Chapter 1
Precis: During the 1940s Carl N. Karcher became one of the founding fathers of the fast food nation we see today. The nation began rapidly changing due to the end of the World War 2, and its economic boost and the rise of industrialization. Carl took advantage of the "fabulous boom" and went from successful hot dog stands to launching fast food restaurants. Leading many to follow in his food steps.
Gems: "He was amazed by the number of hot dogs stands they were opening and by the number of buns they went through every week"- pg.15
”Southern California had recently giving birth to an entirely new life style- and a new way of eating. Both revolved around cars"- pg.15
Thoughts: it was interesting to see how and when the era of fast food started. Carl N. Karcher saw how much everything was changing around, the automobile industry and electronics evolving to make the lives of Americans easier and faster. Fast food served the same purpose. Question that comes to my mind is how has the "new life style" of back than show about the average American?
Chapter 2
Precis: Ray Kroc and Walt Disney developed strategic strategies in influencing the hearts and minds of the people home. Advertising, marketing, promoting, radio were all implemented when it came to beating the competition. The target was the youth of America, luring them in by using toys in kid’s meals, mascots, and pleasing images and to gain their support and interest. The cheap prices and the "good" food that was offered also manipulated the working class and low income families.
Gems: "And their success led many others to aim marketing efforts at kids, turning America’s youngest consumer into a demographic that is now avidly studied, analyzed, and targeted by the worlds largest corporations". - pg.33
"it’s the law of the universe that the strong shall survive and the weak must fall by the way, and I don’t give a damn what idealistic plan is cooked up, nothing can change that"- pg. 37
"" [our goal is to make] consumers believe McDonalds is their "trusted friend" ". - pg. 50
Thoughts: What were or are marketing strategies that have brought you to buy something? What’s the most provocative way of luring the youth now in days and is this different from back than? Is fast food a family place?
Chapter 3
Precis: Fast food industries like McDonalds looked to gain as much profit possible but make sure their employees that included college students, minorities and immigrants were all paid low wages. McDonalds becoming an enormous success creating scores for new billionaires and franchises and chain stores all across the United States.
Gems: “ Every saturday Elisa Zamot gets up at 5:15 in the morning. its a struggle, and her head feels groggy as she steps into the shower"- pg. 67
" in the absence of good wages and secure employment, the chains try to inculcate "team spirit" in thier young crews"- 74
"i see the possibility of Unions"- pg.88
Thoughts: still till this day you see large cooperation’s and there horrible treatment of their workers while the company makes millions of profit. Millionaires and brand companies push to retrieve any sort of leverage when it comes to beating the competition. McDonalds and its success was a teacher and a vocal point for many to push start a business or something new to present to their American culture new like GAP clothing.
Chapter 4
Precis: Franchisee is someone who decides to buys a franchise from a franchiser because there able to benefit more than they would if they tried starting their own business. In chapter 4 the author Eric Schlosser focuses on Dave Feamster, a franchisee who opened up four pizza chains for the parent company “Little Ceasars" in Detroit after starting off with just a 200,000 loan. This idea of franchising cannot be successful because you must follow the franchisor (parent company) rules and guidelines, if not your business and whoever is involved with it is in jeopardy.
Gems: “the franchisor wants to expand an existing company without spending its own funds”- pg. 94
“But it was McDonalds that perfected new franchising techniques, increasing the chains size while maintaining strict control of its products”. - pg. 95
Thoughts: Franchising has become so popular and big cooperation’s like McDonalds have benefited from it because people have faith in the product or that business. Shows you how big cooperation’s are looked at and idolized by people. I remember hearing Mr. Wexler saying he had first came up with the idea of putting a papaya on the corner of our school because it would see nothing but gains in that location but he got beat to it. He was manipulated by vision of representing Papaya. But what if franchising was put to a limit? How will this affect our community and what we were accustom to?
Chapter 5
Precis: Potatoes became the most important food necessity when it comes to fast food industries. J.R Simplot changed the ways of many fast food industries and the eating habits of many. He did this by starting off with acres of potato farm, a potatoes sorter which was a new invention. With that brought him to introduce the world to frozen fries and frozen food when new gadgets were becoming common in households. The faults in the manufacturing of foods are pushed to be a kept as a secret as much as possible.
Gems: "After the war, Simplot invested heavily in frozen food technology, betting that it would provide the meals of the future". - pg.113
“In 1960, the typical American ate eighty-one pounds of fresh potatoes and about four pounds of frozen French fries. Today the typical American eats about forty-nine pounds of fresh potatoes every year and thirty pounds of frozen French fries.” pg. 114
“the flavor industry is highly secretive...the secrecy is deemed essential for protecting the reputation of beloved brands". - pg. 120
Thoughts: Simplot envisioned frozen food becoming the meals of the future and he was absolutely right. Frozen food is "fast food"; fast food is all around us, its what we love. It’s crazy to see our food habits and the way look at food be manipulated by fast food industries, commercials, advertisements and more. Why it is hard for people to realize what their purchasing or eating is bad? At what point do you not buy that product and why? Not saying I don’t do myself but it would be insightful to hear the variety of answers.
