Eric Schlosser Quotes & Sayings

There is a growing market today for local, organic foods produced by small farmers. And farmers' markets have played a large role in making that happen. — Eric Schlosser

Different people, in good faith, can look at the same fact and interpret it differently. But that's where an interesting conversation begins. — Eric Schlosser

In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food; in 2000, they spent more than $110 billion. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music - combined. — Eric Schlosser

The importance of recalls is to show that contaminated meat is getting out the door. And when you look at these recalls, in many ways the most disturbing thing about these recalls is how little of the meat actually winds up back at the plant. — Eric Schlosser

The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power. — Eric Schlosser

Twenty years ago, teenage boys in the United States drank twice as much milk as soda; now they drink twice as much soda as milk. — Eric Schlosser

To know a country you must see it whole. — Eric Schlosser

The United States now has more prison inmates than full-time farmers. — Eric Schlosser

'Fast Food Nation' isn't about my journey into the dark world of fast food and the prison book is not about my journey into the prison world. I'm not using myself as any kind of narrative link. — Eric Schlosser

Most fast food is fried. Fried food tastes great, and people don't seem to care about the fat aspect. — Eric Schlosser

The fallibility of human beings guarantees that no technological system will ever be infallible. — Eric Schlosser

By birth and upbringing, I think I'm emotionally resilient. I don't feel like I'm a depressive person. — Eric Schlosser

I hadn't planned on being an activist. — Eric Schlosser

One crucial fact must be kept in mind: none of the roughly seventy thousand nuclear weapons built by the United States since 1945 has ever detonated inadvertently or without proper authorization. The technological and administrative controls on those weapons have worked, however imperfectly at times - and countless people, military and civilian, deserve credit for that remarkable achievement. Had a single weapon been stolen or detonated, America's command-and-control system would still have attained a success rate of 99.99857 percent. But nuclear weapons are the most dangerous technology ever invented. Anything less than 100 percent control of them, anything less than perfect safety and security, would be unacceptable. And if this book has any message to preach, it is that human beings are imperfect. — Eric Schlosser

The obesity epidemic among American children is becoming so bad that I think there's a growing realization across the country that we've got to change what we're feeding our kids and that school may be a really good place to start. — Eric Schlosser

I think there could hardly be a more important subject than health and nutrition. — Eric Schlosser

The current fast food that we have is inexpensive when you buy it, but the long-term costs of eating it and the long-term costs to society, are much too high. This cheap food, when you add up all the total costs, is much too expensive. — Eric Schlosser

We can have Americans eating affordably and eating in a way that's sustainable. — Eric Schlosser

The industry doesn't want you to know the truth about what you're eating, because if you knew, you might not want to eat it, — Eric Schlosser

Kids have no idea when they're drinking soda what they're really drinking, and a lot of them are stunned when they learn that drinking a Big Gulp is like taking a big jar of sugar and just pouring it down. There are 50 teaspoons of sugar in a 64-ounce Big Gulp. — Eric Schlosser

Journalists aren't supposed to be cheerleaders. — Eric Schlosser

By the way, I'm not a vegetarian. I have a lot of respect for people who are vegetarian for religious or ethical reasons. — Eric Schlosser

The medical literature on the causes of food poisoning is full of euphemisms and dry scientific terms: coliform levels, aerobic plate counts, sorbitol, MacConkey agar, and so on. Behind them lies a simple explanation for why eating a hamburger can now make you seriously ill: There is shit in the meat. — Eric Schlosser

The smallest attack option would hit the Soviet Union with almost two thousand weapons; the largest with more than three thousand. The vast scale and inflexibility of the SIOP led Kissinger to describe it as a horror strategy. — Eric Schlosser

I was introduced to the world of modern food production in the mid-1990s, while researching an article about California's strawberry industry for the 'Atlantic Monthly.' — Eric Schlosser

There's been a growing effort to kick soda out of the schools. And governors as different as Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and Mike Huckabee in Arkansas have worked hard to get soda and junk food out of their state schools, which is good. — Eric Schlosser

