Fast Food Nation Quotes

Eric Schlosser's book on the economy and strategies of the fast-food business should be read by anyone who likes to take their children to fast-food restaurants. I shall certainly never do that again. He employs a long, cold burn, a quiet and impassioned accumulation of detail, with calm, wit and clarity. ( ... ) Fast Food Nation is witness to the rigour and seriousness of the best American journalism, readable, reliable and extremely carefully done. ~ Adam Nicolson

The problem with living in a fast-food nation is that we expect food to be cheap. ~ Alice Waters

The fact that most kids aren't eating at home with their families any more really means they are eating elsewhere. They are eating out there in fast food nation. ~ Alice Waters

Right afterward I read Fast Food Nation. That book changed my life: It made me a vegetarian. ~ Amber Tamblyn

The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization. ~ Ray Kroc

'Fast Food Nation' appeared as an article in 'Rolling Stone' before it was a book, so I was extending it from the article, and by that time, everyone could read the article. ~ Eric Schlosser

'Fast Food Nation' was boring and aimed at yuppies, and yuppies don't eat fast food. ~ Lloyd Kaufman

The United States now has more prison inmates than full-time farmers. ~ Eric Schlosser

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 walk out 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' isn't about my journey into the dark world of fast food and the prison book is not about my journey into the prison world. I'm not using myself as any kind of narrative link. ~ Eric Schlosser

Twenty years ago, teenage boys in the United States drank twice as much milk as soda; now they drink twice as much soda as milk. ~ Eric Schlosser

Compulsion was a key element in Leningrad's survival, as in that of Stalin's nation. If the city's inhabitants had been offered an exchange of surrender for food in February 1942, they assuredly would have given ~ Max Hastings

Every single day we sit down to eat, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and at our table we have food that was planted, picked, or harvested by a farm worker. Why is it that the people who do the most sacred work in our nation are the most oppressed, the most exploited? ~ Dolores Huerta

Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer ... Who'd have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously? ~ Bill Watterson

They" hate us because they feel--and "they" are not wrong--that it is within our power to do so much more, and that we practice a kind of passive-aggressive violence on the Third World. We do this by, for example, demonizing tobacco as poison here while promoting cigarettes in Asia; inflating produce prices by paying farmers not to grow food as millions go hungry worldwide; skimping on quality and then imposing tariffs on foreign products made better or cheaper than our own; padding corporate profits through Third World sweatshops; letting drug companies stand by as millions die of AIDS in Africa to keep prices up on lifesaving drugs; and on and on.

We do, upon reaching a very high comfort level, mostly choose to go from ten to eleven instead of helping another guy far away go from zero to one.

We even do it in our own country. Barbara Ehrenreich's brilliant book Nickel and Dimed describes the impossibility of living with dignity or comfort as one of the millions of minimum-wage workers in fast food, aisle-stocking and table-waiting jobs. Their labor for next to nothing ensures that well-off people can be a little more pampered.

So if we do it to our own, what chance do foreigners have? ~ Bill Maher

One of the essential problems for education is that most countries subject their schools to the fast-food model of quality assurance when they should be adopting the Michelin model instead. The future for education is not in standardizing but in customizing; not in promoting groupthink and "deindividuation" but in cultivating the real depth and dynamism of human abilities of every sort. ~ Ken Robinson

I was in a fast-food restaurant for the first time in my adult life, an enormous and garish place just around the corner from the music venue. It was mystifyingly, inexplicably busy. I wondered why humans would willingly queue at a counter to request processed food, then carry it to a table which was not even set, and then eat it from the paper? Afterward, despite having paid for it, the customer themselves are responsible for clearing away the detritus. Very strange. ~ Gail Honeyman

In our fast-forward culture, we have lost the art of eating well. Food is often little more than fuel to pour down the hatch while doing other stuff - surfing the Web, driving, walking along the street. Dining al desko is now the norm in many workplaces. All of this speed takes a toll. Obesity, eating disorders and poor nutrition are rife. ~ Carl Honore

New Rule: Americans have to come up with a better cheese to represent the nation than American cheese. I'm not even sure American cheese is cheese. I think it's aged Jell-O. And it doesn't need to be individually wrapped in plastic, either. You're thinking of condoms. ~ Bill Maher

The medieval church imposed fast days on which sexual intercourse and the eating of flesh were forbidden, but eating "cold" foods was permitted. because fish came from water, it was deemed cold, as were waterfowl and whale, but meat was considered hot food. ~ Mark Kurlansky

