10 Cents for a Toy!

I was researching some interesting storys that I can refer to in my Book Club group's final presentation and I came across this New York Times article about how McDonald's in San Fransisco will begin charging parents for the toy that they use to include for free in the popular Happy Meals. San-Francisco's law makers have signed for an ordinance which bans fast food restaurants from giving away free toys. The article states that the proceeds from the toys will go to the Ronald McDonald House of San Fran which is a national nonprofit charity group. I suppose the McDonald's giants arent so bad...or maybe its just that they know that the toys are the whole appeal behind the Happy Meal. I couldn't imagine the horror that would come over my daughter's face if she opened up her Happy Meal and there was no toy. In fact, I use to use the toy as leverage to eat her meal. "If you eat all your chicken, you can get your prize!" Well I thought the article was interesting so if you want to check it out, heres the link. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/business/toys-to-cost-extra-in-san-francisco-happy-meals.html?_r=1&ref=fastfoodindustry

Bolivia is McDonald's Free!

The global effects that the Fast Food industry creates are often forgotten with how dependent the U.S has become on the convenience, affordability that Fast Food restaurants provide. This dependency is often contributed to how well the Fast Food industry can market their products. When you flip on the t.v. every other commericial is fast food, "Burker King's famous Wopper!" "Grab a McDonald's Snack Wrap when your on the go!" These often comical commericials bombard the public with images of juicy burgars made with the "freshest" ingredience and made fresh to order. This article (http://www.topix.com/forum/food/fast-food/TDH1NBMR558L62L48) is about Bolivia becoming the first McDonald's-free Latin American nation. 20% of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed for the purposes of building exactly 8  McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. Most of this destroyed forest was located in Brazil but a good portion runs through Bolivia. Either way, Bolivia went under great scrutiny and critisizm by Libertarians and "rightists" who defend fast food buisnesses by basically crediting them with cultural diversity and wide consumer choice. The article seemed interesting and definatly relevant to many of the same horrid truths expressed in Schlosser's FFN. This article was easy to read and had some interesting info on some of the economic and cultural effects of expanding our homegrown fast food problem and imposed across the planet.

Turkey burger with cheese please!

With all this great weather we've been having lately, I planned this cookout for a for people that I work with. I wen't shopping for supplys, you know the burger meat, buns, potatoe salad...stuff like that. Once I got to the meat section, I started remembering FFN and more specifically Schlosser's encounter with the slaughterhouse "In the high plains." I started picturing the gory process by which cattle is turned intothe proportional pattys were use to seeing at the supermarket. I then started reminising on all the "stuff" that was found in the meat in Ch. 9 of FFN. Needless to say, I made a mad dash for the turkey burgers. I know that FFN was talking about the meat that wen't into the fast food industry directly but I couldn't help but feel like the meat found in the supermarket has the same grousome history. When I brought the safe alternative (turkey pattys) back to the cookout I made sure not to tell anyone until after they tried the burger. Not only did no one complain about a differance in taste, no one even noticed. I couldn't keep my vigilant attempt of a healthier lunch go unnoticed. Before I told everyone I made sure to tell them about FFN and Schlosser's description of where the meat that McDonalds and other chain restaurants come from, they were relieved when I told them that the "Beef" bacon cheeseburgers that they just swallowed whole were actually made from ground turkey meat. Go Turkey burgers!!