A nationwide study published by the USDA in 1996 found that [ ... ] 78.6 percent of the ground beef contained microbes that are spread primarily by fecal matter. The medical literature on the causes of food poisoning is full of euphemisms and dry scientific terms: coliform levels, aerobic plate counts, sorbitol, MacConkey agar, and so on. Behind them lies a simple explanation for why eating hamburger meat makes you sick: There is shit in the meat. — Eric Schlosser

If you eat, you should be concerned about the people who are providing you with food. — Eric Schlosser

Widespread introduction of the process [of irradiating foods] has thus far been impeded, however, by a reluctance among consumers to eat things that have been exposed to radiation. According to current USDA regulations, irradiated meat must be identified with a special label and with a radura (the internationally recognized symbol of radiation). The Beef Industry Food Safety Council - whose members include the meatpacking and fast food giants - has asked the USDA to change its rules and make the labeling of irradiated meat completely voluntary. The meatpacking industry is also working hard to get rid of the word 'irradiation,; much preferring the phrase 'cold pasteurization.' ... From a purely scientific point of view, irradiation may be safe and effective. But he [a slaughterhouse engineer] is concerned about the introduction of highly complex electromagnetic and nuclear technology into slaughterhouses with a largely illiterate, non-English-speaking workforce. — Eric Schlosser

I can understand why a single parent, working two jobs, would find it easier to stop at McDonald's with the kids rather than cook something from scratch at home. — Eric Schlosser

I'm just angry at the sort of things that are winding up in ground beef. I'm angry that other people - mainly children - are going to be sickened by eating a hamburger. — Eric Schlosser

I really like visiting schools, but what I tell students isn't anywhere near as interesting to me as what they tell me. — Eric Schlosser

No great monument has been built to honor those who served during the Cold War, who risked their lives and sometimes lost them in the name of freedom. It was ordinary men and women, not just diplomats and statesmen, who helped to avert a nuclear holocaust. Their courage and their sacrifices should be remembered. — Eric Schlosser

AT&T's telephone lines and Western Union's telegraph lines were the only direct links between the United States and the Soviet Union. Both of them would be knocked out by a thermonuclear blast, and most radio communications would be, as well. The command-and-control systems of the two countries had no formal, reliable means of interacting. The problem was so serious and so obvious, Schelling thought, everybody must have assumed somebody else had taken care of it. Pauses for negotiation would be a waste of time, if there were no way to negotiate. And — Eric Schlosser

The management no longer depends upon the talents or skills of its workers---those things are built into the operating systems and machines. Jobs that have been "deskilled" can be filled cheaply. The need to retain any individual worker is greatly reduced by the ease with which he or she can be replaced. — Eric Schlosser

During my school visits, I really enjoy the feedback I get from them much more than anything I might tell say to them. — Eric Schlosser

Firstly, should we be selling and buying irradiated meat? I think that's up to the consumer, ultimately. But the second point is, this irradiated meat should be clearly and unmistakably labeled as irradiated meat. — Eric Schlosser

Walter Junior, were in the toolshed outside their home in Mars Bluff, South Carolina, when a Mark 6 atomic bomb landed in the yard. Mrs. — Eric Schlosser

The spread of BSE [mad cow disease] in Europe has revealed how secret alliances between agribusiness and government can endanger the public health. It has shown how the desire for profit can overrule every other consideration. British agricultural officials were concerned as early as 1987 that eating meat from BSE-infected cattle might pose a risk to human beings. That information was suppressed for years, and the possibility of any health risk was strenuously denied, in order to protect exports of British beef. Scientists who disagreed with the official line were publicly attacked and kept off government committees investigating BSE. Official denials of the truth delayed important health measures. — Eric Schlosser

General Electric backed the Carousel of Progress, which featured an Audio-Animatronic housewife, standing in her futuristic kitchen, singing about a great big beautiful tomorrow. — Eric Schlosser

The federal government has more power to recall a defective stuffed animal who's little glass eye may fall off than to recall contaminated ground beef that could sicken or even kill hundreds if not thousands of people. The meat-packing industry is so powerful that it's managed to prevent the government from having this basic power of recalling a defective product. — Eric Schlosser

