McDonald's infuses French fries and chicken sandwiches with chemical essences that mimic beef tallow. A milkshake's strawberry flavor almost certainly came from a test tube rather than a piece of fruit. Fast food chains have worked hard to produce replicas of flavors and aromas that will bring their customers back for more. Hazardous and repugnant would be an understatement. Workers are usually unskilled and often recent immigrants recruited specifically for the undesirable work.
Severe injuries are commonplace.
Injured workers are often poorly attended to and exploited. The meat processing industry and restaurant chains who purchase from them continually lobby against government regulations that would improve worker and food safety. Schlosser minces no words in explaining a major source of contamination. Factory-farmed poultry and pork have no happier stories. Fast Food Nation ends with a call for Americans to demand better treatment of restaurant workers, and healthier, safer food produced under better conditions.