Wilson Charles - Chew on this : everything you don’t want to know about fast food

For Mica and Conor

Text copyright 2006 by Eric Schlosser

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhco.com

Photo credits appear on .

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Schlosser, Eric.
Chew on this : everything you dont want to know about fast food / written by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-618-71031-0 (hardcover) ISBN 0-618-59394-2 (paperback)
1. Junk foodJuvenile literature. 2. Eating habitsJuvenile literature. 3. Fast food restaurantsJuvenile literature. 4. Food industry and tradeJuvenile literature. I. Wilson, Charles, 1974 II. Title.

TX370.S35 2006
394.1'2dc22
2005027527

HC ISBN-13: 978-0-618-71031-7
PA ISBN-13: 978-0-618-59394-1

eISBN 978-0-547-53116-8
v2.0614

Pull open the glass door and feel the rush of cool air. Step inside. Look at the backlit color pictures of food above the counter, look at the cardboard ads for the latest Disney movie, get in line, and place your order. Hand over some money. Put the change back in your pocket. Watch teenagers in blue-and-gold uniforms busy working in the kitchen. Moments later, grab the plastic tray with your food, find an empty table, and sit down. Unwrap the burger, squirt ketchup on the fries, stick the plastic straw through the hole in the lid of your drink. Pick up the burger and dig in.

The whole experience of eating at a fast-food restaurant has become so familiar, so routine, that we take it for granted. It has become just another habit, like brushing your teeth before bed. We do it without even thinking about itand thats the problem.

Every day about one out of fourteen Americans eats at a McDonalds. Every month about nine out of ten American children visit one. McDonalds has become the most popular fast-food chain in the worldand by far the most powerful. In 1968 there were about 1,000 McDonalds restaurants, all of them in the United States. Now there are more than 31,000 McDonalds, selling Happy Meals in 120 countries, from Istanbul, Turkey, to Papeete, Tahiti. In the United States, McDonalds buys more processed beef, chicken, pork, apples, and potatoes than any other company. It spends more money on advertising and marketing than any other company that sells food. As a result, it is Americas most famous food brand. The impact of McDonalds on the way we live today is truly mind-boggling. The Golden Arches are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross.

Despite McDonalds fame and all the money it spends on advertising, every day the vast majority of its customers dont plan to eat there. Most fast-food visits are impulsive. The decision to buy fast food is usually made at the last minute, without much thought. People generally dont leave the house in the morning saying, Im going to make sure to eat some fast food today. Most of the time, theyre just walking down the sidewalk or driving down the road, not thinking about anything in particular. Maybe theyre hungry; maybe theyre not. Maybe theyre in a hurry and dont have time to cook. And then they see a great big fast-food signthe Golden Arches, the red-and-blue of a Dominos pizza box, the picture of Colonel Sandersand they suddenly think, Hey, I want some of that. So they stop to eat fast food. They do it because they feel like it. They just cant resist the impulse.

The point of this book is to take that strong impulse we all feelour hunger for sweet, salty, fatty fast foodsand make you think about it. Chew On This will tell you where fast food comes from, who makes it, whats in it, and what happens when you eat it. This is a book about fast food and the world it has made.

Food is one of the most important things youll ever buy. And yet most people never bother to think about their food and where it comes from. People spend a lot more time worrying about what kind of blue jeans to wear, what kind of video games to play, what kind of computers to buy. They compare the different models and styles, they talk to friends about the various options, they read as much as they can before making a choice. But those purchases dont really matter. When you get tired of old blue jeans, video games, and computers, you can just give them away or throw them out.

The food you eat enters your body and literally becomes part of you. It helps determine whether youll be short or tall, weak or strong, thin or fat. It helps determine whether you will enjoy a long, healthy life or die young. Food is of fundamental importance. So why is it that most people dont think about fast food and dont know much about it?

The simple answer is this: the companies that sell fast food dont want you to think about it. They dont want you to know where it comes from and how its made. They just want you to buy it.

Have you ever seen a fast-food ad that shows the factories where French fries are made? Ever seen a fast-food ad that shows the slaughterhouses where cattle are turned into ground beef? Ever seen an ad that tells you whats really in your fast-food milk shake and why some strange-sounding chemicals make it taste so good? Ever seen an ad that shows overweight, unhealthy kids stuffing their faces with greasy fries at a fast-food restaurant? You probably havent. But youve probably seen a lot of fast-food commercials that show thin, happy children having a lot of fun.

People have been eating since the beginning of time. But theyve only been eating Chicken McNuggets since 1983. Fast food is a recent invention. During the past thirty years, fast food has spread from the United States to every corner of the globe. A business that began with a handful of little hot dog and hamburger stands in southern California now sells the all-American meala hamburger, French fries, and sodajust about everywhere. Fast food is now sold at restaurants and drive-throughs, at baseball stadiums, high schools, elementary schools, and universities, on cruise ships, trains, and airplanes, at Kmarts, Wal-Marts, and even the cafeterias of childrens hospitals. In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food. In 2006, they spent about $142 billion on fast food. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on college education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, and recorded musiccombined.

Fast food may look like the sort of food people have always eaten, but its different. Its not the kind of food you can make in your kitchen from scratch. Fast food is something radically new. Indeed, the food we eat has changed more during the past thirty years than during the previous thirty thousand years.

In the pages that follow, youll learn how the fast-food business got started. Youll learn how the fast-food chains try to get kids into their restaurants, how they treat kids working in their kitchens, how they make their food. And youll learn what can happen when you eat too much of it. These are things you really need to know. Why? Because fast food is heavily advertised to kids and often prepared by workers who are kids themselves. This is an industry that both feeds and feeds off the young.

For the most part, fast food tastes pretty good. Thats one of the main reasons people like to eat it. Fast food has been carefully designed to taste good. Its also inexpensive and convenient. But the Happy Meals, two-for-one deals, and free refills of soda give a false sense of how much fast food actually costs. The real price never appears on the menu.