The symptoms of food poisoning often don't appear for days after the contaminated meal was eaten. As a result, most cases of food poisoning are never properly diagnosed. — Eric Schlosser

A typical workday for me is getting up at about 5:00, 5:15 in the morning, getting some coffee or tea as quickly as possible, and then getting to my desk. And ideally, I'll start writing around 5:30, 5:45, and I'll write for three, four hours, and then I'll take a break, and read over what I write. Maybe about lunchtime, I'll go exercise or get out into the day. Then I'll either read over what I wrote the day before and quit work around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon and spend some time with my kids. — Eric Schlosser

McDonald's has been extraordinary at site selection; it was a pioneer in studying the best places for retail locations. One of the things it did is study very carefully where sprawl was headed. — Eric Schlosser

Unlike the hot line frequently depicted in Hollywood films, the new system didn't provide a special telephone for the president to use in an emergency. It relied on Teletype machines that could send text quickly and securely. Written statements were considered easier to translate, more deliberate, and less subject to misinterpretation than verbal ones. Every — Eric Schlosser

Today approximately three-quarters of all $100 bills circulate outside the United States. — Eric Schlosser

Americans not only smoke more marijuana but also imprison more people for marijuana than any other western industrialized nation. — Eric Schlosser

Once the Cuban missile sites were operational, Khrushchev planned to announce their existence during a speech at the United Nations. And then he would offer to remove them - if NATO agreed to leave West Berlin. Or — Eric Schlosser

And workers who needed to go to the bathroom weren't allowed to take a break. They were forced to pee right on the slaughterhouse floor, near meat that people would soon be eating. — Eric Schlosser

As a matter of fact, most cases of food poisoning are never linked back to their source. — Eric Schlosser

Again and again workers told me that they are under tremendous pressure not to report injuries. The annual bonuses of plant foremen and supervisors are often based in part on the injury rate of their workers. Instead of crating a safer workplace, these bonus schemes encourage slaughterhouse managers to make sure that accidents and injuries go unreported. Missing fingers, broken bones, deep lacerations and amputated limbs are difficult to conceal from authorities. But the dramatic and catastrophic injuries in a slaughterhouse are greatly outnumbered by less visible, though no less debilitating, ailments: torn muscles, slipped disks, pinched nerves. — Eric Schlosser

Studies have found that preparing your own food is usually healthier and less expensive than buying fast food. But most people just don't have the time. — Eric Schlosser

I think it's possible to have food that's healthy, that's good for you to eat, that's also inexpensive. We don't have to have this cheap, unhealthy food being so aggressively promoted. — Eric Schlosser

As an investigative reporter, I'm trying to uncover things and expose them to create a dialogue. — Eric Schlosser

Like Hollywood movies, MTV and blue jeans, fast food has become one of America's major cultural exports. — Eric Schlosser

We cannot ignore the meaning of mad cow. It is one more warning about unintended consequences, about human arrogance and the blind worship of science. — Eric Schlosser

The people designing the weapons literally often didn't know how they were being handled in the field by the Air Force - and a lot of people in the Air Force didn't understand some of the dangers. There's a very strong element of madness in this. — Eric Schlosser

When you go into a fast food restaurant, you may just think about how good your meal tastes while you're eating it. But you're not thinking about all the consequences that come from that one purchase - the consequences for your body, the consequences for supporting this company and how it's treating it workers, all the way back to the farm where the potatoes were grown, or the ranch where the cattle were raised. — Eric Schlosser

It's not a question of McDonald's vanishing from the face of the earth. It's a question of these companies assuming some more responsibility for what they're selling. — Eric Schlosser

I never consciously set out to model myself after Upton Sinclair. — Eric Schlosser

One might expect that the families of murder victims would be showered with sympathy and support, embraced by their communities. But in reality they are far more likely to feel isolated, fearful, and ashamed, overwhelmed by grief and guilt, angry at the criminal-justice system, and shunned by their old friends. — Eric Schlosser

McMahon predicted that "total power in the hands of total evil will equal destruction." The — Eric Schlosser

