Fast Food Nation Short Summary

In every store, it seems that almost all the food that sits on the shelves are processed. Despite their poor nutrition value, the food industry gives them eye-catching packaging, creates nostalgia and most of all they give them addictive flavors. Eric Schlosser, an investigative journalist from the Rolling Stone, wrote a two-part investigation on the fast-food industry in 1998 and later published the book Fast Food Nation in 2001. During this time, fast food and processed foods were becoming much more popular and the ingredients used in most of them were unknown to the public. In an excerpt from his book called “Meat and Potatoes,” he exposes the industry’s use of chemicals to make food more appealing to the consumer. His writing goes out to

In order to please their customers, companies must have many different flavors. One company offers more than just a butter flavor, instead they offer “fresh creamy butter, cheesy butter, milky butter” and many other butter flavors (Schlosser 23). The reason that these are selling more is because they contain what the FDA considers natural flavors. The reality is that these flavors are created by new enzyme-based processes which give them the same chemical make up as the artificial flavors and taste the same. The author repeats all these flavors because the customer now has access to a wider variety and is more likely to buy the product because of the industry’s abuse of the recreating artificial flavors as “natural flavors.” Company’s want more profit and by changing these flavors into natural ones they can make the “crunchiness, chewiness, gumminess” and juiciness of their product more irresistible to consumers (22). Words like these appeal to the senses and the feeling of a food is important to its taste as well which is why the author repeats these words to replicate the way companies have been trying to get the attention of hungry people. His repetition catches the attention of the reader’s similarly to the way food does then brings the audience

The company found it difficult to create the same flavor that they got from the beef tallow, so they had to figure out a way to make it taste better. Because fries are still a popular item in McDonald’s restaurants everywhere, looking at “the end of the ingredient list is a seemingly innocuous, yet oldy mysterious phrase: “natural flavor” (2). This household fast food company is not the only one Schlosser references. Companies such as Pop Tarts and even Estée Lauder are referenced to show how the chemical process used to flavor food is also used in household items. Companies were so desperate for better flavoring that they “turned to perdure companies” to make their product taste better (13). The shock this creates for the audience causes them to consider what chemicals are really put into the food that everyone buys. Since the brands are all well known, the claim that only some companies use artificial processes to obtain flavors cannot be true. Without the allusions to popular food and makeup companies, the author would not be able to compare the dangerous chemical processes that goes into perfumes to the process used to flavor food as