Status
Call number
Genres
Publication
Description
Health & Fitness. Young Adult Nonfiction. HTML: Kids love fast food. And the fast food industry definitely loves kids. It couldn't survive without them. Did you know that the biggest toy company in the world is McDonald's? It's true. In fact, one out of every three toys given to a child in the United States each year is from a fast food restaurant. Not only has fast food reached into the toy industry, it's moving into our schools. One out of every five public schools in the United States now serves brand name fast food. But do kids know what they're eating? Where do fast food hamburgers come from? And what makes those fries taste so good? When Eric Schlosser's best-selling book, Fast Food Nation, was published for adults in 2001, many called for his groundbreaking insight to be shared with young people. Now Schlosser, along with co-writer Charles Wilson, has investigated the subject further, uncovering new facts children need to know. In Chew On This, they share with kids the fascinating and sometimes frightening truth about what lurks between those sesame seed buns, what a chicken 'nugget' really is, and how the fast food industry has been feeding off children for generations..… (more)
User reviews
The narrative is engaging, but seemed jarring at times when the second person was used.
Chew on This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food takes you behind closed doors, in factories, and to the places where fast food began. The reader is given the opportunity to look at some of the most popular fast food chains in America. So if you’re wondering why fast food
Personal Reaction:
I was kind of grossed out by some of the stuff I read in this book. Chew on This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food was like a good horror movie I just couldn’t stop reading it. I knew that I wasn’t going to like everything in this book, but it was so well written that I had to read it to the end.
Extension Ideas:
1. This book would be a wonderful tool in the fight for healthier eating habits for children. In the classroom, I can have my students tell me what they think is in pop.
2. I can show my students some of the photos in the book that show the negative effects of fast food on a person’s body. Then I can have my students tell me ways that these photos can and could be avoided.
The other information in here covers advertising, the history of the fast-food industry (and McDonald's in particular, of course), effects of junk food on the body, a case study of a boy who had gastric bypass surgery at 16, and an inside look at slaughterhouses. It's a lot to cover.
The book is at a middle-school level, and was largely taken from Fast-Food Nation. Unfortunately, this leads to a somewhat disorganized text, jumping from topic to topic and back. Still worth reading for middle schoolers, but leaves a bit to be desired.
Reviewed by Mr. Monette
Other than that, I loved this book. It really focuses on the fact that fast food is marketed primarily towards children, in ways that I hadn’t really thought of before. I knew my kids like McDonald’s because of the Happy Meal toys and the Play Places but I never realized how calculated all the marketing was to be geared toward children, who would then drag their parents and grandparents to the fast food restaurants with them. I’m so naive!
It also discussed the practices of factory farming of which most kids are probably not aware. I also appreciated the discussion of how they make fast food taste good – all the artificial ingredients and so forth.
I was hoping that this book would turn my son off of fast food but I didn’t get that lucky. However, I think the ideas in this book will continue to rattle around in his head and when he gets a little older his food choices will be affected by what he learned in this book. I was certainly turned off of fast food after reading this book! I highly recommend this book. It would be a great book for a family book club that could be the jumping off point for a family discussion about the family’s food choices – I enjoyed discussing this book with my son quite a bit.
Chew On This had to cut out a lot of what was
A good read.
From reading this book it has changed my opinion about fast food and soda. I never ever want to eat fast food ever again now that I know what is inside of those burgers and how they cook the food. The reason for this is the diseases. You can get multiple diseases from eating to much fast food, and drinking to much soda. I liked this book very much. It was exciting to read. The thing is that I don't want to read it again.
Chew on this is a book that helps explain all the details that happen behind the sciences of fast food. It deserves 3 stars because it is kind of boring but still very informing. I recommend this book to people who like to know what's really in fast food. I also recommend this book to people who really like to get information from books. Because the person at the fast food place will probably not tell you anything true. This book was written by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson. The book would probably not be for people who get grossed out a lot.
I rated this book 1 and 1/2 stars because I didn't really learn anything new. One thing I did learn though is that the first hamburger was compressed meat balls. I would recommend this book to people that like knowing the origins of fast food restaurants. I would recommend this book to people who don't know what the ingredients of the fast food restaurant's food. I would recommend this to people if they need a short and enjoyable book. I liked this book because it taught me some things I didn't know. I would read another one of their books if I knew one.
Chew On This had to cut out a lot of what was
A good read.