Fast Food Nation: What The All-American Meal is Doing to the World (49 page)

annually providing as much as 45 percent:
Cited in “USDA Has a Valid Beef in Dallas,”
Chicago Tribune
, December 14, 1999.

220
the USDA resumed its purchases:
See “USDA Satisfied with Changes in Meat Plant It Tried to Shut Down,”
AP
, February 15,2000.

Judge Fish issued a decision:
For the implications of the Supreme Beef case, see Marc Kaufman, “Texas Ruling Threatens USDA Meat Inspections,”
Washington Post
, May 26,2000; Todd Bensman, “Judge Rebuffs USDA; Agency Tried to Close Dallas Plant,”
Dallas Morning News
, May 26, 2000; and John Taylor, “Court Ruling Won’t Alter IBP Methods,”
Omaha World-Herald
, May 27, 2000.

much of the beef used… repeatedly failed USDA tests:
See Allison Beers, “Meat Groups Petition USDA to Change HACCP Regulations,”
Food Chemical News
, January 10, 2000.

221
The meatpacking industry immediately opposed:
See “AMS Says It Will Continue with New Standards,”
National Meat Association Newsletter
, August 7, 2000.

“You’d be better off eating a carrot stick”:
Quoted in Usha Lee McFarling, “Homey Kitchens Become Killers Before Our Eyes,”
Austin American-Statesman
, August 12, 1998.

sixty to one hundred other mutant
E. coli
organisms… Perhaps a third of them cause illnesses:
Interview with Dr. David Acheson.

222
roughly 37,000 Americans suffer:
Mead et al., “Food-Related Illness and Death.”
A 1997 undercover investigation by KCBS-TV:
See Richard Martin, “L.A. County Cracks Down on Food-Safety Violators,”
Nation’s Restaurant News
, December 1, 1997.

three teenage employees at a Burger King:
See “Police Say Two Teens Tampered with Food,”
AP,
May 10, 2000, and “Burger King Employees Charged,”
AP
, May 11, 2000.

Few West Germans are familiar with the unusual history of Plauen, though it is abundantly detailed in a number of locally published books.
Plauen: auf historischen Postkarten
(Plauen, Germany: Plauen Verlag, 1991), by Frank Weiss, uses old postcards to illustrate the history of the city during its most prosperous era.
Plauen: 1933-1945
(Plauen: Vogtländischer Heimatverlag Neupert, 1995) is an oversized book, full of photographs, that traces the effects of the Great Depression and the rise of the Nazi Party. The Allied bombing of the city is vividly documented through before-and-after photographs in
Plauen 1944/1945: Eine Stadt wird zerstört
(Plauen: Vogtländischer Heimatverlag Neupert, 1995), by Rudolf Laser, Joachim Mensdorf, and Johannes Richter. For life near the East German border, I relied on Ingolf Hermann’s
Die Deutsch-Deutsch Grenze
(Plauen: Vogtländischer Heimatverlag Neupert, 1998). Plauen’s 1989 uprising is chronicled in Rolf Schwanitz’s
Zivilcourage: Die friedliche Revolution in Plauen anhand von Stasi-Akten
(Plauen, Vogtländischer Heimatverlag Neupert, 1998).
Plauen: Ein Rundgang Durch die Stadt
(Plauen: Militzke Verlag, 1992) gives a sense of the city after the Wall came down.

John Connelly, an assistant professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the few American academics who has both visited and written about postwar Plauen. Professor Connelly shared his recollection of the city with me and sent me the fine article he wrote about its rebellion: “Moment of Revolution: Plauen (Vogtland), October 7, 1989,”
German Politics & Society
, Summer 1990. Thomas Küttler, the hero of that uprising, told me how it unfolded and shared his thoughts about its legacy. I am grateful to Cordula Franz for help in arranging interviews in Plauen and to Sybille Unterdoifel for introducing me to The Ranch. Frieder Stephan, the owner of The Ranch, helped me fathom the local youth culture and explained his musical journey from rock to disco to country and western. Christian Pöllmann, who helps run a theater company in Plauen, as well as the German Social Union Party, gave me a strong sense of life under Communism and of the hunger for all things American. The photographer Franziska Heinze and journalist Markus Schneider helped me gather information about their home town. Siegfried Pater — filmmaker, environmentalist, and author of
Zum Beispiel McDonald’s
(Göttingen: Lamuv Verlag, 1994) — described some of McDonald’s misbehavior in Germany. Barbara Distil, the curator of the Dachau Museum, spoke to me about the controversy surrounding the local McDonald’s. For the history of the camp, I relied on a book that she edited with Ruth Jakusch:
Concentration Camp Dachau 1933–1945
(Brussels: Comité International de Dachau, 1978).

