Possibly the most disturbing thing about Eric Schlosser’s 2001 book Fast Food Nation is just how little has changed about the meat processing industry since Upton Sinclair released his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle, in 1905.Worker exploitation and unsanitary food are still common; and the stakes continue to increase as the industry consolidates, giving multinational companies more control over the food supply.
Low Points of the Last Decade
2008
February
Weighing in at 143 million pounds, Westland/Hallmark Meat Company of Chino, California, announces the largest recall of ground beef in U.S. History. Much of it was distributed to the United States’ school lunch program.
January
Humane Society of the United States distributes an investigative video showing Westland Meatpacking workers using forklifts to force downer cows into the slaughter line and food supply.
2003
May
After an outbreak of Mad Cow Disease in Canada, Dr. Stanley Prusiner, winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of prions, attempts to impress upon Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman the imminent threat of the disease in the United States. According to the December 25 New York Times article by Sandra Blakeslee cited here, Dr. Prusiner was rebuffed.
December
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirms the nation’s first case of Mad Cow Disease.
1999
January
Recall of 35 million pounds of ground beef distributed by Thorne Apple Valley’s Fort Valley, Arkansas plant after the meat tested positive for the bacteria, listeria. The previous December, a listeria outbreak was linked to 14 deaths, six miscarriages and 97 illnesses in 22 states, requiring Sara Lee Corporation’s Bil Mar meat processor to recall 15 million pounds of meat. (Food & Drink Weekly, March 15, 1999)
Rise of the Fast Food Industry
From 1940 to 1969, the following fast food restaurants were founded:
- McDonald’s (Barbeque) in San Bernardino, California
- Burger King in Miami, Florida
- Carls’ Jr. in Anaheim, California
- Taco Bell in Downey, California
- Arby’s in Boardman, Ohio.
- Wendy’s Hamburgers in Columbus, Ohio.
According to Schlosser, Americans spent approximately $ 6 billion on fast food in 1970 and $110 billion in 2001. He goes on to state that “Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars … movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music – combined.”
Effects on ChildrenIn much the same manner as tobacco companies, fast food chains use ingenious marketing efforts to target young consumers; these range from toy-laden Happy Meals and onsite playgrounds to 99-cent value menus and cute commercials with talking Chihuahuas.
According to Fast Food Nation, children between the ages of 7 and 13 are the largest consumers of hamburgers. They are also some of the most vulnerable consumers of meat tainted with food borne pathogens, such as E. coli 0157:H7, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, and Clostridium perfringens.
Schlosser asserts that “every day in the United States, approximately 200,000 people are sickened by a food borne disease, 900 are hospitalized, and fourteen die.” The majority of these are children, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.
Many of the food borne pathogens that make eating a hamburger so dangerous are carried in fecal matter, which regularly gets into the meat due to the rapid-pace and inherently messy process of slaughtering animals. To put it as plainly as Schlosser does: “There is shit in the meat.”
Read more about worker exploitation and strike busting by the meat processing industry here.
Cheri Renee Watkins - Cheri Renée cut her publishing teeth in Las Vegas as an assistant editor and entertainment writer at Showbiz Weekly magazine. She ...
