I took a nice break from work last week to spend time with family and friends, and I also had time to finish both Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and Turkle's Life on the Screen.
Fast Food Nation was a genuinely informative look at the fast food industry overall. If I weren't already a vegetarian, it would have me seriously rethinking my lifestyle. As is, it has convinced me to never support McDonald's in any way, if at all possible; I won't even buy the veggie burgers that are surprisingly served at the one in Fairfield, Iowa. (I will admit to eating a Burger King veggie burger in an airport once.)
Fast food is all about low wages, unsafe working conditions, frozen foods created and reheated on assembly lines, corporately owned farms, and of course, profit, profit, profit. None of this is entirely new to me, but it helps that I have actually read much of what I consider to be evidence of the unethical nature of most fast food places. There were a few potential signs of hope for a better fast food future, however. The successful chain In-N-Out Burger still peels and cuts its own potatoes for fries, never freezes its food, uses no preservatives, and pays decent wages, making it a better option for the ethical consumer than many alternatives. Another flicker of hope lies in the potential for public demand for change; McDonald's does respond to bad media, as in the case of meeting Greenpeace's demands for better sandwich packaging by finally changing to paper wrappers.
Overall, definitely a well researched and informative book that I would recommend, especially to those who frequently consume fast food. Seeking to understand economic choices that we make in our every day lives is an important part of becoming an ethical consumer.
I'll post again later about Turkle's book for those more interested in the HCI side of my rambling blog.
Currently reading: Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card (Sequel to Ender's Shadow and I suppose Ender's Game.)
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