It's possible you've never heard of the war on meat. It doesn't get much press attention, compared to the war on drugs or the war on terror. But that doesn't mean it's not real. According to some conservative US think tanks, dangerous forces are at work -- pleasure-hating puritans, intent on stopping ordinary citizens enjoying a good burger -- and Eric Schlosser is public enemy number one.
"Schlosser, the nanny culture's current man of the hour ... seems bent on convincing Americans that fast food should be avoided like the plague," argues one such outfit, the Center for Consumer Freedom, which works to "expose the war on meat."
"He's been getting a free pass from [the media], who seem generally pleased to let him take a free swing at those of us who enjoy a cheeseburger, fries and soda," it said (yes, OK, the Center for Consumer Freedom is funded by the fast-food industry).
"I've been called communist, socialist, anti-American," Schlosser sighs.
We're eating breakfast in Los Angeles at Patrick's Roadhouse, a ramshackle diner on the Santa Monica shore that is everything McDonald's isn't: full of character, one of a kind, crammed with trinkets. It's the sort of place where, if Schlosser were to order a second round of banana waffles, they might not arrive looking identical to the first.
The relentless uniformity of McDonald's and Burger King was one of Schlosser's main themes in Fast Food Nation, a compelling work of muckraking that exposed the industry's true costs: an epidemic of obesity, dangerous working conditions in slaughterhouses and the exploitation of children as customers and burger flippers.
To the surprise of nobody so much as Schlosser himself, the book sold more than 1.4 million copies.
His follow-up work, Chew On This, is aimed at younger readers. Meanwhile, a Richard Linklater movie based on Fast Food Nation, starring Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke and Avril Lavigne, is scheduled for release in the autumn.
"I hadn't planned on being an activist," says Schlosser, 46, who exudes an intensity that is refreshingly at odds with Santa Monica's laid-back vibe.
Nevertheless, Fast Food Nation, along with Morgan Spurlock's 2004 documentary Super Size Me, has become part of a movement. As the popularity of fresh and organic foods has boomed, McDonald's has been forced to start promoting its "healthier" salads and sandwiches, and the industry has introduced stricter animal welfare standards.
Schlosser insists he cannot take any credit. But the clearest sign that he perturbs the fast-food chains came earlier this month, when the Wall Street Journal revealed internal McDonald's documents outlining a public relations offensive against the new book and film, including proposals to "discredit the message and the messenger."
"They've refused ever to appear in any public setting with me," Schlosser says. Instead, "they have surrogates, like the Center for Individual Freedom, the Center for Consumer Freedom. They have grand names, and you think of some campus with 30 acres and all these academics, but it's actually just some guy in his cubicle at the office of a big lobbying firm in Washington."
Nobody from McDonald's has ever sought to speak with him in private, either.
"If they did, I'd go. In a minute," he said.
The corporate policy seems to be silence. When he lived in New York, Schlosser was friendly with a prominent McDonald's franchisee whose children went to the same school as his own.
"He was a lovely guy. When Fast Food Nation came out, I wrote him a note, saying it wasn't personal. And I don't single out executives by name as bad people. He never spoke to me again," Schlosser said.
Schlosser makes a curious kind of hate figure for corporate America, though. The war on meat accusation holds little water: He's not a vegetarian, and sometimes even likes a burger. And his writing, while polemical, isn't shrill; it bears the quiet hallmarks of John McPhee, whose famous non-fiction writing course, "The Literature of Fact," Schlosser took while a student at Princeton.
His most powerful passages are notable for their restraint: stories like that of Duane Mullin -- who had both hands crushed at a meatpacking plant and was then persuaded to sign the waiver form exempting his employer from liability by holding a pen in his mouth -- don't need extensive embroidering.
Chew On This, co-written with Charles Wilson, who was the fact-checker on Fast Food Nation, focuses on the industry's relations with its youngest customers.
"Children are a distinct class of citizens," Schlosser argues, growing noticeably more intense. "Should McDonald's be allowed to sell trans-fat-laden cheeseburgers to adults? Absolutely. Should they be able to market them to toddlers on TV? Absolutely not. You can't market alcohol to children, or cigarettes. Or guns. So how is it these companies are allowed to market this food in schools, for example?"
The US Center for Disease Control recently estimated that one in three US children born in 2000 will develop diabetes -- a particularly stark index of the obesity problem.
And almost 20 US states have now passed so-called cheeseburger laws, rendering restaurants immune from obesity lawsuits.
Did he take his own two children to fast-food restaurants?
"Yeah, I did. When they were really little. Hey, I used to eat at McDonald's: I liked the taste of the food, especially the french fries," he said.
But researching the book put a stop to it. It's hard enough to read his account of a slaughterhouse tour and still bite into a burger; actually having been there made such visits impossible.
The strongest line of riposte to Schlosser might seem to come from old-fashioned free-market liberalism. Nobody has to buy burgers, and all McDonald's and KFC are doing is selling things people want.
But it would be easier to make this case if the fast-food chains didn't have such an alarming grip on their markets.
"The people who call me a socialist or a communist really have to deal with the fact that the market isn't working ... It much more resembles the Soviet command economy than the kind of thing I'm arguing for," he said.
Now that educated, middle-class, wealthier consumers are beginning to disdain fast food, Schlosser argues, the industry is trying to preserve its grip by targeting lower-income groups. McDonald's in the US has seen a 33 percent revenue growth in the last three years thanks to its "Dollar Menu," a selection of US$1 items it freely admits are aimed at poorer customers.
It's dispiriting terrain, but Schlosser's output suggests a fascination with the grim: His 2003 book Reefer Madness explored the drugs trade, pornography and illegal labor, and his next will be about the US prison system.
"I don't feel like I'm a grim person," he says later in the morning, on a bench overlooking the ocean.
His childhood, he says, was stable and privileged -- his father was president of the NBC network.
"By birth and upbringing, I think I'm emotionally resilient. I don't feel like I'm a depressive person. On the contrary, I feel like I'm generally even-keeled and optimistic, and so I think I'm equipped to deal with some of these subjects because I can immerse myself and not be entirely emotionally overwhelmed by them," he said.
Then again, he says,"I don't know how healthy it is, as a writer and a person, to be just trawling the bottom. I'm naturally optimistic, but this prison book is putting those qualities to the test. I think it would be really good for me after this to not just jump into another dark subject."
So the next book could end up being about ... what? Surfing? Schlosser gazes out at the misty Pacific.
"Hey," he replies, shrugging. "Sounds good to me."
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