The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000 ... . Now our food is coming from enormous assembly lines where the animals and the workers are being abused, and the food has become much more dangerous in ways that are deliberately hidden from us. This isn't just about what we're eating. It's about what we're allowed to say. What we're allowed to know. — Eric Schlosser

Even academic elites are drawn to the figure of the murderer, which has long been a focus of attention for psychiatrists, sociologists, and criminologists. — Eric Schlosser

The Golden Arches are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross. — Eric Schlosser

I've been called communist, socialist, anti-American. — Eric Schlosser

Basically, I'm a perpetual student. I start by finding a subject I really don't know very much, but that I'm curious about. I learn about it through books in a library, by doing interviews with people who know a lot about the subject, and by going out on my own and seeing for myself what's happening. — Eric Schlosser

McDonald's revolutionized fast food. They introduced a way to eat food without knives, forks or plates. Most fast foods can be eaten while steering the wheel of a car and the restaurants are usually drive through. — Eric Schlosser

Perimeter greatly reduced the pressure to launch on warning at the first sign of an American attack. It gave Soviet leaders more time to investigate the possibility of a false alarm, confident that a real attack would trigger a computer-controlled, devastating response. But it rendered American plans for limited war meaningless; the Soviet computers weren't programmed to allow pauses for negotiation. And the deterrent value of Perimeter was wasted. Like the doomsday machine in Dr. Strangelove, the system was kept secret from the United States. — Eric Schlosser

I try to persuade people to act in ways that are not only in their own interest, but in the interest of society at large. — Eric Schlosser

Since 1966, hundreds of books have been published that follow murderers along their paths of destruction. Every serial killer, it seems, now has a biographer or two. — Eric Schlosser

The life's work of Walt Disney and Ray Kroc had come full-circle, uniting in perfect synergy. McDonald's began to sell its hamburgers and french fries at Disney's theme parks. The ethos of McDonaldland and of Disneyland, never far apart, have finally become one. Now you can buy a Happy Meal at the Happiest Place on Earth. — Eric Schlosser

And a few months later, an opinion poll found that 54 percent of the American people wanted the United Nations to become a world government with power to control the armed forces of all nations, including the United States. — Eric Schlosser

I think two different people can read one of my books and come away with completely different opinions on the subject. I hope they just read from the beginning to the end and be made to think about the subject. Then they can come to their own conclusions. — Eric Schlosser

'Fast Food Nation' appeared as an article in 'Rolling Stone' before it was a book, so I was extending it from the article, and by that time, everyone could read the article. — Eric Schlosser

I'm a huge supporter of animal rights - and I've been an outspoken critic of the cruelties routinely inflicted on livestock at factory farms. But it really bothers me that the mistreatment of pigs and chickens and cows seems to attract a lot more attention and spark a lot more outrage than the abuse of immigrant workers. — Eric Schlosser

The market is a tool, and a useful one. But the worship of this tool is a hollow faith. Far more important than any tool is what you make with it. — Eric Schlosser

Future historians, I hope, will consider the American fast food industry a relic of the twentieth century
a set of attitudes, systems, and beliefs that emerged from postwar southern California, that embodied its limitless faith in technology, that quickly spread across the globe, flourished briefly, and then receded, once its true costs became clear and its thinking became obsolete. — Eric Schlosser

During the same week that Kennedy appealed for an end to the arms race at the United Nations, he met with a handful of military advisers at the White House to discuss launching a surprise attack on the Soviet Union. General Thomas Power encouraged him to do it. According to notes of the meeting, held on September 20, Power warned that the United States now faced the greatest danger, ever, of a Soviet nuclear attack. — Eric Schlosser

The executives who run the fast food industry are not bad men. They are businessmen. They will sell free-range, organic, grass-fed hamburgers if you demand it. They will sell whatever sells at a profit. — Eric Schlosser

Fast food is popular because it's convenient, it's cheap, and it tastes good. But the real cost of eating fast food never appears on the menu. — Eric Schlosser