The Illustrated History of Las Vegas
(Edison, N.J.: Chartwell Books, 1997), by Bill Yenne, conveys how the city has been radically transformed in recent years.
The Players: The Men Who Made Las Vegas
(Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1997), edited by Jack Sheehan, provides a good deal of insight into the unique culture that emerged there. Timothy O’Brien’s
Bad Bet: The Inside Story of the Glamour, Glitz, and Danger of America’s Gambling Industry
(New York: Times Business, 1998) explains precisely how the casinos make their money.

Much of my information on obesity comes from articles in Science, the
Journal of the American Medical Association
, and the
New England Journal of Medicine
. The nutritionist Jane Kirby placed many of the claims and counterclaims about diet into a calm and reasonable perspective for me. Greg Critser’s “Let Them Eat Fat: The Heavy Truths about American Obesity,”
Harper’s
, March 2000, is a provocative essay on fast food and the poor.

My account of the McLibel trial is based on interviews with the two principals, Helen Steel and Dave Morris, and on the transcripts of the trial (which were available, along with other interesting material, at the anti-McDonald’s Web site
www. mcspotlight.org
). Franny Armstrong — the director of an excellent documentary,
McLibel: Two Worlds Collide
— was extremely helpful. John Vidal’s book,
McLibel,
tells the whole, extraordinary story of the trial. The essays collected in
Golden Arches East: McDonald’s in East Asia
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997), edited by James L. Watson, reveal some of the unpredictable ways in which fast food is now being embraced by other cultures.

Page

226
the city’s population roughly tripled:
See Weiss,
Plauen: Postkarten
, pp. 3–4.

the most millionaires… and the most suicides:
Interview with Thomas Küttler. Also cited in Connelly, “Moment of Revolution.”

the highest unemployment rate:
In 1933 the unemployment rate in Plauen was 15.6 percent, the highest in Germany. Cited in
Plauen 1933–1945
, p. 55.

227
More bombs were dropped on Plauen:
About 63.2 tons of explosives were dropped on each square kilometer of Dresden; about 185.4 tons per square kilometer struck Plauen. Cited in Laser et al.,
Plauen 1944/1945
, p. 14.

about 75 percent of Plauen lay in ruins:
Küttler interview.

lost one-third of its prewar population:
Cited in Weiss,
Plauen: Postkarten
, p. 4.

an “unusually low quality of life”:
Connelly, “Plauen: Moment of Revolution.”

228
“We want freedom”:
Küttler interview.

229
“McDonald’s and similar abnormal garbage-makers”:
Quoted in “Ban the ‘Big Mac’ from East Germany, Parliamentarian Demands,”
Reuters
, July 26, 1990.

“global realization”:
Quoted in “Blue Chip Blues,”
Economist
, September 26, 1998.

Within the next decade:
See “Some Things Old, Some Things New,”
Franchising World
, November–December 1999.

earns the majority of its profits:
See “The McDonald’s Corporation 1999 Annual Report”; Charlene C. Price, “The U.S. Foodservice Industry Looks Abroad,”
USDA Food Review
, May–August 1996.

the most widely recognized brand in the world:
See “McDonald’s wins top spot in global brand ratings,”
Brand Strategy
, November 22, 1996.

“McWorld”:
See Benjamin R. Barber, “Jihad vs. McWorld,”
Atlantic Monthly
, March 1992.

when McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in Turkey:
See Gulsun Bilgen-Konuray, “Turkey — Franchising Market,”
Industry Sector Analysis
, U.S. Foreign and Commercial Service, U.S. State Department, August 24, 1999.

230
“Americana and the promise of modernization”:
Watson,
Golden Arches East
, p. 41.

earning $200,000 in a single week during Ramadan:
Cited in Bill McDowall, “The Global Market Challenge,”
Restaurants & Institutions
, November 1, 1994.

In Brazil, McDonald’s has become:
See “McDonald’s Employs 33,000 in Brazil,”
AP
, August 1, 1999.

