I've blogged a number of times about this in the past and there's just no end in sight to the Schlosser love-fest over here. "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser is definitely one of my favorite books and just earlier this week, I blogged about the newly-released trailer for the upcoming movie based upon the book.

Just this morning there was a post at ParentHacks about Schlosser's new book, "Chew On This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food" that was just released this month. Continuing on the theme of his earlier works, this is aimed at educating kids on the fast food & soda industries, the realities of meat production, junk food additives, and the poor treatment of fast food restaurant employees. His goal is to provide kids an inside look at the history of the fast food industry, and enough information to start making wiser food choices.

The arrival of this new book sharply struck a nerve with the fast food industry. More than a dozen trade groups representing producers of beef, potatoes, dairy, and snacks, along with restaurant groups, are fighting back with websites, PR campaigns, and coordinated attacks unleashed on Schlosser earlier this month. Lobbyists even protested at some of his book signings spouting baseless and absurd claims about the author such as:

"[Schlosser is] tricking young people [...] to lead them away from capitalism into his failed socialist ideology."

Oh, I'm just loving this — rather than silence the ruckus, the fast food industry's overt attacks are more likely to concentrate attention on their bad practises. And while the fast food flacks refuted Morgan Spurlock's great documentary "Super Size Me" as sensationalistic, Schlosser's books are based on hard data rather than observations, so they're not nearly so easily dismissed.

By the way, I also came across an interesting interview with Eric Schlosser over at Powells.com in which the author revealed that he's working on another investigative book — this time focusing on the federal prison system.

Labels: food