This is a book that has been sitting in my in-queue for a long time, I’ve finally gotten around to reading it.
Eric takes us on a tour of the fast food industry, from the origins of the modern hamburger, via the sweatshop kitchens and slaughterhouses, to where he thinks the future of the industry should be.
A lot of people I know have read this book, and have been impressed enough by it to comment on it – indeed its described on its cover as ‘a shocking expose’ by the Evening Standard.
What I don’t understand, though, is why anyone is surpised by its contents. For sure it doesn’t paint the rosiest of pictures of the industry, but we surely can’t be surprised that corners are being cut when we’re prepared to buy meals for kinds of prices they charge. I found little in the book to be shocked by, or indeed, that I didn’t know before, sure theres a lot of good detail that I wasn’t aware of, but none of it essential to the informed debate about the perils of fast food. There is an inevitable race to the bottom where competition is based largely on price – “He who buys on price along is this mans lawful prey”.
Indeed, the book seems to set out to shock its prissy middle class ‘mc-hater’ readership into further action rather than actually be some kind of manual for the kinds of people it is looking down upon to escape their trap.
Who should read this book: anyone who eats fast food on a regular basis
Who actually reads this book: everyone else
7 comments