A public outcry usually masks a private obsession. — Eric Schlosser

Years ago when I got stuck, I'd start twirling my hair. That's not possible anymore. I can't prove the relationship between writing and hair loss, but I think I pulled out a fair amount trying to work on certain sentences. — Eric Schlosser

Andropov's concerns were heightened by the Reagan administration's top secret psychological warfare program, designed to spook and confuse the Kremlin. American naval exercises were staged without warning near important military bases along the Soviet coastline; SAC bombers entered Soviet airspace and then left it, testing the air defenses. The — Eric Schlosser

Hey, I used to eat at McDonald's: I liked the taste of the food, especially the French fries. — Eric Schlosser

Support for a first strike extended far beyond the upper ranks of the U.S. military. Bertrand Russell - the British philosopher and pacifist, imprisoned for his opposition to the First World War - urged the western democracies to attack the Soviet Union before it got an atomic bomb. Russell acknowledged that a nuclear strike on the Soviets would be horrible, but "anything is better than submission." Winston Churchill agreed, proposing that the Soviets be given an ultimatum: withdraw your troops from Germany, or see your cities destroyed. Even Hamilton Holt, lover of peace, crusader for world government, lifelong advocate of settling disputes through mediation and diplomacy and mutual understanding, no longer believed that sort of approach would work. Nuclear weapons had changed everything, and the Soviet Union couldn't be trusted. Any nation that rejected U.N. control of atomic energy, Holt said, "should be wiped off the face of the earth with atomic bombs. — Eric Schlosser

The thing that's been inhibiting long-form investigative reporting is fear - fear of being sued, of being unpopular, of being criticized by very powerful groups. — Eric Schlosser

Take Charge and Move Out (TACAMO) planes would quickly get off the ground, climb steeply, and send an emergency war order on a very-low-frequency radio, using an antenna five miles long. SAC began to develop a Post Attack Command and Control System. It would rely on airborne command posts, a command post on a train, a command post at the bottom of an abandoned gold mine in Cripple Creek, Colorado, and a command post, known as The Notch, inside Bare Mountain, near Amherst, Massachusetts. The — Eric Schlosser

We're all connected by the system, and we all have to be a part, I think, of changing it. — Eric Schlosser

Democrats in Congress whipped up fears of Soviet missiles and attacked the Eisenhower administration for allowing the United States to fall behind. The — Eric Schlosser

What we eat has changed more in the last 40 years than in the previous 40,000. The survival of the current food system depends upon widespread ignorance of how it really operates. — Eric Schlosser

Whatever replaces the fast food industry should be regional, diverse, authentic, unpredictable, sustainable, profitable
and humble. It should know its limits. — Eric Schlosser

Yes, a cheeseburger and fries is probably my favourite meal. But I don't eat ground beef anymore. — Eric Schlosser

There's also a growing trend toward having gardens in schools to literally show kids where food comes from by having them grow and prepare their own food. There's also a movement that's bringing farmers into schools and creating relationships between local farms and local cafeterias, so that instead of frozen mystery meat, you have fresh produce that's coming from the area that has a name and a face associated with it. — Eric Schlosser

The current demand for marijuana and pornography is deeply revealing. Here are two commodities that Americans publicly abhor, privately adore, and buy in astonishing amounts. — Eric Schlosser

Every step appears as the unavoidable consequence of the preceding one," Einstein said. "In the end, there beckons more and more clearly general annihilation. — Eric Schlosser

Did somebody say McUnion? [ ... ] Not if they want to keep their McJob. — Eric Schlosser

The fear of murder has grown so enormous in the United States that it leaves a taint, like the mark of Cain, on everyone murder touches. — Eric Schlosser

When Agnew and Cotter showed the committee how the new lock worked, it didn't. Something was wrong. But none of the senators, congressmen, or committee staff members realized that it wouldn't unlock, no matter how many times the proper code was entered. The decoder looked impressive, the colored lights flashed, and everyone in the hearing room agreed that it was absolutely essential for national security. — Eric Schlosser

I really like hamburgers and French fries, and I don't consider myself some kind of gourmand. — Eric Schlosser