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Day’s Verse:

“He has done mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, and has exalted those who were humble.”

Luke 1:51 – 52

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“Anyone who brings raw beef into his or her kitchen today must regard it as a potential biohazard, one that may carry an extremely dangerous microbe, infectious at an extremely low dose. A series of tests conducted by Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona, discovered far more fecal bacteria in the average American sink than on the average American toilet seat. According to Gerba, ‘You’d be better off eating a carrot stick that fell in your toilet than one that fell in your sink.’”

– Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation

If you don’t find this an unnervingly compelling idea, I can’t imagine what would worry you. Fast Food Nation overflows with disturbing images like that—teen workers putting Comet in fast food they’re making, illegal immigrant meatpackers dropping meat on the ground and slapping it right back into place on the conveyor belts, old women sharpening enormously sharp knives as if she were knitting, hamburger wrappers entombed in “Space Mountain” in Colorado after a nuclear holocaust, a small-time cattle rancher hanging himself out of hopelessness, a small-time potato farmer making it big to the tune of billions of dollars, franchising that wiped out small-town individualism, America’s waistline expanding exponentially.

And through it all, he emphasizes the change wrought by fast food. Has this change moved the world towards a better standard of living? Has it enriched our existences somehow? Getting food has never been more convenient, your experiences more standardized. Tell me: what good and bad have come from McDonald’s and its cohorts?

– KF –