Grand Finale

I just finished the final chapter of Fast Food Nation entitled "Global Realization/Have it your way." The chapter opens up with a discussion of Plaven Germany and it's history. This part of Germany was the first place outside of Bavaria to adhear to Nazi regime, until 1990 when it was the first town in East Germany to host a McDonald's restaurant. I think this depiction of Nazi Germany being a host to McDonalds, essentially comparing the two and if you think about the way in which both the Nazi movement lead by Adolf Hitler and McDonalds gained substantial amounts of global influence and rapidly after both were introduced. This comparison was captivating and in my opinion the best way to begin the end of this trechorously informative novel. This novel explores the many faces of the incredibly lucrative fast food industry, ultimatly holding the US responsible for its Global infectious spread. Beginning with fast food's founding fathers, Carl Karcher bought a single hot dog stand in California and expanded. This expansion is the key to the Fast Food industry's sucess,  like the mass production and distribution of the ingredients by which the food is put together on a makeshift assembly line. I was horrified at the way in which the large coorporations today treat their employees and even more horrified by the conditions of the Slaughterhouse examined in the High Planes in Chapter 8. My favorite chapter in the novel however was definatly Chapter 9: Whats in the Meat, because after reading it, I swore off fast food perminantly. 35 million pounds of ground beef being recalled by Hudson Foods because of an E Coli outbreak! Yuk.

I'll have a cheeseburger with a side order of E Coli please

I read Chapter 9 of F.F.N entitled, "Whats in the Meat." The chapter opens with the largest food recall in our Nation's history. In 1997, 35 million pounds of ground beef was recalled by Hudson Foods because of a horiffic strand of E-Coli which is a bacteria that often festers on raw meat. Unless processed correctly, meat is easily suseptable to being contaminated by the many bacteria's that exist. By the time the 35 million pounds was recalled from local shelves, it was estimated that 25 million pounds had already been bought and consumed by the public. This was so scary to read about because of how high the sales of meat in our nation is compared to the also high recorded cases of "meat borne illnesses." Schlosser also made an interesting connection between the mass production and distribution of meat has caused a terrifying increase in outbreaks and contamination because of the speed and amount that is mass produced and sent out to stores. Schlosser also explores the parrallels between a potential illness like E-Coli and the sexually transmited killer, "AIDS."  There are many strong similarities between the two very differant illnesses such as the rate at which both can spread through the public once exposed to a particular area. It was stated in chapter 9 that 200,000 people are sickened by a food borne disease every single day. These numbers mirror the incredibly high record of AIDS in our nation, especially between the late 1980's and 90's. I thought this chapter was incredibly informative about the risks involved with the meat industry, which is a crucial part of America's fast food restaurants. The idea that 200,000 people get sick from bad food processing every day in the US is insanly high and definatly causes me to shy away from the many fast food restaurants that litter our streets.

Fast Food Kills Culture

After reading chapter 7: Cogs In the Great Machine, I immediatly thought of a Wall-Mart documentary I watched about how buisness chains like Wall-Mart plow through towns destroying local buisnesses that can't compete with such low prices. Now at first you'd think, "Well too bad for the local buisnesses, I need the cheaper price," which the majority of Americans do. To some it might sound a little insensitive, but only if your the small buisness. Because at the end of the day buisness is about profit and mass production coincides with chain department guarintees maximum profit. However the employees of these multi-billion dollar companys are payed minimum wage salaries that make it impossible to make a living. Also, the company relies on government assistance to provide their employees with expensive but low coverage insurance. Many full time employees couldn't even afford food after paying their insurance cost, which should have been covered by the company for working full time hours. This reminded me alot of FFN and how the employees of large chain restaurants are treated, getting payed minimum wages because the employees only work one station. I was pretty disgusted at the way large companys put profit in front of employees and even more disgusted at the senes dipicted at Greeley, Colorado, a small meat-packing town whose values and culture was destroyed by the IBM revolution. This applied the same labor laws in meat-packing that the McDonald brothers applied to making hamburgers.

