Eric Schlosser: Chew On This

By JULIETTE ROSSANT How often is there a quick fix to any problem? A one-drop-only miracle cure? An antidote to poison? Well, if there is any antidote to the Foie Gras War (not to mention that pint-sized epidemic of national childood obesity -- part of an overall 10% budget increase for the U.S. Department of Agricutlure in 2006), it is that every child in this country over the age of 10 read Chew On This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food (Houghton Mifflin 2006), by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson. Read it as soon as possible. This is no simplification of Schlosser's previous best-selling book Fast Food Nation (Houghton Mifflin 2001). This is in no way a "dumbing down" edition. Rather, Chew On This digs even deeper into the guts of Food production, service, and consumption in this country. It is classic bait-and-trap reading of the highest order -- bait-and-trap for its readability and highest because of the quality of both its writing and information. Yes, despite the rather depressing subject matter, Chew On This is more engrossing than any burger or bag of fries. Once you are roped in with stories of fast food pioneers, Mssrs. Schlosser and Wilson start cutting away into the real meat -- literally, as in their chapter six subsection "Meat" (pp. 156-202). Schlosser and Wilson explain how America will raise 9 billion chickens for slaughter in 2006; desecribe the appalling conditions of their short, miserable lives; and present the needless suffering they endure at slaughter for your leisurely reflection -- while mentioning how much needless suffering our European counterparts avoid imposing. In "The Jungle" (pp. 182-186) and "Don't Complain" (pp. 186-191) sections, they catalogue conditions in slaughterhouses for both man and beast. Thereareafter, the book really focuses in on you and every citizen of this country. If in our pet-loving, fast-food consuming "American Way of Life" we somehow have remained complacently unmoved by the suffering of billions of animals or thousands of fellow humans, then perhaps we will be moved to care when it comes down to ourselves. "Cook It Well" (pp. 192-198) explains the growing prevalence of the e. coli virus -- the poop disease whose spread parallels the rise of mass-marketed meat. If that doesn't move you, the penultimate chapter, "Big" (pp. 202-233) explains how kids fat by age 13 have a 90% chance of being fat in their midthirties (p. 209, cited from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition [abstract]) and shares the agonies of one obese child, who nearly dies from stomach stapling. Finally, in "Your Way" (pp. 234-258), Schlosser and Wilson trace the export of American fast-food franchises overseas, where many now derive the majority of their profits. They discuss global anti-Americanism (associated with the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strike, accompanied by the Global War on Terrorism and measured by the Pew Research Center) -- now manifest in attacks overseas on chains like McDonald's and KFC. The bottom line is that you, an American consumer of Food, can make a difference. Schlosser and Wilson provide the simplest of prescriptions to improving our quality of life via food, targeting human labor conditions and animal quality of life: Nobody is forced to buy fast food. The first tep toward real change is by far the easier. Stop buying it... Every dollar you spend is like a vote." (p. 254) Beyond the book, they provide several areas of specific action. Although they do not mention it, the logic is intuitive: just as fast food companies force change among suppliers with their buying power, so consumers can do the same to fast food companies. And here is where Chew On This is perhaps not explicit enough in a TV-oriented, attention-deficit society: they have laid out the vertical supply chain of fast food and demonstrated just how powerful each and every one of us can be -- if we stand united. No wonder there is an uproar in the Food industry (see "Related news" links, below)! For what Schlosser and Wilson recommend is not an end to fast food but an imposing of humanistic constraints -- all very feasible, but, oh no!, costing a few pennies more per pound or ounce for the fast food giants. The opposition is apparently quite large -- see the members list for "Best Food Nation", the industry antidote (as it were) to Schlosser's Fast Food Nation" (whatever that term means to the industry, beyond a book and a movie -- more at end of this article). What does Chew On This mean for the foie gras opposition? Get a clue! Get your priorities straight! Why mess about with a few thousand geese and ducks (whose gavage is scientifically accepted as relatively painless and harmless) when not just millions of cattle and billions of chickens live and die in abject conditions -- while fellow Americans (or imported workers) are caught up in labor-destructive system of production? Schlosser is on record as still eating burgers and fries, just no longer at McDonald's (see Forbes interview). Improve rather than overthrow -- that is truly revolutionary thinking, because it is so possible and reasonable. Don't be fooled by opposing Media: this is thought worthy not of Karl Marx's Manifesto of the Communist Party but rather of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. To show us what motivated individuals and corporations can do, they provide living examples of food "do-gooders": Alice Waters and her Edible Schoolyard and fast food chains like Inn-N-Out and Burgerville. Overall, Eric Schlosser deserves credit and praise for his continued efforts -- would that there were a journalist-author who has the same impact on American Politics as he does on American Food. By successfully encompassing the broadcest, most complete outlook of our Food horizons, from McDonald's to Alice Waters, Schlosser proves himself the most important writer on Food of the decade. Regardless of all other considerations, Superchefblog recommends Chew On This as mandatory reading for Summer 2006. For all ages. (Stay tuned for the movie -- watch the trailer now.) Book details: Publisher Amazon.com Barnes & Noble Press releases: Houghton Mifflin Puffin (UK) Best Food Nation Related news: USA Today USA Today (blurb on Food among top 50 books) ABC News Forbes Wall Street Journal Forbes Los Angeles Times St. Louis Post-Dispatch KQED bay area bites Willamette Week South Bend Tribune Kansas City Star (AP) Washington Post Brand Republic Ithaca Journal Orlando Sentinel (Los Angeles Daily News) Lincoln Journal-Star Madison Capital Times Seattle Times San Francisco Chronicle Twin Cities Pioneer Press (Newhouse News Service) Seattle Post-Intelligencer Energy Bulletin Belleview News Democrat (AP) Guardian Times GuardianToronto Star China Daily Independent Austrialian Globe & Mail Previous articles: [Foie Gras War - complete] [Cookbook Reviews - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging, cookbooks, food books, Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation --> back to superchefblog