Fast food nation brief summary and reaction essay

Eric Schlosser wrote the book “Fast Food Nation” to provide evidence that the junk food industry is definitely solely accountable for many conditions that affect this society. He begins his argument by simply explaining how a fast food industry came to be and who made it happen. Carl Karcher was the biggest starting leader of this new industry. Following his marriage in 1939, he bought his initially hot dog cart and “by the end of 1994, [he] owned 4 hot dog buggies in La. ” His next junk food venture was his Drive-In Barbeque, nevertheless the competition was soon upon.

“Dozens of folks were browsing line to get bags of ‘McDonald’s Popular Hamburgers’ (Schlosser 18, 19).

Richard and “Mac” McDonald had their own business, although were sick and tired of having to locate new carhops and cooks. So they will began to work with today’s way of how take out chains conduct business, assembly line design. This was quick the growing power of the fast food market.

Schlosser then in brief describes the lives of several other take out pioneers including William Rosenberg who opened his 1st “doughnut store in 1948, later phoning it Dunkin’ Donuts. ” Glen Bells founded the restaurant chain Taco Bell, Keith Cramer founded Insta-Burger-King, Dave Thomas founded Wendy’s, and Jones Monaghan opened the first Domino’s.

And Harland Sanders was the famous man of them all with his beginning of the world’s first Kentucky Fried Chicken breast restaurant (Schlosser 22-23). Due to these men, America has her fast food. To be able to explain just how fast food started to be so popular in American culture, Schlosser carries on his book with the challenging relationship between Ray Kroc and Walt Disney and the rise to fame. “Ray Kroc got the McDonald brothers’ Speedee Service System and spread it nationwide, creating a take out empire (Schlosser 34). ” Walt Disney created a illusion world that fulfilled the American child’s dreams.

Their very own great achievement was their uncanny potential of marketing many to children. Even though Walt Disney’s achievement arrived faster, Kroc’s business was many successful with all the invention of the character Ronald McDonald in enticing America’s children. “Indeed, market research finds that kids often acknowledge a brand emblem before they will recognize their particular name (Schlosser 43). ” Playgrounds and in many cases public school systems have dropped victim to advertising. Playlands in McDonald’s stores catch the attention of whole family members with young, hungry, and noisy kids.

Believe it or not, children are the ones who made McDonald’s Organization as abundant as it is today. Schlosser carries on with tales and info about what happens lurking behind the counter. The mass number of take out stores across America displays growing challenges surrounding those who work at them. Crew associates are only paid minimum salary and sometimes even fewer. They are avoided from getting paid overtime, forming labor unions, and therefore are forced to operate only when they are needed. Employees going overtime, however, are becoming paid for the extra time in meals, not funds. Robberies have been known to take place by current of past employees, not just third parties.

McDonald’s sees that only essential to add security to the stores instead of increasing it is employee pay to incentivize workers to prevent robbery. McDonald’s runs on the combination of teenagers and illegal immigrants as its workforce supply. These personnel are not concerned about being paid out little as most need not support a family. With such a tremendous flow of labor, there is no incentive pertaining to McDonald’s Firm to increase worker wages. Franchisees of many take out chains are increasingly raise red flags to about encroachment, multiple stores of the same sequence within short distances of each other.

It is terrible that corporations are certainly not thinking as well highly with their franchisees. Although there is no motivation for these organizations to change simply because they own the terrain that all their franchises take a seat on. Franchisees routinely sue all their franchisors “about inflated selling price charged by simply suppliers, [and] about bankruptcies and terminations that looked unfair (Schlosser 100). ” The meats packing sector is by far the most dangerous sector in America. Many injuries happen without being reported and all that seems to matter to the sector is getting together with the daily schedules.

The faster employees are made to job, the more risky the work turns into. Workers usually are fired as soon as they are severely injured and are sent to specific doctors who have do not doc these accidental injuries and encourage the workers that they are fine. Any kind of defiance up against the company and others workers will be either dismissed or presented harder and more dangerous responsibilities. The only thought that all comes across meats packing company executives is definitely profit margins. There exists relatively simply no social proper rights for the employees of the take out and beef packing industries.

Their income are little, they acquire no rewards, and no bonus deals are given. You cannot find any excuse that could justify falsified reports and time clocks. This is one of the few points where private pursuits go too far. Minimized costs is a must have got in the exclusive sector, but is not to the point where the lives and welfare of workers have reached stake and laws will be being violated. There is simply too much non-public interest in in Congress which helps prevent any further forbidance of this sort of behavior. These types of industries will be technically victimizing their employees by using them as inexpensive labor.

Fast food chains use advertising which in turn targets children who will be the most susceptible and exploit that weakness to maximize revenue. In addition to Schlosser’s quarrels, fast food is definitely the worst feasible food that individuals can consume. The unfortunate thing can be children at such young ages are eating it and the father and mother either do not even know any better or they simply usually do not care even though it is very good to their billfolds. Eric Schlosser’s critical views towards the junk food and meat packing sectors, I dear say, are very informative. In sharing his views, I really believe things should be done to address these issues.

If the final result means bigger prices to get fast food, I, unlike almost all of Americans, basically would not brain paying that because then at least the employees of both sectors would be getting better pay, learning real world skills, and working in a safer environment especially for people who do the various meats packing. The important points about the fast food market in this book definitely convince me the things i have been helping, working in a McDonald’s for the past two years. I may truly consider finding a new task this summer having a company that pays me better, a firm that does not have the kind of awful reputation that the fast food organizations have.

1

Tweet