McDonald's has changed the world. The way the world eats, buys, sells and views food has irreversibly changed after success of that first shop at St. Bernardino. Since then, hundreds of ultra large food chains have mastered the art of coming out with hit formulas time and again. I wanted to learn how they prepare and plan the launch of these products. How do they know what to cook?
Instead of that, Fast Food Nation taught me about the evils of capitalism through stories of terribly exploited poultry farmers, cattle ranchers, meatpacking workers, et al by food companies. It taught me about the practices of corporations in the food industry and how they're epitome of evil. If I wanted to read all this shit, couldn't I have picked up the Communist Manifesto? I guess I could, and should have.
There's something else which this book taught me - evils of non vegetarianism. With chapter titles like 'Bug that kills children', 'There's shit in meat', "The meaning of Mad Cow", this book walks through the lanes of the biggest food factories and finds shit smeared beef, chicken and other meat products being sent to customers. Apparently animal feces are 'a regular' in market's meat and contain a known pathogen called E-coli. Also, these factories are so sadly built that it's just not animals who get slaughtered here: Many men have gotten killed with their bodies mixed in the products and sold to unassuming customers. Sad. Apparently, cannibalism isn't ancient history either.
Well, I'm a vegetarian, so PETA can't convert me. And the ones who eat meat don't care about a book, right? I hope the really (hard working) journalist behind this book got his due. I guess he did.
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