Fast Food Nation Essay Example for Free

Fast Food Nation Essay In this nation, fast food is filling up every ounce of our daily lives. An industry that started with a small innocent number of hamburger and hot dog stands has spread to every corner of the nation and the world. When we are to tired or have no time to make dinner after a long and extremely busy day, fast food restaurants is where we go to get our meals. Not only that, but fast food is now sold at airports, cruise ships, universities, high schools, elementary schools, and even hospitals. With the amount of money spend on fast food increasing every year, many Americans still are not aware or simply just do not care how our beloved fast food is prepared and how it is bad it is for our health. However, after reading the novel, â€Å"Fast Food Nation,† by Eric Schlosser, there is definitely one less American buying fast food for a long while. This book has made me disgusted with not only the food but how Americans could eat fast food with the way it is prepared. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music combined. Schlosser describes the growth of the fast food industry as being driven by fundamental changes in American society. From the 1970s onwards, with a steady decline in the hourly wage (adjusted for inflation) of the average US worker, more and more American mothers were working outside the home. In 1975, about 1/3 of US mothers with young children did this. Today, almost 2/3 of such mothers are employed. A generation ago, three-quarters of the money used to buy food in the US was spent to prepare meals at home. Today, about half of that money used to buy food is spent in restaurants mainly fast food restaurants (in 1968, McDonalds had 1,000 restaurants; today it has about 30,000, and 2,000 new ones each year). http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/schlosser-fast.html.