Burger: Then and Now

So far, "Fast Food Nation," is an incredibly interesting and slightly disturbing story of how the multi-million dollar industry of fast food chains made evolved over time. Originally a job for hard-working entrepenuers like Carl Karcher who bought a small hot dog stand in California and slowly expanded. As the fast food industry began to catch on as a way to make quick money, buisness pioneers such as the McDonalds brothers began perfecting the art of "Good food, fast." I think its interesting how the fast food industry really came up off the automobile industry, how with the rising stock of one product and fuel the growth of another. The stories behind such infamous fast food chains like "Taco Bell," "Dunkin' Donuts," "Wendy's," "Domino's," and "Kentucky Fried Chicken," are amazing in the sense of how many buisness ventures these pioneers were into. Its incredible that an industry, birthed by the blue collar farmer or salesman, had become an industry formatted and mass produced as if food was being assembled in the same factories you buy your family Ford. I was also unaware at how close Fast Food was to never becoming an established industry during the "Arab oil embargo of 1973," due to rise in oil cost, a decrease in automobile sales and use, resulting in a decrease in people driving to these new "drive thru" restaurants. On one hand, men like Carl Karcher and the McDonald brother's made it possible for the average American family to feed his entire family on a budget. On the other hand, they are partly responsible for the health risks that accompany regular fast food consumpsion.

What We Eat/ The American Way

After reading the Introduction and Ch. 1 (The American Way) I learned so much information about how the multi-billion dollar Fast Food industry got its start. I loved how the book opened up with the discription of the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, a heavily armed, practically indistructable, top-secret military combat center. "...the facility is entered through steel blast doors that are three feet thick and weigh twenty-five tons each..." At first, I didn't know how Schlosser was going to make a connection to this incredibly designed "super base" and fast food, however when they talked about how the employees and soldiers stationed at the base would get sick of cafeteria food and would go out and get Burger King or even more comical, having a Domino's delivery boy pass through the extensive security to bring in some mass-produced pizza as an alternative lunch. The idea that automobiles played a keystone role in the early developmental stages of "fast food," fascinated me and made alot of sense. As soon as people began driving every where, it became an American cultural dependency on never leaving said vehicle. The fact that people would spend more money over their life time on fast food than on car expenses, home repairs and upkeep, or even investments. The idea that you can have consistancy along side convenience seemed to be the foundation of fast food principle. Though, at what cost do American's indulge on their own lazyness. The fact that people have become accustom to the revelation of a "chain restaurant" as mundain or unimpressive trully shows how spoiled the American way of life has become. I'm enjoying getting further insight on how such monopolys as Mc Donalds came to cover ever corner of American culture, essentially making the small buisnesses obselete. The fast food industry is sickening, shamefull and under appreciated all at the same time, exploding on American culture over the past three decades.

Would you like fries with that?

I've decided to tackle Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser for my Book Club book. I was never allowed to eat fast food when I was a child because of its obvious lack of nutrition. My family has many self proclaimed chefs and i've always been comfortable around the grill and in the kitchen. I will occationally indulge in some chicken nuggets with my daughter Jazmin, but other than that I tend to stay away from fast food. I am interested to read Fast Food Nation to find out how such a lucrative industry like fast food thrives. I've seen some documentaries about how the fast food industry works and it's incredible how much goes into the operations of a fast food chain.

Monster's In My Head

After reading "Mrs. Kelley's Monster" by Jon Franklin, I was amazed at how well the writer was able to keepme interested throughout the entire story. The words that Franklin used throughout the piece stuck out and drew my attention in, such as "skull" instead of just saying "head," when describing Mrs. Kelley's illness. The ending was pretty sad but it defintly left me satisfied as a good ending point. I think the way that Franklin structured the story was interesting because of how short some of the paragraphs were like "It is 6:30 a.m. was a full paragraph by itself. All and all I enjoyed the story and hope everyone else did too!

Don't Judge A Book By It's Cover

I am going to interview a Sophmore Engineering student at Wentworth Institute of Technology (Boston) whome know to be a genius, often overlooked or underestimated because of physical appearance. Standing 6ft tall, with an 8inch green mohawk, Robert Foley is often sized up by those to ignorant to get to know him and the contributions he plans to make specifically in wind-turnbine energy. Typically  Renewable resourses stand to be our greatest and often