Fast Food Nation: The Meatpacking Industry

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Everyone eats fast food whether it’s because they are busy, on the road, or like the food, but does anyone stop to consider what fast food industries have done to the community, the meatpacking companies, or the slaughter houses in which the food comes from. Majority of people believe these businesses moving into a town is a good concept because they bring jobs. Although it is true, Eric Schlosser takes on a different view in the book Fast Food Nation talking about how these businesses moving into a town can cause the community worse. However, there is no denying that the new businesses bring brand-new jobs to the people who live there already. The businesses may attract other people to come there causing the town to expand and make it bigger. …show more content…
Take Greeley for example. They were once a, “community of small farmers” (pg 103). The town was focused on, “agriculture, education, mutual aid, and high moral values” (pg 103). Then when Montfort got the idea to feed his cattle, grain, it ended up being an exceptional one and, “opened a small slaughterhouse” (pg 104). “The Montfort slaughter house was among the highest pay in Greeley,” causing the town of Greeley to become, “a company town, dominated by the Montfort family” (pg 104). However, over the past two decades, they, “turned one of the nation’s best-paying manufacturing jobs into the lowest-paying.” They also changed the workforce too, “poor immigrants,” who, “tolerated high injury rates” (pg 102). These caused, “rural ghettos,” to spawn, “in the American heartland,” creating, “crime, poverty, drug abuse, and homelessness” (pg 103), to pop up in towns least likely to have expected. Fast Food industries moving into a town has bad consequences too, due to the fact the franchises are trying to, “poach their teenage workers” (pg 59), from other competitors. As a result, many teenagers have jobs after school, “mainly at fast food restaurants” (pg 59). Another result of this is students don’t participate in sports or after-school activities because they are working more house to help the family cover bills or to get their own car. Therefore students, “stay at their jobs late into the night, neglect their homework, and come to school exhausted” (pg

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