I found reading the excerpt from Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation very illuminating. Schlosser brings up an issue that we are all somewhat aware of—American’s astounding consumption of fast food—but does so in a way that really frames the problem for what it is. Schlosser uses statistics in ways that are meaningful and helpful in assisting the reader to understand the scale we are talking about:
“The McDonald’s corporation has become a powerful symbol of America’s service economy, which is now responsible for 90 percent of the country’s new jobs… The company annually hires one million people, more than any other American organization, public or private. McDonalds is the nation’s largest purchaser of beef, pork, and potatoes” (4).
I think this excerpt aptly shows just how influential fast food companies, like McDonald’s, are in our day-to-day lives whether we realize it or not. What strikes me most about this realization of the incredible power these corporations have is the potential for enacting real change that lies in their hands. As a company of this size, there isn’t an area of the economy McDonald’s couldn’t affect. What if instead of pushing for rapid growth (e.g. 2,000 additional restaurants every year), McDonald’s started to focus on making choices that were more socially and environmentally sound? Even just changing a small thing like putting a calorie count next to each item on the menu board has the potential to facilitate widespread reform and set a precedent for other businesses to follow. In the same way that having McDonald’s be the largest employer in the U.S. is deeply frightening, it is equally exciting as, if so desired, they could create real, meaningful changes to the food system, health care, education system, you name it!
Stemming off of our video conversation, I feel like a lot of time the responsibility of the current food system gets placed on people (e.g. “People need to make healthier choices”) and while I think there is a certain amount of responsibility that should go to citizens, corporations have the actual power right now to change things for the better if they wanted. I believe that people are creatures of habit and that when it comes to it, we will chose the easy path 9/10 times. What if we could create a system where eating sustainably was the “easy path”? I think things would look a lot different.
Getting large corporations to change their habits will not be easy, and may be impossible, but still, the room for real, positive impact still remains.
Chloe, I like how you brought in our videoconference and I hope we can continue to build on these conversations each week. I also really liked your critical perspective that goes beyond advocating for individual responsibility. The role of corporations in our everyday world is certainly pervasive and even “deeply frightening”. To counter this, you begin to critical evaluate the corporate growth imperative and I would love to see you take this further in the future. Questions to consider could be: “Why growth?” “If the logic is more jobs, what quality of life does this provide?” Or a more environmental analysis could consider the ecological impact of each store and perhaps what our world would look like with less stores? What I am trying to get at here, I think, is a push beyond “How can corporations change their model to be more environmentally friendly” to “Is it possible to have fast food restaurants and healthy water, air and land?” It’s a tall order, but I do think we have the ability to reimagine these systems. And it certainly seems that we have brilliant young leaders ready to tackle the challenge. 🙂
Thank you for your thoughtful reflection!
From Louisville!
HH