Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser [206]
260 In-N-Out ranked first: See Deborah Silver, “Primary Choices,” Restaurants and Institutions, March 1, 2000.
the lowest-quality food of any major hamburger chain: Ibid.
262 “advertising directed at children”: Quoted in Harry Berkowitz, “Pediatricians Want Check on Kids’ Ads,” Newsday, February 9, 1995. See also “Policy Statement: Children, Adolescents, and Television,” American Academy of Pediatrics, October 1995.
more than 90 percent of the children in the United States: Cited in Rod Taylor, “The Beanie Factor,” Brandweek, June 16, 1997
263 safest food supply in the world: The National Academy of Science’s Committee to Insure Safe Food from Production to Consumption recently found “little evidence to either support or contradict that assertion.” The committee’s reluctance to pass judgment was based on the unreliable reporting system for foodborne illness in the United States. The panel did not compare the American food safety system with systems in Western Europe. See Ensuring Safe Food, p. 25.
about 0.1 percent of Swedish cattle: Cited in “Swedish Salmonella Control Programmes for Live Animals, Eggs and Meat,” National Veterinary Institute, Swedish Board of Agriculture, National Food Administration, January 16, 1995.
lower than the rate in the United States: At the time, roughly 7.5 percent of American ground beef contained Salmonella. Cited in “Nationwide Federal Plant Raw Ground Beef Microbiological Survey, August 1993-March 1994,” United States Deartment of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, Science and Technology, Microbiology Division, April 1996.
The Netherlands began to test ground beef: Interview with Steven Bjerklie.
a dozen federal agencies: Cited in Ensuring Safe Food, p. 26.
if a pizza has pepperoni on it: Ibid., p. 27.
264 Eggs are regulated by the FDA: This example of bureaucratic folly was cited by Carol Tucker Foreman, a prominent food safety advocate, during recent testimony before Congress. For an excellent critique of our current food safety sys-tem and some rational proposals for reform, see Prepared Statement of Carol Tucker Foreman, Director of Food Policy Institute, before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia Subcommittee, August 4, 1999.
264 more than 500,000 people become ill: Ibid.
on average, once every ten years: Cited in Ensuring Safe Food, p. 87.
roughly 200,000 fast food restaurants: Cited in “Top 100 Share of Restaurant Industry Units by Menu Category,” Technomic Top 100, Technomic Information Services, 2000.
They said IBP slowed down the line: In 1996, an official at the U.S. Meat Export Federation recommended slowing down the line speeds at American plants on export days in order to improve the “hygiene.” See Keith Nunes, “Attitude Adjustment: U.S. Beef and Pork Exporters Need to Develop an ‘Export Mentality,’” Meat & Poultry, March 1996.
the maximum OSHA fine: See OSHA Field Inspection Reference Manual, Section 8 — Chapter IV, C.2.M.
266 “I do not believe”: Quoted in Rudolph J. R. Peritz, Competition Policy in America, 1888–1992: History, Rhetoric, Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 15.
“veggie libel laws” backed by agribusiness: See Ann Hawk, “Veggie Disparagement: Laws in 13 States Prompt Fears Activists and Journalists Will Be Stifled,” The Quill, September 1998; Ronald K. L. Collins and Paul McMasters, “Veggie Libel Laws Still Out to Muzzle Free Speech,” Texas Lawyer, March 30, 1998.
267 “Grow or die”: Quoted in Richard Gibson, “Beef Stakes: How Bill Foley Built a Fast Food Empire on Ailing