FFN

One day I went out skateboarding with my friends. As usual we skated for several hours and enjoyed each others company until the sun started to go down. However this day introduced one of my favorite institutions; WENDYS!. My friend Bobby was hungry and asked me where he should get something to eat as we rolled down York Road in his mothers van. I told him "I've never been to Wendy’s". This was because unlike most of my friends I ate most of my meals at home. My Friend was shocked and he instantly put the car into a u-turn and loudly proclaimed "We're going to Wendy’s!". Bobby's meal was a biggie sized Mr. Pib, french fries and a triple cheese burger. Bobby was also generous enough to buy me a cheese burger. I remember sitting in the dining room of the Wendy’s and laughing a lot. I don't remember what we said or did but I remember it was a really good time. After we left we went out and skated some more. Bobby learned the valuable lesson that it’s not good to skate after eating a triple cheese burger because there is a good chance that you'll throw up. Since then, I have returned to the same Wendy's many times and have always had a good experience. I haven’t eaten at another fast food burger joint in years. Although I'll only eat at Wendy’s a few times a year, I always associate the Wendy’s brand with fond memories.
After reading the introduction from fast food nation I can’t help but look back on my fast food experiences . Unlike most Americans I rarely if ever ate fast food as a kid and continue to not over indulge in this luxury as an adult. However, I am not surprised that we as a people spend more on fast food then on higher education. People no matter their age or class can easily walk into a fast food restaurant almost any time of the day. After entering one of many conveniently placed restaurants, customers will be able to choose from a plethora of culinary delights. High education however is not available at millions of opportune locations on every continent. It also requires large investments of hard work, time, and money. The two are not on the same playing field and maybe should not even be compared. Another fact that I did not find very surprising was that fast food restaurants depend on uniformity. I have traveled all over the world and almost everywhere I have been I have seen fast food restaurants. France, Cuba, Ireland, Kuwait, and Aruba all had fast food chains that were familiar to my first experience at the Wendy’s on York road. Why would a restaurant want to change when the key to their success is their uniform menu? Over seas foreigners and Americans alike patronize to these restaurants and other American brands because they want the familiar taste Americana. I personally experienced this when one of my cousins from Europe was visiting me in the states. My cousin was always drinking sprite and coke and I asked him “why do you drink so much soda?” and he told me it was “just a taste of home”. Another fact from the introduction that I can relate to my story is that half of all money that was spent on preparing food at home is now spent at restaurants. As I mentioned I rarely ate out as a minor. I started to notice when I was a young adult that most people did not know how to cook for them selves. I never remember being in a friends house where they made their own bread, or were actively baking a cake. Most of my friends mothers and fathers and fit the description of the working guardians that are too busy working outside the house for cooking every meal at home.
Three other areas that I might choose to research are customer loyalty, advertising tactics, and product design. In these first few chapters we have touched on related topics but we haven’t really covered these in much depth. However, each of these are very important to us and to those marketing their products to us. Fast food chains must want customer loyalty just as much as any other retailer. What I would like to see is how they ensure that we keep buying their product and not the competitions. Although the volume of marketing that was geared towards young consumers was discussed it didn’t really talk about what they do to keep the kids coming in. It is obvious that they buy placement of commercials on tv, and radio air time. I now know that fast food restaurants have successfully conducted advertising campaigns in schools but what is the message that they try to convey in these advertisements? A friend of mine once said that when he goes to taco bell he always tries a new product on the menu. Obviously the objective of a new item is to bring in more and maybe even first time customers. But what do they do to design their products and what actually are they made of.

Schlosser relates research to what is happening in the lives of the people it effects. He chooses the most extreme cases and uses those as the basis for his story telling. In chapter seven he describes Greely Colorado before and after the con agra meat packing company opened its doors. In chapter two he talks about Ray Kroc and Walt Disney. He talks about these two men and what type of lives they led and he even talks about Disney’s political agenda. By painting a grim picture in each chapter he gives fast food a dark and unfamiliar feeling. If he were to just tell us facts Fast Food Nation would be a very dry book that no one would want to read. Because he includes the real life stories of people and places to which we can relate we are compelled to turn the pages. Schlosser gives the science a face, and that is why he is so effective
I will definitely use this tactic when I am asked to write about fast food. People love to read and talk about things that are familiar to them. There are few things more precious then good memories. My plan is to incorporate familiar stories and memories with the assigned topic and that way people will want to read about my topic and