The June AgBookClub pick, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser, is a self-proclaimed “exposé revealing how the fast food industry has altered the landscape of America, widened the gap between rich and poor, fueled and epidemic of obesity, and transformed food production throughout the world,” and first published in 2001. As we dive into this month’s selection, we’d like participants to be thinking about how things (in the food and ag industries) have changed over the last two decades and how our industry has adapted to address the misconceptions amplified by the publication of books such as this. We can become better at engaging in discussions about agriculture by learning more about where those outside of agriculture may have stumbled upon the misinformation and how it was first addressed by our industry.
Here’s what you need to do this month:
Get the book. Buy it, borrow it, download and listen to it, read it over your neighbor’s shoulder — we don’t care. But don’t steal the book.
Read the book.
- Week 1: Introduction, Chapters 1 – 2 [pages 1 – 58] (Twitter chat on 6/5)
- Week 2: Chapters 3 – 4 [pages 59 – 110] (Twitter chat on 6/12)
- Week 3: Chapters 5 – 8 [pages 111 – 192] (Twitter chat on 6/19)
- Week 4: Chapters 9 – 10, Epilogue, Afterward [pages 193 – 276] (Twitter chat on 6/26)
Join the chat (#AgBookClub) on Wednesdays at 8:00pm Central on Twitter. Learn how to participate in a Twitter chat here. While we hope you can participate in our discussion every week, we know that everyone has busy schedules. We always include general questions that can be answered by anyone, so please don’t hesitate to jump in the Twitter chat if you didn’t have a chance to read the section we’re discussing. We welcome any and all to join the discussion!
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