Don't Eat This Book by Morgan Spurlock

This book is a must-read companion to Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. Whereas that work mostly dealt with how the fast-food model of business has reshaped the American food landscape, and the tangential affects that has had on individuals, Morgan Spurlock's book is all about how fast food itself is directly affecting Americans. Fast Food Nation makes no claims about how bad for you fast food is, but Don't Eat This Book more than makes up for it. In other words, one book is about everything that goes on behind the counter and the other is about everything

This book is not a rehash of Super-Size Me. Although he does talk about that experiment, the timeline is from well before that movie to well after. He talks about what inspired the movie, which was a lawsuit brought by two obese teenage girls in New Jersey against McDonald's. The subjects range from how bad Fast Food is to you to the incestuous relationship of the food industry and the USDA. He really covers a wide range of topics, and touches on a lot of things that happen because of American's increasing obesity, like the disturbing trend of doing surgery on kids (laproscopy) in order to reduce their weight.

If you've ever wondered how bad any of that stuff is for you, well, it's bad. After listening to Spurlock talk about how many calories are in fast-food hamburgers and fries, there's no way I'm ever going back to one of those places. Hardees even introduced a burger called the Monster that has 1400 calories and 190 grams of fat! That's disgusting!

Morgan Spurlock is a pretty good writer, and if you get the cd audiobook you can hear him read it too. It's an enjoyable and enlightening read, and in case you're thinking it sounds completely depressing; don't worry, he's got plenty of positive things to say about the direction some are taking away from the fast-food lifestyle. Also, our Austin-based Whole Foods stores have grown from one store employing 19 people in 1980 to 183 stores worldwide. It's not all bad.

Read it!