Chapter 6
Precis: Chapter 6 On the Range shows the impact that fast food had on farm areas and their cattle businesses .the author introduces us to a local rancher from Colorado Springs named Hank. Who addresses the hardships that ranchers and their families faced as fast food meat packing industries took over the production of meat. Instead of meat products being traditional being produced in farms, fast machinery and unhealthy chemicals took over.
Gems: "there is one indisputable fact, however, abut American ranchers: they are rapidly disappearing... many of the nations remaining eight hundred thousand ranchers are faring poorly."- pg. 136
“The Chicken McNugget turned a bird that once had to be carved at a table into something that could be easily eaten behind the wheel of a car. It turned bulk agricultural commodity into a manufactured, value added product". - pg.139
“The threat of wealthy neighbors"- pg. 144
Thoughts: It’s a bitter feeling seeing the way fast food industries altered the lives of communities and farmers/ ranchers. Businesses and the wealthy have always had a way of stepping over whomever it is to get what they want. This makes me think about Trump and his efforts of buying and kicking out the people in my housing community in the lower east side. It just doesn’t seem right at all
Chapter 7
Precis: Greely Colorado is a modern day factory town and from places like this is where most hamburgers that are eaten today come from. Industrialization of meat packing has fully changed how beef is processed and the towns that do so. What once use to be the United States best manufacturing jobs now is the home of low wages and brutal treatment.
Gems: "During the three months before slaughter, they eat grain dumped into long concrete troughs that resemble highway dividers. The grain fattens the cattle quickly, aided by the anabolic steroids implanted in their ear."- pg. 150
"The working conditions in these meatpacking plants were brutal....Human beings, Sinclair argued had been made "cogs in the great packing machine", easily replaced and entirely disposable". - pg.152
Thoughts: what has been brought to our attention recently in news and other sources of media is that what we eat everyday, buy at supermarkets is being produced with steroids and other harmful chemicals. But that hasn’t stopped me or others. Why? Many big businesses gain more profit by paying their workers low wages and treating them like dogs. How often is this noticed? Is it hidden from the public like Sean john sweat shops once were?
Chapter 8
Gems:
They used me to the point where I had no body parts left to give,” “Then they just tossed me into the trash can.”
“During a three month period in 1985, the first log recorded 1800 injuries and illness in the plant. The OHSA log recorded 160, a discrepancy of more then 1000 percent.”
Chapter 9
Precis: the truth about the production of meat becoming apparent during the breakout of various diseases in the meat and the people who’ve eaten in. E.Coli outbreak is an example. Meatpacking and slaughterhouses companies would intend to lie, some cases didn’t have their was inspection of meat for human consumption. Chapter looks deeply how these outbreaks occur and how it wasn’t and hasn’t been thoroughly stopped.
Gems: “far from their natural habitat, the cattle in feedlot become more prone to all sorts of illnesses. And what they are being fed often contributes to the spread of disease". pg. 202
"The Clinton Administrations efforts to implement a tough, science based food inspection system received an enormous setback when the Republican Party gained control of congress in November 1994". pg. 210
“Northern states beef was also link to a 1994 outbreak of E.coli 0157:H7 in Nebraska that sicken eighteen people". pg. 219
Thoughts: fast food industries and big cooperation’s contain so much power. So powerful, wealthy, popular and are additionally linked to the most powerful, government. The way our culture is now is the effect of their cause, how can we fully alter our lifestyle for the good?
Chapter 10
Precis: After Cold War Fast Food nations began to step foot and make their mark overseas and out of the country. Fast food chains like McDonalds became the phenomenon of western economic development. McDonalds served as the beginning of American influence and franchising and to many this seemed exciting while others saw the effect it had on its people and country. Germany changed and became one of McDonald’s most profitable overseas markets and so did over 120 countries as well.
Gems: "Global Realization"
”The anthropologist Yunxiang Yan has noted that in the eyes of Beijing consumers, McDonalds represents Americana and the promise of modernization". pg. 230
“No other nation in history has gotten so fat so fast.” pg.240
Thoughts: Many ask why "Americans" are so hated but you could see the impact that American culture and franchising has on people. So you couldn’t blame them. Does majority of the world notice and try to eliminate the change that fast food brings? Or do they sit back and watch like us?
Epilogue
Precis: fast food industries false fully advertise their food and the effects it has on its consumers. Not all fast food chains seize to manipulate their consumers with "bull", their is still some successful but smaller family companies that have success by producing greater and healthy products like organic meat. The only boycott that would be victorious against this fast food lifestyle at this time would be the refusal to buy.
Gems: "There's take-out but no drive-through, and the food is only slightly more expensive than the half-empty Wendy's across the street. One day I met a customer at Conway's who has regularly been having lunch there for fifty years."pg. 258
“An economic system promising freedom has too often become a means of denying it, as the narrow dictates of the market gain precedence over more important democratic values". pg.261
“The low price of a fast food hamburger does not reflect its real cost - and should". pg. 261
Thoughts: it’s overwhelming to see the kind of power these fast food industries possess. They push to gain the eyes and minds of every single individual that is easy manipulated. By the colorful brightened pictures of their new food and to the toys they put in kid meals. Out of all the profit they make, by paying low wages and unhealthy over production why cant a little more healthiness be implemented? Not just by putting calorie counts that are barely visible. How do fast food chains truly respond to the questions of an unhappy consumer and the healthy consumer? How did they respond to the book and the author’s efforts to break their success apart??
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