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Chew on This by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson, Penguin Books, London, U.K., 2006, Paper, $8.95, 264 pages, ISBN 0-141-31844-9
Chew on This presents an exposé of the fast food industry that is hard-hitting, insightful, and welldocumented. Sub-titled "Everything You Don't Want to Know about Fast Food," the book is a popularized version of the first author's incredible bestseller Fast Food Nation. In fact, given the current addiction in our country to fast food and the consequent health problems associated with obesity, it is a book that should be in the hands of all teenagers and one that could shape their eating habits for a lifetime.
There is a brief history of fast food, starting with how the first hamburger was conceived by Charlie Nagreen at a county fair in Wisconsin in 1885, when he squeezed a meat ball between two pieces of bread so that it would not roll off people's plates as they walked around. Because of the bad reputation of ground meat as a product of scraps and harbor for all kinds of contaminants, it took a long time for this innovation to catch on with the public. A number of small restaurants began to popularize this new type of food, and today it is everywhere.
We are more familiar with the growth of McDonald's and other now-famous fast food brands that were developed by self-made men who often had little formal education and a knack for advertising and creative delivery to the public. What makes Chew on This so entertaining is the lively presentation of the history and growth of what is...