Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser [184]
The flavor in a twelve-ounce can of Coke: An industry source, who shall go unnamed, provided me with the cost of the flavor in a six-pack of Coke, and I did the rest of the math.
A typical artificial strawberry flavor: This recipe comes from Fenaroli’s Handbook of Flavor Ingredients, vol. 2, p. 831.
127 “A natural flavor”: Interview with Terry Acree.
“consumer likeability”: Quoted in “What Is Flavor? An IFF Consumer Insights Perspective.”
128 The TA.XT2i Texture Analyzer: For a description of similar devices, see Ray Marsili, “Texture and Mouthfeel: Making Rheology Real,” Food Product Design, August 1993.
the ones being synthesized by funguses: See Leticia Mancini, “Expanding Flavor Horizons,” Food Engineering, November 1991; and Kitty Kevin, “A Brave New World: Capturing the Flavor Bug: Flavors from Microorganisms,” Food Processing, March 1995.
McDonald’s did acknowledge: See Jeanne-Marie Bartas, “Vegan Menu Items at Fast Food and Family-Style Restaurants — Part 2,” Vegetarian Journal, January/ February 1998.
Wendy’s Grilled Chicken Sandwich: See “Wendy’s Nutrition/Ingredient Guide,” Wendy’s International, Inc., 1997.
Burger Kings BK Broiler: See “Nutritional Information,” Burger King, 1999.
6. On the Range
Sam Bingham, The Last Ranch: A Colorado Community and the Coming Desert (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996), and Peter R. Decker, Old Fences, New Neighbors (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998), are two fine books about the current struggles of Colorado ranchers. “The Rancher’s Code,” a chapter in Charles F. Wilkinson’s Crossing the Next Meridian (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1992), outlines the steps progressive ranchers are taking both to preserve and to remain profitably on the land. Among the many interviews I conducted in the ranching community, a number deserve mention. Dave Carlson, at the Resource Analysis Section of the Colorado Department of agriculture, helped me understand the economic forces now changing the state’s landscape. Dave Carter, president of the Rocky Mountain Farmer’s Union, outlined many of the development pressures and well-entrenched political interests that ranchers now confront. Dean Preston, the Pueblo Chieftain’s agriculture correspondent for nearly three decades, described the changes he’s witnessed in rural Colorado. Lee Pitts, the editor of Livestock Market Digest, helped place the experience of Rocky Mountain ranchers in a broader national perspective. Over the years his work for the Digest has represented independent American journalism at its finest.
For the history of cattle ranching and the Beef Trust I relied mainly upon Willard F. Williams and Thomas T. Stout, Economics of the Livestock-Meat Industry (New York, Macmillan, 1964); Mary Yeager, Competition and Regulation: The Development of Oligopoly in the Meat Packing Industry (Greenwich, Conn.: Jai Press, 1981); and Jimmy M. Skaggs, Prime Cut: Livestock Raising and Meatpacking in the United States, 1607-1983 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1986). John Crabtree, at the Center for Rural Affairs in Walt Hill, Nebraska, helped me see today’s formula pricing arangements in the proper historical context. Two of the center’s publications were especially useful: Competition and the Livestock Market (April 1990) and From the Carcass to the Kitchen: Competition and the Wholesale Meat Market (November 1995), the latter written by Marty Strange and Annette Higby. Concentration in Agriculture, A Report of the USDA Advisory Committee on Agricultural Concentration (Washington, D.C.: USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, June 1996) is an official and belated acknowledgment of the problems faced by American ranchers and farmers. A Time to Act, the report of the USDA’s National Commission on Small Farms, does an even better job of portraying the harms of concentrated power in agriculture.
Mike Callicrate, one of the plaintiffs in Pickett v. IBP, Inc., provided a great deal of information about the misbehavior of the large meatpacking firms and the rural unrest now growing in response to it. And