Fast Food Nation Response
Amy Magill

I have heard about this book for quite sometime now, and now finally have the chance to read it and discover why it is such an interesting piece of literature. I was extremely shocked with many of the statistics and almost all of the information presented in chapter 3, Behind the Counter. When I think of fast food chains and restaurants I wrongly presume most of the workers are immigrant and uneducated people looking for any kind of work despite the low pay and tiring lifestyle. However, although there is a handful of this population around the country, it was interesting to read that in smaller, more migrant towns such as Colorado Springs, the majority of the workers employed in the fast food chains are in fact teenagers. And from this statistic immediately derives another, which is that most industry injuries happen to this crowd because of their lack of experience in the workplace. Although this is an unfortunate statistic, it is even more unfortunate that the industry has been researching methods to save money by training employees less and less. The fast food industry has basically been molded into a restaurant business run by robots with workers needing to know how to start and stop an oven and synchronize cooking times in every restaurant throughout the country. This disgusts me and the details of how meats and meals are prepared have solidified my intention to never dine at a food chain like the ones described again.
Reading the chapter entitled The Most Dangerous Jobs gave me the chills from page one. It is ridiculous how we almost turn a blind eye to the immigrant labor force pursuing these life threatening, physically over demanding and disgusting jobs in the meat packing industry. It is extremely sad that these workers remain employed in such a job because of their need to pay bills with the extremely low, and under the table pay check they will receive and going through each day hoping to remain safe and unharmed.
Another part of this chapter that really captured my attention was how the meat was prepared and handled during the day. The image of hundreds of workers crammed together side by side in a bloody and messy environment with the slaughtering of animals in the background will probably haunt me every time I think about eating meat. It isn’t often I think about what goes into processed food and the hardships low wage workers endure to remain employed and work for such an industry.