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U.S. Fast Food System - Coggle Diagram

- - - - "Every month 90 percent of children in the US eat at McDonalds" (Schlosser 262)
  - - - "Instead of relying upon small, stable well paid and well trained workforce, the fast food industry seeks unskilled workers who are willing to aceppt low pay. Teenagers are the perfect candidate" (Schlosser 68)
- - - - "But the nation's industrialized and centralized system of food processing has created a whole new sort of outbreak, one that can potentially sicken millions of people" Schlosser 195)
        
        “Every day in the United States, nearly 200,000 people are sickened by foodborne disease, 900 are hospitalized, and fourteen die. . . . Most of these cases are never reported to the authorities or properly diagnosed.”
    - - ""The cattle now packed into feedlots get little exercise and live amid pools of manure" (Schlosser 202)
  - - - “Again and again workers told me that they are under tremendous pressure not to report injuries. The annual bonuses of plant foremen and supervisors are often based in part on the injury rate of their workers. Instead of crating a safer workplace, these bonus schemes encourage slaughterhouse managers to make sure that accidents and injuries go unreported. Missing fingers, broken bones, deep lacerations and amputated limbs are difficult to conceal from authorities. But the dramatic and catastrophic injuries in a slaughterhouse are greatly outnumbered by less visible, though no less debilitating, ailments: torn muscles, slipped disks, pinched nerves.”
- - - - Interstate highways explode creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs’
- - - - "Over the last twenty years, about half a million ranchers sold off their cattle and quit the business. Many of the nation's remaining eight hundred thousand ranchers are faring poorly. They're taking second jobs. They're selling cattle at break-even prices or at a loss" (Schlosser 136)
    - - Increasingly large corporations effectively control pricing and will squeeze out those ranchers and farmers who oppose it
        
        "IBP became a meatpacking company with a fast food mentality, obsessed with throughput, efficiency, centralization, and control" (Schlosser 154)
      - Lager scale meat packing has revoloutionized the meat industry. Emphasis is on production
        style efficiency minimizing the need for skilled meat cutters and enabling the hiring of
        low skilled factory/assembly style workers to maximize profits.
        
        Large scale meat packing houses have been moved to rural communities closer to farm and feedlots saving money and time
        
        Meat packing plants have become reliant on cheap migrant workers often with wages subsidized by government funds. Poor wages and work conditions result in high turnover that helps keep labor costs low as wage increases are minimal with few long term employees. Fewer long term employees helps minimze union organizing efforts
        
        Large scale meat packing has changed the culture of many small towns economically and socially
        
        High rates of workplace injury, poor working conditions and have lead meat packing plants to be labelled one of the most dangerous professions in the US
        
        Mass produced food has also contributed to mass outbreaks of foodborne illnesses and epidemics
        
        Despite the 1906 Meat Inspection Act to help limit unsafe meat production several legislated changes have continued to erode efforts to help confirm better, safer meat packing for public consumption.
        
        1996 US President Clinton administration allowed meat packing companies to assume most of the responsability for food inspection and limited the the powers of federal inspectors
- - - - "Fast food chains are frequently sued by franchisees who are upset about encroachment, inflated prices charged by suppliers, bankruptcies and terminations that seem unfair."
        (Schlosser 100)
        
        “As franchises and chain stores opened across the United States, driving along a retail strip became a shopping experience much like strolling down the aisle of a supermarket. Instead of pulling something off the shelf, you pulled into a driveway. The distinctive architecture of each chain became its packaging.”