You need to be healthy. You don't need to be thin. You don't need to be a certain size or shape or look good in a bikini. You need to be able to run without feeling like you're going to puke. You need to be able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. You need to drink half your body weight in ounces of water every single day. You need to stretch and get good sleep and stop medicating every ache and pain. You need to stop filling your body with garbage like Diet Coke and fast food and lattes that are a million and a half calories. You need to take in fuel for you body that hasn't been processed and fuel for you mind that is positive and encouraging. You need to get up off the sofa or out of the bed and move around. Get out of the fog that you have been living in and see your life for what it is. ~ Rachel Hollis

I'm not really a chicken-patty kinda girl, I said. ~ Rhoda Janzen

Over the past month, Muslims have fasted, taking no food or water during daylight hours, in order to refocus their minds on faith and redirect their hearts to charity. Muslims worldwide have stretched out a hand of mercy to those in need. Charity tables at which the poor can break their fast line the streets of cities and towns. And gifts of food and clothing and money are distributed to ensure that all share in God's abundance. Muslims often invite members of other families to their evening iftar meals, demonstrating a spirit of tolerance. ~ George W. Bush

Everything on the radio is crap ... It's fast food for your ears. It doesn't make you think. It isn't even about anything - not anything real. Don't you think music should say something? ~ Hannah Harrington

Shergahn and friend lay like poleaxed steers, and the Daranfelian's greasy hair was thick with potatoes, carrots, gravy, and chunks of beef. His companion had less stew in his hair, but an equally large lump was rising fast, and Brandark flipped his improvised club into the air, caught it in proper dipping position, and filled it once more from the pot without even glancing at them. He raised the ladle to his nose, inhaled deeply, and glanced at the cook with an impudent twitch of his ears.
"Smells delicious," he said while the laughter started up all around the fire. "I imagine a bellyful of this should help a hungry man sleep. Why, just look what a single ladle of it did for Shergahn! ~ David Weber

Once settled on another planet, colonists would likely start with hydroponic farming, using small-stature or dwarf cultivars that can be tightly packed together. It would make the most sense to plant fast-cycle salad crops first, says Jean Hunter, a professor at Cornell who studies food-processing and waste-management systems for long-term living away from Earth. ~ Anonymous

I pictured the world. I pictured the world millions of years ago, with crazy clouds of gas everywhere, and volcanoes, and the continents bumping into each other and then drifting apart. Okay. Now life begins. … There are animals, then humans, looking almost all alike. There are tiny differences in color, the shape of the face, the tone of the skin. But basically they are the same. They create shelters, grow food, experiment. They talk; they write things down.

Now fast-forward. The earth is still making loops around the sun. There are humans all over the place, driving in cars and flying in airplanes. And then one day one human tells another human that he doesn't want to walk to school with her anymore.

'Does it really matter?' I asked myself.

It did. ~ Rebecca Stead

Every sixty seconds, thirty acres of rain forest are destroyed in order to raise beef for fast-food restaurants that sell it to people, giving them strokes and heart attacks, which raise medical costs and insurance rates, providing insurance companies with more money to invest in large corporations that branch out further into the Third World so they can destroy more rain forests. ~ George Carlin

There wasn't even a movie theater in the town. Nothing. Not even any fast food chains of any kind. Regardless, I knew that I was going to leave and become an actor, and be in film and television, and I've done it. ~ Kristen Hager

Corn syrup and added fats have been outed as major ingredients in fast food, but they hide out in packaged foods too, even presumed-innocent ones like crackers. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

When I wrote 'Fast Food My Way' in 2004, I hoped that my friends would prepare my recipes. Now, more people cook from that book than any other I've written in the past 30 years. ~ Jacques Pepin

Here's to the security guards who maybe had a degree in another land. Here's to the manicurist who had to leave her family to come here, painting the nails, scrubbing the feet of strangers. Here's to the janitors who don't understand English yet work hard despite it all. Here's to the fast food workers who work hard to see their family smile. Here's to the laundry man at the Marriott who told me with the sparkle in his eyes how he was an engineer in Peru. Here's to the bus driver, the Turkish Sufi who almost danced when I quoted Rumi. Here's to the harvesters who live in fear of being deported for coming here to open the road for their future generation. Here's to the taxi drivers from Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and India who gossip amongst themselves. Here is to them waking up at 4am, calling home to hear the voices of their loved ones. Here is to their children, to the children who despite it all become artists, writers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, activists and rebels. Here's to international money transfer. For never forgetting home. Here's to their children who carry the heartbeats of their motherland and even in sleep, speak with pride about their fathers. Keep on. ~ Ijeoma Umebinyuo

