My hippie rant/book review: Fast Food Nation

I just finished reading Fast Food Nation and I have to say...it is one of the best books I have read to date. I also have to say that the likelihood of me ever eating fast food again is slim to none! And not just because it is absolutely terrible in terms of health, but also for the way in which the fast food industry has changed our lives, landscape, and ideals...none of which are for the better. It's also about the way the fast food industry affects so many other industries. Take for instance modern day slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants. Their working conditions are some of the worst in the US, for both animal and human. Most of this is due in part to the pace that they must slaughter animals and disassemble them to keep up with orders for companies like McDonald's, Burger King, and the like.

Now, I am not standing here preaching to never eat meat, or to never eat fast food....that's a personal decision. However, I do think we need to worry more about what we're putting in our bodies, and letting our children and pets put in their bodies. I say this because God knows after the food industry scares (pet food, peanuts, spinach, peppers and tomatos) we've had over the past year or so, it's obvious that those who serve us have little concern for anything but making money and cutting corners.

Dale Lasater, a rancher in Colorado interviewed for Fast Food Nation, "finds it hard to justify feeding millions of tons of precious grain to American cattle while elsewhere in the world millions of people starve." While many family farms around him are being run off of the land by expansion of towns and suburbs, and giant factory farms, he stands firm in his beliefs of raising his cattle the way God intended them to be raised, eating grass and roaming the land. Needless to say, McDonald's has not been calling this cattle owner, ready to buy any from his herd.

I would recommend this book to just about anyone interested in learning more about where some foods come from...I promise it will open your eyes. It is well written, and the author includes his notes and sources making much of it factual, though the fast food industry would disagree. I will leave you all with this, a line from the book that stands out to me:

"People can be fed without being fattened or deceived."