Eric Schlosser, "Global Realization"

In his award-winning article, "In the Strawberry Fields," the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser focuses attention on workers' rights by recounting the tale of how strawberries make their way from the fields to the supermarket, exposing in the process the industry's reliance on illegal immigrants. In Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (2001), Schlosser pursues a similar approach by telling the story of how the Big Mac and other fast-food products find their way into the hands of consumers around the world. Who makes this food? Under what conditions? What societal, environmental, and economic changes have been produced by the shift in American eating habits? What are the long-term consequences of the "Americanization" of eating habits around the globe? These are the questions that animate Fast Food Nation, Schlosser's book length study of the fast-food industry.

In criticizing the place that fast food has come to occupy in the American diet, Schlosser aims to go beyond complaining about the architectural tackiness of fast-food restaurants and the blandness of the food--arguments most readers would find unsurprising and could, at any rate, generate on their own. Schlosser's concerns, rather, are with how the fast-food industry treats its workers, what's in the food that those workers sell, and the dramatic changes America's new eating habits have produced in the agricultural industry. In raising these issues, Schlosser means to promote an alternative future, one where people are fed by a "sustainable and largely deindustrialized agriculture, regional production and fast-food restaurants that are locally owned and somehow connected in a real way to the places where they operate." In "Global Realization," Schlosser detail ongoing efforts to make certain that food looks and tastes the same the world over and the counter-efforts of those who would resist such efforts to globalize American standards of consumption. Acknowledging that "it's very hard to get readers to care about these subjects," Schlosser nevertheless believes that it is his responsibility to try "to give a voice to people outside of the mainstream."

Schlosser, Eric. "Global Realization," Fast Food Nation: The Dark Site of the All-American Meal. (Houghton-Mifflin, 2000.)
Digital image drawn from Bill Goldstein's interview with Eric Schlosser. New York Times on the Web Jan 18,2001.
Quotations from The Nation's interview with Eric Schlosser interview by Patricia Chuui and Julia Livshin's interview with Eric Schlosser in The Atlantic Dec 14, 2000.

Links to Explore:

Interview with Eric Schlosser: includes a discussion of how Schlosser became interested in studying the fast food industry and his thoughts about how the industry might be changed for the better. Includes a link to "In the Strawberry Fields," Schlosser's award-winning investigative report on migrant labor in California.

McDonald's Home Page: includes links to the company's vision statement, its official statement of employee expectations, and its statement of commitment to its employees.

McSpotlight: site devoted to offering an "alternative" to McDonald's glossy self-promotional campaign, includes links to the McLibel trial and the most recent news about protests against the spread of McDonald's, and a discussion of globalization beyond McDonald's.

The Interactive Healthy Eating Index: this site allows you to monitor your daily food intake to measure how well your diet compares with the recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and The Food Guide Pyramid.

Questions for Learning:

• In Julia Livshin's interview with Eric Schlosser, Schlosser describes how he went from writing about migrant laborers to studying the fast food industry. What's the connection between people who pick strawberries in California and people who flip burgers?
  
  
• While Schlosser was completing his research for Fast Food Nation, he reports that he made repeated attempts to contact McDonalds to discuss his findings. "I was unable to get a single question answered after weeks of calling them, e-mailing them, and faxing them," he told Julia Livshin during an interview. "It was what I imagine it must have been like dealing with the old Communist Party bureaucrats. Can the McDonald's Corporation remake itself into a company that behaves ethically, has a stronger social conscience, and changes its menu?" After you visit the McDonald's Home Page and the related links, would you say there's evidence that Schlosser's critique has been heard?
  
  
• Schlosser's chapter ends with a discussion of the McLibel trial and its outcome. What is the alternative that those waging a battle against McDonald's, in particular, and globalization, more generally, propose? If we are not to live in a world organized and controlled by corporations, how is our food supposed to be produced and distributed?
  
  
• After you've logged in to The Interactive Healthy Eating Index, entered today's diet, and assessed the nutritional value of the food you've consumed over the past 24 hours, what have you learned? What does this interactive site assume about your diet? What foods does it imagine typical users consuming? What foods does it leave off that might that you or people you know regularly consume?

Questions for Connecting:

• James Scott describes the strategies that the disempowered draw on to combat those in positions of authority. Does his theory of resistance account for the actions of Helen Steel and Dave Morris? Were they resisting a form of domination or complying with it when they refused to settle the case brought against them by McDonalds? Is law-abiding resistance a meaningful act when one is combating the forces of globalization?

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