Fast Food Nation by Chamberlain Chance

Workforce

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-19 18:55:26 UTC

"Teenagers have been the perfect candidates for these jobs, not only because they are less expensive than adults, but also because their youthful inexperience makes them easier to control."

Workforce

leipham5379 — 2015-02-19 18:58:30 UTC

"A McDonald's kitchen is full of buzzers and flashing lights telling the employees what to do. At the front counter, computerized cash registers issue their own commands."

Workforce

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-19 18:58:36 UTC

"The fast-food industry employs some of the most disadvantaged members of American society."

Workforce

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-19 19:01:08 UTC

"Many (immigrant fast food workers) know only the names of the items on the menu; they speak "McDonald's English"."

Franchises

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-24 18:40:56 UTC

"Today it costs about $1.5 million to become a franchisee..."

Franchises

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-24 18:42:52 UTC

"In 1998 the IFA (International Franchise Association) claimed that 92 percent of all franchisees said they were "successful". The survey was based on a somewhat limited sample: franchisees who were still in business."

Franchises

leipham5379 — 2015-02-24 18:46:03 UTC

"Ralston-Purina once terminated the contracts of 642 Jack in the Box franchises, giving them just 30 days to move out."

Franchises

2015-02-24 18:49:03 UTC

The IFA has hired Allen Coffey, Jr., the former general counsel of the House Judiciary Committee, and Andy Ireland, a former Republican congressman who was the ranking member of the House Small Business committee, to help thwart greater federal regulation of franchising.

Franchises

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-24 18:50:38 UTC

"It is perfectly legal under federal law for a fast food chain to take kickbacks (known as "rebates") from its suppliers, to open a new restaurant next door to an existing franchisee, and evict a franchise without giving cause or paying any compensation"

Franchises

leipham5379 — 2015-02-24 18:51:02 UTC

Subway agents that have a main focus of selling franchises have to pay Subway part of their paycheck if they do not meet their monthly sales quota. It is said the Subway is "Almost as geared to sell franchises as they are geared to sell sandwiches."

Workforce

leipham5379 — 2015-02-24 19:00:07 UTC

"Roughly 30-50 percent of Subway's new franchisees are immigrants, many of whom are not fluent in English. In order to earn a decent living, they must often work sixty to seventy hours a week and bu more than one Subway."

Workforce

2015-02-24 19:01:48 UTC

"No other industry in the US has a workforce so dominated by adolescents. About 2/3 of the the nation's fast food workers are under the age of 20."

Franchises

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-24 19:02:57 UTC

For more than three decades the fast food industry has used the Small Business Administration (SBA) to finance new restaurants - thereby turning a federal agency that was created to make independent, small businesses into one that eliminates them.

Franchises

leipham5379 — 2015-02-24 19:05:18 UTC

"In 1996, The SBA (Small Business Administration) guaranteed almost $1 billion dollars in loans to new franchises. Almost six hundred new fast food restaurants, representing 52 different fast food chains, were launched in 1996 with the help of government-backed loans.

French Fries

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-25 18:55:56 UTC

It (Lamb Weston Plants) is a state-of-the-art processing facility where raw commodities and man made activities are combined to make America's most popular food.

Franchises

2015-02-25 18:57:12 UTC

"The strict regimentation at fast food restaurants creates standardized products"

French Fries/Ingredients

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-25 18:59:25 UTC

The Lamb Water Gun Knife uses a high pressure hose to shoot potatoes at a speed of 117 feet per second through a grid of sharpened steel blades, thereby creating perfectly sliced french fries.

French Fries

2015-02-25 19:02:50 UTC

James Beard loved McDonald's fries

French Fries

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-26 18:30:37 UTC

For decades, McDonald's cooked its french fries in a mixture of about 7 percent cottonseed oil and 93 percent beef tallow.

French Fries

2015-02-26 18:31:31 UTC

Amid a barrage of criticism over the amount of cholesterol in their fries, McDonald's switched to pure vegetable oil in 1990.

Workforce

2015-02-26 18:33:53 UTC

"Throughput is all about increasing the speed of assembly, about doing things faster in order to make more"

Workforce

2015-02-26 18:38:21 UTC

"The ovens at Pizza Hut and Domino's also use conveyor belts to ensure standardized cooking"

Workforce

2015-02-26 18:41:04 UTC

Even the managers and assistant managers are sometimes in their late 20's.

