Chew On This!
Marilyn September 21st, 2006
As reported in October 2006 Australian Gourmet Traveller magazine:
American journalist Eric Schlosser touched a nerve with the 2001 publication of ‘Fast Food Nation’. An intelligent, persuasively argued and gripping expose of the effect corporate fast food has had on our social and cultural landscape, the book has sold more than 1.4 million copies worldwide. This year saw the publication of ‘Chew On This’ — essentially ‘Fast Food Nation’ reworked for the same generation of young people targeted by the fast-food world — and the production of a narrative film version of the book …
In an interview with Schlosser, he made the following comments:
… by being aware that because you’re connected, by every bite, to an enormous system that produces your food, you can change things. Try not to give your money to the worst operators.
… keep in mind that this modern industrial method of raising animals has only been in existence for 35 years … we have only been eating cattle from feedlots with hormone implants, poultry given antibiotics in their feed and fish given antibiotics and fed waste from cattle slaughterhouses for 35 years. This is a fundamental transformation of our relationship to livestock and already we’re seeing E.coli, mad cow disease, antibiotic-resistant salmonella and on and on … it’s a bad idea …
Second only to the oil industry in the United States, fast food companies have the biggest impact on and dominance of our government. … if you look at why the minimum wage in the US has not increased in almost a decade … it’s because of the National Restaurant Association. … that industry employs more workers than any other private industry in the US. And if you look at our farm policies, these fundamental things are influenced by the food industry and how it gets the government to do its bidding.
If you have read my previous blogs you will be aware that I enthusiastically endorse an international movement called Slow Food. This movement started as a reaction to the US dominated fast food industry. Slow Food started in Italy but now has Convivia in over 100 countries around the world. (If you are curious go to http://www.slowfood.com/)
Fast Food Nation opens at Dendy Cinemas around Australia on 26 October. ‘Fast Food Nation’ and ‘Chew On This’ are published by Penguin.