Michelle: It wasn't my house. It was owned by a brownie couple who owned it and rented out suites. There were a few long-term renters, like me, but it also functioned as a bed and breakfast to people and magical creatures passing through. A renter, like myself, was entitled to two meals a day, which made up for the microscopic kitchen. Being something of an indifferent or terrible cook, those kept me from eating fast food every day. I walked inside, barely pausing to wipe my feet on the mat. I swung to the right and stumbled into the dining room, hardly looking at the long table or who might be at it. I made a bee-line for the tea and slurped down half a mug. The hot, caffeinated beverage forced my eyes open and gave my movement some energy. While topping off my mug, I looked around and saw two unicorns, a dwarf and five shifters. ~ N.E. Conneely

I couldn't open up a magazine, you couldn't read a newspaper, you couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about the obesity epidemic in America. ~ Morgan Spurlock

Consider also James 4:17. "Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin." Few of us can claim ignorance about good nutrition. With so many resources available, we have some idea what healthy eating looks like. We certainly have access to information about what is unhealthy. For instance, most of us know the dangers of fast food and desserts, but we eat them in excess in the name of convenience. We know eating leafy green vegetables is healthier than eating french fries and fresh fruit is better for us than processed sugary desserts. ~ Sheri Summers Hunt

In this country, the health concerns and the environmental concerns are as deep as in Europe. All the surveys show that. But here, we didn't have the cultural dimension. This is a fast-food culture. ~ Jeremy Rifkin

Food of Love
Eating is touch carried to the bitter end. -Samuel Butler II

I'm going to murder you with love;
I'm going to suffocate you with embraces;
I'm going to hug you, bone by bone,
Till you're dead all over.
Then I will dine on your delectable marrow.

You will become my personal Sahara;
I'll sun myself in you, then with one swallow
Drain you remaining brackish well.
With my female blade I'll carve my name
In your most aspiring palm
Before I chop it down.
Then I'll inhale your last oasis whole.

But in the total desert you become
You'll see me stretch, horizon to horizon,
Opulent mirage!
Wisteria balconies dripping cyclamen.
Vistas ablaze with crystal, laced in gold.

So you will summon each dry grain of sand
And move towards me in undulating dunes
Till you arrive at sudden ultramarine:
A Mediterranean to stroke your dusty shores;
Obstinate verdue, creeping inland, fast renudes
Your barrens; succulents spring up everywhere,
Surprising life! And I will be that green.

When you are fed and watered, flourishing
With shoots entwining trellis, dome and spire,
Till you are resurrected field in bloom,
I will devour you, my natural food,
My host, my final supper on the earth,
And you'll begin to die again. ~ Carolyn Kizer

Walking was a habit he'd been unwilling to give up. He couldn't see the point in shutting himself up in a vehivle any more often than he had to, doing damage to the earth and the air in order to avoid using his body.
People did just that all the time, though. Most claimed they needed to save time. It was true they had little enough of that-- their lives were so soon ended. But Nathan didn't see them treating time as precious otherwise. They'd sit in their cars at a fast-food place for fifteen minutes when it would be quicker to park and go inside.
No, he blamed the modern culture of urgency. Only the most urgent sensations, emotions, and situations were considered important. They called it living life to the fullest. Not surprisingly, many sought numbness in alcohol or the pervasive voyeurism of reality TV while others tried to live a perpetual peak experience through drugs, sex, or celebrity. Ordinary lives, ordinary living had little value.
Nathan thought people needed to wash dishes by hand sometimes. Prepare their own meals more often. And take walks. ~ Eileen Wilks

I'm famous for splurging at fast-food places. I'm currently obsessed with Taco Bell's bean and cheese burritos with extra green sauce and extra cheese. Gluttony! ~ Fergie

I went to a state school in Christchurch, New Zealand, and then straight on to the University of Canterbury. But I worked part-time all the way through high school: first with a paper round, then at a fast-food outlet, a video store and a hardware store. ~ Eleanor Catton

I don't really eat a lot of fast food, ever, but if I had to eat at one fast food restaurant, it'd be In-N-Out. ~ David Henrie

The current fast food fuss obscures the reality that such foods are ancient. Fried kibbeh, sausages, olives, nuts, small pizzas, and flat breads have been sold on the streets of Middle Eastern and North African cities for a cycle of centuries; Marco Polo reported barbequed meats, deep-fried delicacies, and even roast lamb for sale in Chinese markets. ~ Kenneth F. Kiple

