Eric Schlosser: The Shocking Truth Behind Fast Food and Corporate America
3/27/202658 min
For 25 years, Fast Food Nation has shaped the way we think about what we eat, how it is made, and who pays the price. Its author, Eric Schlosser, did more than expose the hidden realities behind the fast food industry. He revealed a much bigger story about corporate power, political influence and the human cost of profit.
In this episode of Full Disclosure, James O’Brien sits down with the acclaimed investigative writer to mark the anniversary of the book that changed the conversation around food. Schlosser reflects on a childhood shaped by privilege, culture and intellectual curiosity, before explaining how early ambitions as a playwright and screenwriter eventually gave way to a career in long-form journalism.
They discuss the reporting behind Fast Food Nation, from slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants to boardrooms and lobbying operations, and why Schlosser came to see the industry as a lens through which to understand modern America. He explains how the story of fast food became a story about labour, inequality, deregulation and the alliance between government and big business.
The conversation also ranges across his wider body of work, including prisons, nuclear weapons and the enduring appeal of investigative writing that challenges power rather than flatters it. Thoughtful, unsparing and deeply timely, this is a conversation about journalism, capitalism and why the systems shaping our lives deserve much closer scrutiny.
Find out more about the 25th anniversary edition of Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser here
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsEric Schlosser· Guest0:00
[upbeat music] This is a Global Player original podcast.
James O'Brien· Host0:05
[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to Full Disclosure, a podcast project conceived entirely to let me spend more time with interesting people than I would ever get on the radio. And rarely has that description fitted a guest better than this week's. Eric Schlosser, welcome.
Eric Schlosser· Guest0:25
Thank you.
James O'Brien· Host0:26
I'm here to celebrate, if that's the right word, the twenty-fifth anniversary of your first book, Fast Food Nation. But a quick word first, I think, on the extraordinary diversity of your career.
Eric Schlosser· Guest0:38
Hmm.
James O'Brien· Host0:38
Um, I went to see There Will Be Blood the other night at Brentford Everyman.
Eric Schlosser· Guest0:42
Oh, wow.
James O'Brien· Host0:42
They have a throwback- Huh. -cinema.
Eric Schlosser· Guest0:44
Yeah.
James O'Brien· Host0:45
And when the credits came up at the end, I saw the name Eric Schlosser, and I thought, "Uh, that's an odd coincidence. I'm interviewing someone called Eric Schlosser next week." But it was the same bloke.
Eric Schlosser· Guest0:54
So i-it was me.
James O'Brien· Host0:56
It was you.
Eric Schlosser· Guest0:56
I, I plead guilty.
James O'Brien· Host0:57
Uh, a-and then, of course, on the back of, uh, uh, of, of Fast Food Nation, on the new edition, uh, we're reminded of how the San Francisco Chronicle reviewed it originally, comparing you to Upton Sinclair and, and Rachel Carson. So I felt like the kid in The Sixth Sense. It was like all these links were appearing- Yeah. -of, of the, uh... 'cause Upton Sinclair, of course, wrote Oil, which you opted, bought the option for- And- -for the film ...
Eric Schlosser· Guest1:19
and my connection to There Will Be Blood really came out of Fast Food Nation because Upton Sinclair wrote a novel that was hugely influential in the States called The Jungle, and it was about the meatpacking