“Sorry, No McDonald’s”:
Quoted in George Lazurus, “You Won’t Find a McDonald’s on Unspoiled Tahiti,”
Adweek
, January 13, 1986.

“A McDonald’s restaurant is just the window”:
Quoted in Latha Venkatraman, “Keeping That Lettuce Crisp,”
Business Line
, July 5, 1999.

231
“It’s a great little country”:
Simplot interview.

“Kids are the same regarding”:
Quoted in “Barbie, McDonald’s Find Common Ground,”
Selling to Kids
, September 30, 1998.

231
the number of fast food restaurants roughly tripled:
Cited in Richard Martin, “Special Report: Down Under’s Bloomin’ Dining Wonders,”
Nation’s Restaurant News
, October 7, 1996.

Ronald McDonald knew:
Cited in Kay M. Hammond, Allan Wylie, and Sally Casswell, “The Extent and Nature of Televised Food Advertising to New Zealand Children and Adolescents,”
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Public Health
, February 1999.

“funny, gentle, kind”:
Quoted in
Golden Arches East
, p. 64.

Coca-Cola is now the favorite drink… McDonald’s serves their favorite food:
Cited in “Developmental, Cultural Issues Key in Marketing to Kids Globally,”
Selling to Kids
, April 1, 1998.

“If we eat McDonald’s hamburgers and potatoes”:
Quoted in Vidal,
McLibel
, p. 42.

In addition to being the McDonald’s Corporation’s partner in Japan, Den Fujita is the author of best-selling books such as
Stupid People Lose Money, How to Become Number One in Business
, and
How to Blow the Rich Man’s Bugle Like the Jews Do
. See James Sterngold, “Den Fujita, Japan’s Mr. Joint Venture,”
New York Times
, March 22, 1992.

232
“For a child growing up in the turmoil”:
Christa Maerker, “The Federal Republic of Germany: Second-hand Culture with Borrowed Dreams,”
Schatzkammer
, Spring 1990.

Americans with German ancestors:
Cited in Tim Bovee, “German-Americans Largest U.S. Ethnic Group,”
AP
, December 16, 1992.

less than one-third of the German foodservice market:
Cited in Rupert Spies and Gretel Weiss, “Is Germany’s Traditional Restaurant a Dying Breed?”
Cornell Hotel & Restaurant Administration Quarterly
, June 1998.

the biggest restaurant company in Germany:
See Richard Martin, “Germany Shows Appetite for ‘Fun’ Themes and Foreign Flavors,”
Nation’s Restaurant News
, April 17, 1995.

233
It battles labor unions:
Interview with Siegfried Pater.

the number of franchised outlets:
See “Germany-Franchising Market,”
Industry Sector Analysis
, U.S. Foreign & Commercial Service, U.S. State Department, July 7, 1998.

“The partnership scheme will undoubtedly be”:
Quoted in “German Wal-Mart Stores to Feature McDonald’s Restaurants,”
Evening Standard
, August 12, 1999.

The McDonald’s Corporation denied:
See Steve Nichol, “Protesters Lambaste Mc-Donald’s; Picketers Say Restaurant Is Trivializing Holocaust,”
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
, January 28, 1997.

After the curator of the Dachau Museum complained:
Interview with Barbara Distil.

“Welcome to Dachau”:
Ibid.

The McDonald’s at Dachau is one-third of a mile:
According to the odometer on my rental car.

234
Las Vegas is the fastest-growing major city:
See “Metropolitan Area Population Estimates for July 1, 1998, and Population Change for April 1, 1990, to July 1, 1998,” U.S. Census Bureau, September 30, 1999.

235
Over the past twenty years the population:
In 1980, the population of the Las Vegas metropolitan area was 528,000; today it approaches 1.5 million. See “Large Metropolitan Areas — Population: 1980 to 1996,”
Statistical Abstract of the U.S
., p. 41; “Metropolitan Area Population Estimates… Population Change.”

235
legally protected against the workings of the free market:
For a fascinating account of the Nevada Gaming Control Board and its powers, see “A Peculiar Institution,” by Sergio Lalli, in Sheehan,
The Players
, pp. 1–22.

236
about two-thirds of a typical casino’s profits… a profit rate of as much as 20 per-cent:
See O’Brien,
Bad Bet
, pp. 40–44.