Workforce

2015-02-26 18:43:05 UTC

Instead of relying on a small stable well paid well trained workforce, the fast food industry seeks out part time, underskilled, teenagers who accept the low pay.

French Fries

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-26 18:49:31 UTC

At the end of the list is a seemingly innocuous, yet oddly mysterious phrase: "natural flavor".

Ingredients/Flavors

2015-02-26 18:51:02 UTC

The fast food chains, understandably, would like the public to believe that the flavors of their food somehow originate in their restaurant kitchens, not in distant factories run by other firms.

Flavor

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-26 18:52:11 UTC

Both (natural flavor and artificial flavor) are man made additives that gives most processed food its taste.

Ingredients/Flavors

leipham5379 — 2015-02-26 18:52:41 UTC

The FDA does not require flavor companies to disclose the ingredients in their additives, so long as all the chemicals are considered by the agency to be GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe).

Flavors

2015-02-26 18:54:03 UTC

The New Jersey Turnpike runs through the heart of the flavor industry, an industrial corridor dotted with refineries and chemical plants.

Processed Food/Flavors

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-26 18:54:40 UTC

About 90 percent of the money that Americans spend on food is used to buy processed food.

Ingredients/Flavor

2015-02-26 18:56:51 UTC

Before entering the plant, I signed a nondisclosure form, promising not to reveal the brand names of products that contain IFF flavors. The place reminded me of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

Ingredients/Flavors

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-26 18:57:04 UTC

The flavor industry is highly secretive. Its leading companies will not divulge the precise formulas of flavor compounds or the identities of clients. The secrecy is deemed essential for protecting the reputation of beloved brands.

Ingredients

leipham5379 — 2015-02-26 18:58:44 UTC

The possibilities are now almost endless. Without affecting appearance or nutritional value, processed foods could even be made with aroma chemicals such as hexanal (the smell of fresh cut grass) or 3-methyl butanoic acid (the smell of body odor).

Workforce

2015-02-26 19:00:29 UTC

A job at a fast food restaurant iis meant to be left behind to move onto better things

Ingredients/Flavor

chamberlain5275 — 2015-02-26 19:02:07 UTC

The bottles contained powerful but fragile flavor chemicals, shielded from the light by the brown glass and the round plastic caps shut tight. The long chemical names on the little white labels were as mystifying to me as medieval Latin.

Ingredients/Flavor

2015-02-26 19:02:11 UTC

IFF's snack and savory lab is responsible for the flavor of potato chips, corn chips, breads, crackers, breakfast cereals, and pet food. The confectionery lab devises ice cream, cookies, candies, toothpastes , mouthwashes, and antacids.

Flavors

leipham5379 — 2015-02-26 19:04:06 UTC

Natural flavors are not always better for you than artificial flavors. When an almond flavor is derived from natural sources, such as peach and apricot pits, it contains traces of hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison.

Solutuions

chamberlain5275 — 2015-03-02 14:41:49 UTC

Although increasing the price of food may be an unpopular solution, I think that an increase in price could lead to an increase in food quality which could end up in a decrease of investigations on the processing and chemical making of the food.

Solutions

chamberlain5275 — 2015-03-02 17:04:12 UTC

With the workforce of the fast food industry being mostly made up of immigrant workers and teenagers the safety laws need to be more strict to provide safety and security within the job area.

Solutions

chamberlain5275 — 2015-03-02 17:10:07 UTC

I think that the franchise industry needs some restrictions. There should be a radius of a certain distance apart that new franchises have to obey to be able to open a new chain so there is enough space between them so every chain gets its business.

Solutions

2015-03-02 18:46:10 UTC

“The United States now has more prison inmates than full-time farmers.”

Solutions

leipham5379 — 2015-03-02 18:47:08 UTC

The FDA needs to set stricter guidelines on the ingredients which are allowed to be used in fast food. Doing this will cause a better and safer feeling for the customers while eating these products. That will in turn increase the nutritional value of the food and potentially boost the amount of people that eat fast food.

Solutions

chamberlain5275 — 2015-03-02 18:51:39 UTC

As an individual I could spread awareness of the wickedness of the large corporations. The facts about McDonald's overrunning the small farming industries and them chemically making food and having almost nonexistent safety regulations will surely scare consumers into doubting the fast food industry.

Solutions

chamberlain5275 — 2015-03-02 18:56:44 UTC

Sit in protests within the franchise stores and when customers come in you could inform them of all of the wrong doings of the company to persuade a protest against them.