To me, fast food is when a cheetah eats an antelope. ~ George Carlin

I honestly try not to eat a whole lot of fast food, so it wouldn't kill me to drop it all together. ~ Matt Lanter

Elect from every nation,
Yet one o'er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued. ~ Samuel J. Stone

I will not eat Craster's food, he decided suddenly. "I broke my fast with the men, my lord." Jon shooed the raven off Longclaw. The bird hopped back to Mormont's shoulder, where it promptly shat. "You might have done that on Snow instead of saving it for me," the Old Bear grumbled. The raven quorked. ~ George R R Martin

What I've been developing is a vegan fast food chain and vegan food markets. ~ Heather Mills

l'after-shave, le badge, le barbeque, le best-seller, le blue-jean, le blues, le bluff, le box-office, le break, le bridge, le bulldozer, le business, le cake, la call-girl, le cashflow, le check-in, le chewing-gum, le club, le cocktail, la cover-girl, le cover-story, le dancing, le design, le discount, le do-it-yourself, le doping, le fan, le fast-food, le feedback, le freezer, le gadget, le gangster, le gay, le hall, le handicap, le hold-up, le jogging, l'interview, le joker, le kidnapping, le kit, le knock-out, le label, le leader, le look, le manager, le marketing, le must, les news, le parking, le pickpocket, le pipeline, le planning, le playboy, le prime time, le pub, le puzzle, se relaxer, le self-service, le software, le snack, le slogan, le steak, le stress, le sweatshirt, le toaster and le week-end. ~ Alexis Munier

Electronic culture created soulless replacements for connective rituals- television supplanted tribal legends told by the fire; 'fast food' consumed in distraction took the place of a shared meal. We substituted matter for Mater (feminine principle), money for mother's milk, objects for emotional bonds. ~ Daniel Pinchbeck

Much of what is today called "social criticism" consists of members of the upper classes denouncing the tastes of the lower classes (bawdy entertainment, fast food, plentiful consumer goods) while considering themselves egalitarians. ~ Steven Pinker

Most of the human body disease such as Obesity, Cancer, Heart disease are linked with our food which we eat in our day to day life. If people are eating health food than how come there be more than 50% death from heart and cancer disease alone in a developed nation such as USA? ~ Subodh Gupta

I've teamed up with one of the headmasters at Eton College, and we're spearheading a kind of 'slow education movement in Britain'. It's based on this idea of moving away from the fast-food approach to learning and going to something deeper, more woolly, harder to measure. ~ Carl Honore

Gary Robinson died hungry.

He wanted fried chicken, the three-piece box for $2.19. Drunk, loud, and obnoxious, he pushed ahead of seven customers on line at a fast-food chicken outlet. The counter girl told him that his behavior was impolite. She calmed him down with sweet talk, and he agreed to step to the end of the line. His turn came just before closing time, just after the fried chicken ran out.

He punched the counter girl so hard her ears rang, and a security guard shot him - three times. ~ Edna Buchanan

My generation was weaned on subliminal advertising, stupid television, slasher movies, insipid grocery-store literature, MTV, VCRs, fast food, infomercials, glossy ads, diet aids, plastic surgery, a pop culture wherein the hyper-cool, blank-eyed supermodel was a hero. This is the intellectual and emotional equivalent of eating nothing but candy bars – you get malnourished and tired. We grew up in a world in which the surface of the thing is infinitely more important than its substance – and where the surface of the thing had to be "perfect," urbane, sophisticated, blasé, adult. I would suggest that if you grow up trying constantly to be an adult, a successful adult, you will be sick of being grown up by the time you're old enough to drink. ~ Marya Hornbacher

Both the ferial and the festal cuisine, therefore, must be seen as styles of unabashed eating. Neither attempts to do anything to food other than render it delectable. Their distinction is grounded, not in sordid dietetic tricks, but in a choice between honest frugality or generous expense. Both aim only at excellence; accordingly, neither is suitable for dieting. Should a true man want to lose weight, let him fast. Let him sit down to nothing but coffee and conversation, if religion or reason bid him to do so; only let him not try to eat his cake without having it. Any cake he could do that with would be a pretty spooky proposition - a little golden calf with dietetic icing, and no taste at all worth having.

Let us fast, then - whenever we see fit, and as strenuously as we should. But having gotten that exercise out of the way, let us eat. Festally, first of all, for life without occasions is not worth living. But ferially, too, for life is so much more than occasions, and its grand ordinariness must never go unsavored. But both ways let us eat with a glad good will, and with a conscience formed by considerations of excellence, not by fear of Ghosts. ~ Robert Farrar Capon