focuses on bringing to light the dreadful problems that have resulted from this new line of business. He heavily addresses the industry's unsanitary conditions, greediness, and criminally low wages. Throughout the whole novel he tries to make a strong case for avoiding fast food entirely. This piece of nonfiction is primarily set in and around the cities of Colorado’s Front Range and takes place from the late 1900s to early 2000s. One major theme that continuously played a part throughout the entire novel is greed. Eric Schlosser highlights how greed driven fast food corporations always cut

The main point of the novel is to describe how dangerous fast foods can be. Schlosser makes sure to bring up multiple occasions where fast food has played a huge role in an individual's health. For instance, the author states "Every day in the United States, roughly 200,000 people are sickened by a foodborne disease, 900 are hospitalized, and 14 die"(Schlosser 195). Schlosser then goes on and uses the example of the Hudson foods dilema. In order to save money, the company was feeding their cattle things that were never meant to be food. This then caused their hamburgers to have e coli in them. "The company made no effort to warn the public or to recall the frozen patties for another three weeks”(Schlosser 211). They let their consumers continue eating their burgers, even though they knew it was harming them. The consumers trusted a company and in return that got put in danger. Many of the people who did eat the burgers could have lost their

For example, some of the dialect was difficult to understand. Using words such as “iconoclast” (Schlosser 99), “embittered”(Schlosser 36), and “vehemently”(Schlosser 25) made me confused about what was going on. I had to stop and look up the words, in order to continue through the novel. Without these words, I feel like I would of been able to progress through the novel more quickly. It would of been better, if he included footnotes to help explain certain words that he uses throughout the novel. At least with footnotes, people wouldn't have to search for certain