Fast Food Nation

by Eric Schlosser

I have been a vegatarian (and sometimes vegan) since 1991 and for the longest time I haven't had the desire to eat meat and this book confirmed many aspects of my beliefs.

It was a simply read. However, sometimes I just couldn't stay with it and my mind would start drifting. What meat packaging firm received infested meat from which slaughterhouse, that consequently was closed down only to reopen again within days etc. dragged on and on. And on. At times I felt like I was stuck in a loop of repetitive information and not only did I lose track but I also lost intrest in the political and financial ramifications.

The personal stories hit closer to home...the high school kids working for fast food chains, the farmer showing his land and the threats lingering behind the next slope, the kids sickened and even killed by infested hamburgers. Those stories are closer to the bone and if the author's intent is to make people stop eating fast food, this would probably be a better tool than stories about corporate crime.

The level of surprising new information was well below the level of disgust. I believe (or at least I want to believe) that most people know that they eat crap when they eat fast food.

6/10

I'm a vegetarian. I haven't eaten meat in more than 15 years and after reading this book I have no intention to ever taste it again (ok, so I never really had the desire to after going veg, anyway). Normally, I tend to shy away from reading non-fiction books that are not in my first language (German) because you often are confronted with terms that you have no way of recognising if they are in a foreign language. This was an easy enough read, though. However, sometimes I just couldn't really stay...