Book Review: Chew On this

This book is by the author of fast food nation, Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson. It contains information on the fast food industry that you don't want to know about. If you are already a vegetarian or vegan it wouldn't affect you much (unless you eat the fries etc. at the fast food restaurants) but it's still a good read because you will learn a whole lot of other things. If you are not a vegetarian, then it's a MUST read - it's only fair to know what you are putting into your tummy... and eventually, yourself.

What's in the book? - brief summary

You will open your eyes to the history of fast food and how the McDonald's brothers first come up with the system where the fast food restaurant is turned into a mini-factory. How children are manipulated by advertizing and studied to improve fast food sales strategy. How the employees are treated unfairly. How difficult it is to pit yourself against the giants of this industry. The leaching or addition of sugar to maintain the consistency of the fries. How they make a vegetable oil-fried fry taste a little like beef - by using natural flavours. Natural flavours and artificial flavours are differentiated by how they are made. Natural flavour is made from an actual source, while you mix chemicals to get the artificial source. Next in line is coke - and what kind of problems it causes and how the company blame it on the consumers.

Finally, the meaty part of the meal... You will learnt about the poor financial situation of cattle ranchers, environmental problems of producing meat, the expense and risk of raising chicken being left to the farmers by the major players in the chicken industry, farmers forced out of business, bacterial contamination of meat, poor treatment of employees, health problems and gastric bypass surgery. There's one last section on how people are helping to change this and the world we are living in.

These are just some of the stuff found in the book, you need to read it for more in depth information. It's quite a thick book, but don't worry, the author writes in a very engaging way and I don't find it boring at all. This is one book that will make you think again, before you glup down your next burger.

If you like you can buy "Chew on this" from amazon.