Ray Kroc's Fast Food Nation

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Quote: “This is a rat eat rat, dog eat dog, I’ll kill ‘em,, and I’m going to kill ‘em before they kill me. You’re talking about the American way of the survival of the fittest.” (38) Significance: The significance of this quote is explaining how Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s got his company to where it is today. The whole first two chapters are devoted to explaining to us how he got to where he is today. Kroc grew up on a farm in Chicago where it wasn’t a “rat eat rat and dog eat dog” kind of lifestyle. It wasn’t like this until he moved to California and started his career in the fast food industry. Quickly after joining the industry, he realized the competition he had and that he would have to do anything to get to the top. After …show more content…

Theme: One major theme of Fast Food Nation is health. The theme presents itself in many different forms such as how inadequate food quality is affecting us or the amount of fast food people eat and how bad it is for them. The United States is the most obese country in the world and it all stems from fast food and the amount of it in which we eat. Fast food presents itself as a better option because it is always ready, tastes better than healthier food and it can be significantly cheaper than “healthy” food. Those three reasons alone can make fast food appear to be the best choice. “Twenty years ago, teenage boys in the United States drank twice as much milk as soda; now they drink twice as much soda as milk.”(54) This quote is showing how things have only gotten worse over time and are continuing to become worse. Another theme from Fast Food Nation would be the greediness of corporations. It was made clear that fast food workers are overworked and underpaid, farmers are jipped on money and the people who work in the slaughterhouses are put in danger every day. Advertising is also something that has been taken advantage of by the companies because they target them toward children with things that are not always true. “McDonald's spends more money on advertising and marketing than any other brand.”(4) This definitely shows that the corporation is trying to use this to get kids to like their food better, leading them to obesity and potentially can end up “brainwashing” them into thinking fast food is the best choice for