Chew On This: Everything You Don’t Want To Know About Fast Food

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 2

Chapters 3-5

Chapters 6-8

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Disruptive Entrepreneurship

A key theme of Schlosser and Wilson’s book is that of disruptive entrepreneurship and the contributions of people like Walt Disney, who believed that “new ways of doing things […] were always better than the old ways, regardless of the consequences (28). The new ways, in food as well as entertainment, were always faster, cheaper, more standardized and efficient. They would mean that more people than ever would be able to eat in restaurants, and also that a select few at the top of a corporation would stand to inherit enormous wealth.

Schlosser and Wilson identify a dominant personality type amongst the fast food corporations’ disruptive entrepreneurs. These men tended to be plucky, future-minded and placed a greater emphasis on expansion and wealth creation, rather than quality. Rather than being born rich or famous, or being highly educated, the fast food giants were “self-made men who worked hard and took risks in pursuit of their dreams. They were door-to-door salesmen, orphans and high school dropouts” (16). In this way, they are linked to the American Dream and attain iconic status. However, the darker side of disruptive entrepreneurship is its lack of accountability. Repeatedly, whether the promotion and easy availability of their products has contributed to epidemics of obesity or tooth decay, or where their taste for sameness has meant that smaller, individual growers go out of business, they try to pass the buck and place the onus on individuals, rather than take responsibility for the system they have created. This system is now so entrenched in American society that individuals have to consciously opt out of it.

Exploitation

Exploitation is a key theme of Schlosser and Wilson’s text. The authors show how the enormous profits of fast food are largely reaped by the corporation and franchise owners, as well as large producers, such as potato baron J.R. Simplot. On the other hand, people closer to the product, such as restaurant staff and chicken farmers, are often underpaid for their hard work.

In Chapter 3, Schlosser and Wilson explain how fast food restaurants purposefully hire young, unskilled workers to prepare their pre-packaged factory food, so that they can pay them minimum wage and make more money. The corporations often exploit the enthusiasm that teenagers had for the brand as children, which means that they return there a few years later when seeking employment. However, the reality is, that workers such as Danielle Brent and Pascal McDuff often become disillusioned when they find out that the reality of how things are run does not match up to their childhood expectations. Many young people, when faced with the reality of being part of the largest group of low-income workers in the US today, quit after three months and so the turnover is high. This, however, does not bother fast food franchises, as the skills needed to work with them are minimal and it is more cost effective to keep wages low. The cost of exploitation shows through in the long working hours, which prevent young people from engaging in school or other activities that could contribute to their future.

Exploitation also occurs at the level of production; for example, Norah Smith, who rears chickens for Tyson Foods and supplies McDonald's with poultry for their Chicken McNuggets, is badly off. The business of rearing chickens is expensive, but after the company picks up chickens from her, it decides how much it wants to pay her. The amount is insufficient, meaning that she needs to have “three different jobs, working sixty hours a week, just to make ends meet” (132). The chickens are also exploited, having little room to move and being bred so they have large breasts and reach maturity in a shorter time. Many more examples of food and animal exploitation are included in the book, showing that exploitation is systemic in the fast food industry.

Revision and Reconsideration

Throughout their book, Schlosser and Wilson encourage readers to take their time to notice what the fast food industry is doing and how far reaching and damaging its influence can be. They claim that the fast food industry’s influence and success relies upon people being like automatons, who do not question where the food comes from, what it does to their bodies, and who is exploited by its production. When Ray Kroc was expanding the McDonald's franchise and promoted the value of sameness, he said that “‘the organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization’” (21). This hierarchical, slightly despotic attitude has filtered through to the conformist attitude encouraged in fast food enterprises’ products, as well as in their consumers. The fast food giants want consumers only to see the shiny, youth-friendly product and assume that it is a perfectly natural and benign way of producing food and that no alternative is needed.

By describing in detail how fast food is produced and served, and the impact it has on individuals and communities, Schlosser and Wilson hope to make the commodity stranger and more frightening. For example, how natural is it that cattle “are crowded so closely together it looks like a sea,” or that these cattle eat “special grain dumped into long concrete troughs that look like highway dividers”? (124). Further, how child-friendly can fast foods be when they cause populations that have never suffered from toothdecay or obesity to endure these conditions?

Another technique that Schlosser and Wilson use to demonstrate the freakishness of fastfood manufacturing is by showing the beauty of slower, more humane food production. For example, the Hannas’ cattle ranch, where cattle are allowed to freely graze for acres, is a place that embodies the rugged self-determination at the heart of the American West. It is a shame, the authors imply, that the greed of American corporations is threatening the traits of self-reliance and respect for nature involved in humane cattle rearing.