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February 07, 2003
Doing A Bit For The World
I picked up Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation again after leaving it alone for the past couple of months. Being a social science student, I am already duly affected by the things I study and am constantly reminded of how terrible and depressing the world we live in is. Fast Food Nation is no different. My friend asked me last night why do I torture myself by reading the book voraciously - finished it in two nights - when I know it would negatively affect me. I guess knowing makes me aware and maybe hopeful that I might be of help, somehow or someday. Ignorance is bliss but I don't think I ever want to be in that state. Maybe I'm Faustian that way. That I crave and need knowledge.
Schlosser puts a brutal argument in his book and sometimes I would wonder if he took his case to the extreme. He paints a world which is so bleak, so harsh and so cruel that I cringe when reading it. But he tries to soften the impact in his epilogue, showing organisations which emerged and are trying to improve the world (I'm eating In-and-Out with the bf and his buddies from now on) and shows that there is hope yet in a world dominated by MacDonalds and KFC. However, that mere chapter doesn't remove the scar it left on me and by god, I'm glad it didn't and I hope nothing ever will.
I've never liked fast food, or the idea of multinational global organisations. Starbucks, Macdonalds, Nike, K-mart, suburban identical shopping malls. The idea of a mass consumer culture irks me and frightens me. Frightens me of how much power these organisations wield over us the little people. And in a way, I now realise in amusement how my boyfriend is the same. Even when I get my insane pre-menstrual cravings for KFC, he would be disgusted but still buy it for me. He doesn't approve of fast food for the health icky factor and Nike for more humanitarian reasons. For me, I've never liked fast food because I'm a health freak and I do think Nike is way TOOOOO expensive for sports wear.
Now I have more reason. Not to eat fast food. Even when I'm insanely pre-menstrual.
And I thought I would just do my bit here. And let all of you read this little extract.
Please, at least. Try.
"Nobody in the United States is forced to buy fast food. The first step toward meaningful change is by far the easiest: stop buying it. The executives who run the fast food industry are not bad men. They are businessmen. They will sell free-range, organic, grass-fed hamburgers if you demand it. They will sell whatever sells at a profit. The usefulness of the market, its effectiveness as a tool, cuts both ways. The real power of the American consumer has not yet been unleashed. The heads of Burger King, KFC, and MacDonald's should feel daunted; they're outnumbered. There are three of them and almost three hundred million of you. A good boycott, a refusal to buy, can speak much louder than words. Sometimes the most irresistible force is the most mundane.
Pull open the glass door, feel the rush of cool air, walk inside, get in line, and look around you, look at the kids working in the kitchen, at the customers in their seats, at the ads for the latest toys, study the backlit color photographs above the counter, think about where the food came from, about how and where it was made, about what is set in motion by every single fast food purchase, the ripple effect near and far, think about it. Then place your order. Or turn and wakl out of the door. It's not too late. Even in this fast food nation, you can still have it your way."
- Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation
Posted by lainey at February 7, 2003 05:17 PM