Quote

What we eat has changed more in the last 40 years than in the previous 40,000. The survival of the current food system depends upon widespread ignorance of how it really operates.

Eric Schlosser

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Eric Schlosser
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: August 17
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
Years
Ignorance
Really
Depends
Changed
Operates
Food
Widespread
System
Previous
Lasts
Current
Last
Currents
Upon
Survival

More quotes by Eric Schlosser

Image
The obesity epidemic among American children is becoming so bad that I think there's a growing realization across the country that we've got to change what we're feeding our kids and that school may be a really good place to start.
Eric Schlosser
Image
I think there could hardly be a more important subject than health and nutrition.
Eric Schlosser
Image
I'd been eating fast food all my life without thinking about it. And the more I learned about the subject, the more intrigued I became.
Eric Schlosser
Image
As a matter of fact, most cases of food poisoning are never linked back to their source.
Eric Schlosser
Image
I went into the library and read about fast food and became amazed by all the stuff I didn't know. I learned that there is a whole world behind the counter that, it seemed to me, has been deliberately hidden from the public.
Eric Schlosser
Image
The market is a tool, and a useful one. But the worship of this tool is a hollow faith. Far more important than any tool is what you make with it.
Eric Schlosser
Image
The Golden Arches are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross.
Eric Schlosser
Image
So for everything I do, I'm very clear about what I'm doing, and I tell people what it's about. They get a sense of what I'm thinking. I don't let people think I'm going to write something in praise in the meatpacking industry, and then they read it and it's actually attacking the meatpacking industry.
Eric Schlosser
Image
I think two different people can read one of my books and come away with completely different opinions on the subject. I hope they just read from the beginning to the end and be made to think about the subject. Then they can come to their own conclusions.
Eric Schlosser
Image
I hate the word inevitable because I feel like things don't have to be the way they are.
Eric Schlosser
Image
Different people, in good faith, can look at the same fact and interpret it differently. But thats where an interesting conversation begins.
Eric Schlosser
Image
The executives who run the fast food industry are not bad men. They are businessmen. They will sell free-range, organic, grass-fed hamburgers if you demand it. They will sell whatever sells at a profit.
Eric Schlosser
Image
The industry doesn't want you to know the truth about what you're eating, because if you knew, you might not want to eat it.
Eric Schlosser
Image
In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food in 2000, they spent more than $110 billion. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music—combined.
Eric Schlosser
Image
I think it's possible to have food that's healthy, that's good for you to eat, that's also inexpensive. We don't have to have this cheap, unhealthy food being so aggressively promoted.
Eric Schlosser
Image
Today the U.S. government can demand the nation-wide recall of defective softball bats, sneakers, stuffed animals, and foam-rubber toy cows. But it cannot order a meatpacking company to remove contaminated, potentially lethal ground beef from fast food kitchens and supermarket shelves.
Eric Schlosser
Image
A generation ago, three-quarters of the money used to buy food in the United States was spent to prepare meals at home. Today about half of the money used to buy food is spent at restaurants--mainly at fast food restaurants.
Eric Schlosser
Image
Marijuana gives rise to insanity -- not in its users but in the policies directed against it. A nation that sentences the possessor of a single joint to life imprisonment without parole but sets a murderer free after perhaps six years is in the grips of a deep psychosis.
Eric Schlosser
Image
During my school visits, I really enjoy the feedback I get from them much more than anything I might tell say to them.
Eric Schlosser
Image
The current fast food that we have is inexpensive when you buy it, but the long-term costs of eating it and the long-term costs to society, are much too high. This cheap food, when you add up all the total costs, is much too expensive.
Eric Schlosser