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McNightmare To others, fast food chains represent something altogether different. Environmentalists resent the sprawling landscape that they perpetuate and the car dependency they not only encourage, but virtually mandate. Labor unions protest the bare minimum wages they pay their overwhelmingly teenage workforce. Child advocates decry the fatty food and the barrage of youth-targeted advertising. And the new breed of fair trade activists have declared McDonald’s — the golden-arched symbol of American corporate dominance and globalization — public enemy No. 1. Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, is unabashedly part of the anti-crowd, and those who read this both frightening and enlightening polemic will be tempted to join him. Schlosser’s detailed descent into the industry’s inner workings reveals just how wide an impact the fast food industry has had on our economy and culture, in ways that most of us would never consider. Take agriculture. Thirty years ago our rural communities still looked like those stuck in our imaginations: Farms were small and family-run, a wide diversity of crops and livestock was raised, and rural main streets were bustling. Today, ranchers and farmers are leaving the land in droves. Farms have become giant, automated, corporate operations, often staffed by former farmers who were forced to sell out. Suicide rates among farmers are three times higher than other groups. The reasons for the decimation of rural America are many and complex, but the fast food industry has played a role in the drama. Just as fast food chains strive for absolute uniformity in their stores, they also seek that same standardization in their food. In 1968, McDonald’s bought ground beef from 175 local suppliers; by the 1970s, it only bought from five. Tyson Foods, which supplies more than half of all the chicken for McNuggets, even bred a unique chicken — one with super-sized breasts — for its top buyer. by Eric Schlosser The choices made by a company as large as McDonald’s, and by an industry as large as fast food, have ripple effects throughout the entire agricultural sector. Demands for product uniformity have encouraged levels of concentration in the meatpacking and chicken processing industries not seen since the days of the great Beef Trust in the early 20th century. The top four meatpacking firms now slaughter 84 percent of the country’s cattle, many of which come from feedlots they also own. There is widespread belief that the giant meatpackers have colluded to keep beef prices at unsustainably low levels. When independent ranchers can no longer hold on, the packers are usually first in line to buy them out. Fast food chains have also fundamentally changed our retail landscape. They were not the first to sell franchises (General Motors developed the model in 1898 when it didn’t have the money to pay salesmen), but the chains, especially McDonald’s, turned franchising into a business art. Fast food restaurants today seem like some unstoppable force, occupying every new intersection in every new suburb. One of Schlosser’s most important contributions is to demonstrate that this massive expansion is not simply the result of smart business — it’s also due to political influence. For 30 years, fast food restaurants have used Small Business Administration funds to finance new restaurants. McDonald’s and Burger King, of course, could hardly be described as "small." This abuse, writes Schlosser, transforms a "federal agency that was created to help independent businesses into one that eliminates them." The restaurants have long taken advantage of federal subsidies that give tax credits of up to $2,400 for training low-income workers. One of these programs, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, only requires companies to employ workers for 400 hours, or about two months of full-time work. Many fast food restaurant workers quit or are fired every three to four months — a higher turnover rate than any other employee group except for migrant laborers — and more restaurants are investing millions of dollars into automating their kitchens to achieve their ideal of "zero training." As Schlosser observes, American taxpayers are in effect "subsidizing the industry’s high turnover rate, providing company tax breaks for workers who are employed for just a few months and receive no training." There are some bright spots in this gloomy tale. Schlosser tells the story of Dave Feamster, a former professional hockey player turned Little Caesars franchisee, who pays some of his employees’ college tuition and takes them to see motivational speakers. The Jack in the Box chain, infamous for the E. coli outbreak in 1993 that killed four people, now has the strictest food safety program in the industry and has spurred other chains to adopt tougher policies. In-N-Out Burger, which has 150 restaurants in California and Nevada, pays a starting wage of $8 an hour, pays its managers more than $80,000 a year, and still doesn’t have an item on its menu that costs more than $2.45. Schlosser devotes a disappointingly short epilogue to what can be done to reform the fast food industry. He mentions only in passing some necessary policy reforms. But he’s right on when he finishes this eye-opening book by saying that in the end, the choice is ours. When we "Pull open the glass door, feel the rush of cool air, walk inside, and get in line," he writes, "think about where the food came from, about how and where it was made, about what is set in motion by every single fast food purchase, the ripple effect near and far, think about it. Then place your order. Or turn and walk out the door. It’s not too late. Even in this fast food nation, you can still have it your way." Enter the Pop Forum Daniel Kraker is a writer with the Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance. He lives on the Hopi Indian Reservation in northeast Arizona, where he is a contributor to NPR and numerous publications. Related Sites To purchase Fast Food Nation, click here. |
