Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser [205]
“McDonald’s don’t deserve a penny”: Quoted ibid.
248 During the trial, Sidney Nicholson… officers belonging to Special Branch: See testimony of Sidney Nicholson, McDonald’s, McDonald’s Restaurants, Ltd., v Helen Steel, David Morris, Day 249, May 14, 1996, pp. 32–38.
“At no time did I believe they were dangerous”: Quoted in “Interview: McDonald’s Spy Fran Tiller on Infiltration and Subterfuge, Big Mac Style,” www.McSpotlight.org.
248 For Dave Morris, perhaps the most disturbing moment: Interview with Dave Morris.
249 some of the similarities between Dave Morris and Ray Kroc: See Vidal, McLibel, pp 58–62.
“Fitting into a finely working machine”: Quoted in Nick Hasell, “McDonald’s Long March,” Management Today, September 1994.
250 Plauen has lost about 10 percent of its population: Interview with Markus Schneider.
251 Plauen’s unemployment rate is about 20 percent: Ibid.
“It was dumb luck”: Quoted in Roger Thurow, “For East German Pair, McDonald’s Serves Up an Economic Parable,” Wall Street Journal, November 8, 1999.
a third of the young people in eastern Germany: Cited in Leonard Ziskin, “Fa and Antifa in the Fatherland,” Nation, October 5,1998.
Epilogue: Have It Your Way
My views on how to restructure the nation’s food safety system were influenced by a recent report by the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine. Ensuring Safe Food: From Production to Consumption (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1998) contains many reasonable recommendations that should not be — as so much of the previous food safety advice from National Academy of Sciences has been – ignored. Dale Lasater was a gracious host during many of my visits to Colorado. His ranch is a national treasure. The family’s role in the southwestern cattle industry is eloquently described in Dale Lasater’s Falfurrias: Ed C. Lasater and the Development of South Texas (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1985). Laurence M. Lasater’s The Lasater Philosophy of Cattle Raising (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1972) outlines a holistic system of range management that treats both the animals and the land with respect. The Shortgrass Prairie (Boulder, Colo.: Pruett Publishing, 1988), by Ruth Carol Cushman and Stephan R. Jones, conveys through text and photographs the beauty of an American landscape that is largely unappreciated.
I am grateful to the Conway family, who allowed me to poke around their restaurants and hang out in the kitchens. The last hamburger I ate was served at the Conway’s Red Top on South Nevada in Colorado Springs. It was as good as it gets.
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255 “Nature is smart as hell”: Interview with Dale Lasater.
257 Recent findings that grass-fed cattle: See Francisco Diez Gonzalez, Todd R. Callaway, Menas G. Kizoulis, and James B. Russell, “Grain Feeding and the Dissemination of Acid-Resistant Escherichia coli from Cattle,” Science, September 11, 1998.
259 one of America’s most profitable fast food chains: It is difficult to gauge In-N-Out’s financial details because the company is privately owned. Nevertheless, a decade ago the financial analyst Robert L. Emerson speculated that “In-N-Out enjoys the highest level of return on invested capital in the fast-food industry.” See Emerson, Economics of Fast Food, p. 94.
259 generating more than $150 million in annual revenues: The estimate of $150 milion comes from a recent Los Angeles Times article on the chain and its future after Esther Snyder. The actual figure may be as much as two times higher; in 1990 Emerson claimed that individual In-N-Out restaurants had annual revenues of $1.7 million. See Greg Hernandez, “Family-Owned In-N-Out at Crossroads,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 2000; Emerson, Economics of Fast Food, p. 93.
The starting wage of a part-time worker: Representatives of In-N-Out declined my requests for an interview, citing the Snyder family’s wariness of the press. The information on the chain’s wages and food preparation