Fast Food Nation Unit Pre-Test
Mark the following statements as either true or false.
1. Simply Orange orange juice is healthy.
True
False
2. Soda is bad for you, but fruit juice is a good alternative.
True
False
3. You should eat some fat in moderation.
True
False
4. There are over 30 ingredients in Chicken McNuggets.
True
False
5. Until 2003, McDonalds used “pink slime” as an ingredient.
True
False
6. Burger King has used cow hooves as part of their beef grind.
True
False
7. Pizza is considered a nutritious food item according to schools.
True
False
8. The Food Pyramid was created by the agriculture industry to further their sales.
True
False
9. Eating one fast food meal isn’t enough to change your blood sugar levels.
True
False
10. Obesity can occur when a body is in starvation mode.
True
False
11. Diet soda is healthier for you than regular soda.
True
False
12. Soft drinks play a large role in obesity.
True
False
13. Tastes from fast food items come from a chemical plant in New Jersey.
True
False
14. Do you think the average meal ordered at McDonald’s, Burger King, or Wendy’s is healthy? Explain.
15. Why do people choose to eat at fast food restaurants?
16. How many times a week do you eat fast food?
17. How many times a week do you drink soda?
18. How many times a week do you eat snacks like potato chips, candy, or sweets?
19. Do you eat only when you are hungry? Or do you also eat when you are bored or upset?
20. How many times a week do you exercise? (Even if it’s only a 30 minute walk.)
21. How many times a week do you eat meals that consist ONLY of fresh food? (Nothing frozen, packaged, processed)
Name: ________________________________
Notes from Mark Bittman’s Ted Talk: What’s Wrong with What We Eat? Take 10 notes:
Listen and answer as these topics come up:
1. How many animals do we kill every year for food?
2. What is one of the biggest problems with the American diet?
3. What do we need to be eating more of?
Reflection: After watching this, what are your thoughts about this topic? Do NOT give me a summary of the talk. I
am interested in what your thoughts and ideas are about what we’ve seen.
The Jungle Plot Overview
Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukoszaite, a young man and woman who have recently immigrated to Chicago from
Lithuania, hold their wedding feast at a bar in an area of Chicago known as Packingtown. The couple and several relatives
have come to Chicago in search of a better life, but Packingtown, the center of Lithuanian immigration and of Chicago’s
meatpacking industry, is a hard, dangerous, and filthy place where it is difficult to find a job. Jurgis, who has great faith in
the American Dream, vows that he will simply work harder to make more money.
Jurgis, who is young and energetic, quickly finds work. The family signs an agreement to buy a house, but it turns
out to be a swindle; the agreement is full of hidden costs, and the house is shoddy and poorly maintained. As the family’s
living expenses increase, even Ona and young Stanislovas, one of Teta Elzbieta’s children, are forced to look for jobs.
Jobs in Packingtown involve back-breaking labor, however, conducted in unsafe conditions with little regard for
individual workers. Furthermore, the immigrant community is fraught with crime and corruption. Jurgis’s father, Dede
Antanas, finds a job only after agreeing to pay another man a third of his wages for helping him obtain the job. But the job
is too difficult for the old man, and it quickly kills him.
Winter is the most dangerous season in Packingtown and even Jurgis, forced to work in an unheated
slaughterhouse in which it is difficult to see, risks his life every day by simply going to work. Marija is courted by
Tamoszius, a likable violinist, but the couple is never able to marry because they never have enough money to hold a
wedding. Marija’s factory closes down and she loses her job. Distressed about the terrible conditions of his family
members’ lives, Jurgis joins a union and slowly begins to understand the web of political corruption and bribery that
makes Packingtown run. Hoping to improve his lot, Jurgis begins trying to learn English. Marija regains her job, but she is
fired when she complains about being cheated out of some of her pay. Ona is now pregnant, and her job has become
increasingly difficult for her.
In Packingtown, any mishap can bring ruin upon a family. Jurgis sprains his ankle and is forced to spend nearly
three months in bed, unable to work. Even though poor working conditions caused the accident, the factory simply cuts
off Jurgis’s pay while he recuperates. Jurgis at last recovers and returns to work, but the factory refuses to give him his job
back. After a long, frustrating search for employment, Jurgis is forced to take a job at the fertilizer plant, the foulest place
in all of Packingtown.
****Ultimately, it would be Sinclair’s political convictions that would lead to his first literary success and the one
for which he is most known. The contempt he had developed for the upper class as a youth had led Sinclair to socialism in
1903, and in 1904 he was sent to Chicago by the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason to write an exposé on the
mistreatment of workers in the meatpacking industry. After spending several weeks conducting undercover research on
his subject matter, Sinclair threw himself into the manuscript that would become The Jungle.
Initially rejected by publishers, in 1906 the novel was finally released by Doubleday to great public acclaim—and
shock. Despite Sinclair’s intention to reveal the plight of laborers at the meatpacking plants, his vivid descriptions of the
cruelty to animals and unsanitary conditions there caused great public outcry and ultimately changed the way people
shopped for food.
Fast Food Nation Plot Overview
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, is a thought-provoking, research-based account of
the rise of the fast food industry and the resulting consequences of the drive for low-cost, rapidly prepared meals.
Schlosser clearly demonstrates that this industry alone has been responsible for a revolution in the ways by which beef
and poultry are grown, fattened, slaughtered, processed and packaged. Corporate greed and profit-driven executives have
been responsible for the destruction of the meat cutters and packers union, the demise of the large urban meat-packers
who employed those union workers, the destruction of formerly lovely western towns by the placement of huge feedlots
and slaughterhouses with waste lagoons that pollute the air, the wholesale exploitation of poor, uneducated, non-English
speaking workers, and the demise of the independent rancher who cannot compete with corporate-controlled ranches and
feedlots and who is the victim of secret pricing by the four top meat processors. Further, these corporate giants, through
sheer political power and lobbying, have been able to systematically dismantle any attempts to effectively police the meat
processing industry, leaving the consumer vulnerable to a host of infectious diseases rampant in slaughterhouses across
the country and the workers without proper health care and workmen's compensation.
The fast food industry itself is no stranger to greed and profit margins. With no concern for society's health, it
advertises to the nation's young, using marketing techniques devised by psychological consultants and kids' focus groups.
It fills consumers' stomachs with high fat, low-nutrition foods and sodas that sport 8-10 teaspoons of sugar each. It
employs teenagers and uneducated adults with a minimum of training in proper food handling and cleanliness. It is
responsible for the current epidemic of obesity in this country and the growing obesity in countries around the world that
have embraced fast food as an American cultural ideal. Further, its lack of care for the appropriate handling of food,
particularly meat, has resulted in a series of outbreaks of pathogen-caused illnesses and death.
To Schlosser, this industry is simply one example of large corporations run amuck, that is, setting themselves
above the "rules" of responsible business practices and "buying" the political power to do so. He blames a series of
Republican administrations for the wholesale indifference to the welfare of society in favor of campaign funding and for
the perpetuation of a clearly right-wing belief that government should continue a "hands-off" policy toward business,
sacrificing the health and safety of the public along with it.
Assignment: Answer the following questions. Condense your response to one paragraph (5-7 sentences) and
cite the material at least once. When you are finished, highlight each of your answers with a different color (so
three highlighters should be used).

What is the goal of both of these novels? (This can come from the excerpts you’ve read or the plot
overviews.)

What kinds of details do both authors include in their excerpts to make their points? (Look at your
handout of The Jungle, and at the Fast Food Nation book you have on your desk.)

What were the effects of The Jungle’s publication and what have been some possible effects of the
publication of Fast Food Nation?