Schlosser writes that “the whole experience of buying fast food has become so routine, so thoroughly unexceptional and mundane, it is now taken for granted, like brushing your teeth or stopping for a red light” (Fast Food Nation, p.3). I was blown away by the statistics he quoted in the introduction to Fast Food Nation, completely unaware of just how strong of a grip McDonald’s had over not only the food culture of the United States, but the economy, political decisions, and general “American” culture as well. This kind of cultural power is unbelievable, although his argument that “a nation’s diet can be more revealing than its art or literature” is something that immediately made sense to me in the context of his examples (p.3).

However, what stuck out to me the most about this week’s readings was the contrast between how I related to this description from Schlosser, detailing the fast food culture and products that are manufactured, not grown, and how I related to Bill McKibben’s descriptions of Middlebury College, Vermont country fairs, and even Kirk Webster’s delicious honey. The experience of buying fast food is largely unfamiliar to me, whereas I could personally relate to many of McKibben’s descriptions. I remember going to the Champlain Valley Fair as a child, usually within the first few days after opening so that my parents could admire the locally-grown vegetables entered in the competitions in the large, red farm barn. More recently, as recently as this morning, I’ve tasted the truly delicious honey produced by Kirk. Living in the local food house on campus has many perks, of which the spoonfuls of golden honey from one of Kirk’s thirty-pound buckets are much appreciated! I could relate to McKibben’s description of the joy in producing food, and his explanation of how beekeeping is highly skilled farm labor, very different from the unskilled work in fast food production. Reading the articles by Schlosser and McKibben back to back made me realize just how much my relationship to food has been shaped by both my parents’ refusal to buy fast food for my sister and I when I was a child, the accessibility of other food options in my Vermont community, and my experiences working on a vegetable farm.

Despite the fact that personally, I identified much more strongly with the experiences outlined in McKibben than in Schlosser, Schlosser’s main point that fast food represents a “distinctively American way of viewing the world” really struck home (p. 9). When I think of my own experiences with fast food, and McDonald’s in particular, I actually think of my semester abroad in Ecuador. I visited a McDonald’s more times while there, in a foreign country, that I ever had in the United States, because that was the go-to (along with Oreo’s, another unhealthy, packaged food) among the students I was studying with when we were homesick and needed something easy and familiar while adjusting to our new home. I think this is very telling, that fast food was, even for someone who had rarely eaten it in the US, the familiar, not only in terms of the actual food being served but also in the culture and customs surrounding the meal. The quick process of ordering at the counter was different from many of the other meals I ate in Ecuador, in which the whole family spent all afternoon preparing a meal and then eating together.

Taking all of these experiences and thoughts into consideration, I think first that Schlosser is right in how strongly fast food culture influences life in the United States today. I envy other countries with a food culture based around an educated consumer, or family meals, or local specialties, but McDonald’s influences many links in the food system, which in turn influence other areas of culture. However, I think McKibben’s piece offers us hope within this system through the story of Kirk and his production methods. He brings a personal, educated, skilled, and intentional attitude towards food production, very different from the minimum wage jobs that involve unskilled, repetitive labor and “manufacturing” flavors and scents versus growing food. Can we make this type of work, and/or the food products that result from it, more available to communities in the US? In comparison with Schlosser’s argument, my food experiences are the unusual, and I know issues of accessibility and food justice play a large role in this. So if we do can change these aspects of our food system, can we change our whole food culture, and the “distinctly American way of viewing the world” that it represents?