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'Fight Uncle McDonald, and KFC, and...'

Arthur J Pais

Best-selling author Eric Schlosser has a three-word wish for developing nations: Fight Uncle McDonald.

Schlosser, whose Fast Food Nation, the eye-popping indictment of the American fast-food industry, entered the 13th week on The New York Times bestseller list last week, warns that obesity and other health problems produced by fat-saturated fast food could cause havoc abroad, just as it has done in America.

In his appearances in American cities and discussions on television and radio, Schlosser, a left-leaning journalist, also talks of health hazards India and other developing nations face from McDonald's and other fast-food companies.

"As the fast-food industry has grown more competitive in the United States," he notes in the book, "the major chains have looked to overseas markets for their future growth."

A decade ago McDonald's had about 3,000 restaurants in a few dozen countries, he adds; today, it has about 15,000 restaurants in 117 nations.

Of the five new restaurants the company opens every day, at least four are outside America, he writes.

Warning against the efforts by the multinationals to create a "homogenized international culture", Schlosser adds: "The fast-food chains have become the totems of Western economic development."

Is it surprising then that they are often the first multinationals when a country opens up its economy to foreign firms, he asks.

Schlosser, whose articles in The Atlantic Monthly and Rolling Stone magazine have examined such sensitive issues as privatization of American prisons, is deeply worried about the impact fast-food chains have on children.

Schlosser's concern about obesity in children is reinforced by yet another study on the subject that was released on Wednesday.

Theresa A Nicklas, a paediatrician at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who has been conducting studies on children's diets and subsequent heart diseases for 20 years, notes that while the eating habits of typical Americans who are about 10 years has improved, an increasing number of children are overweight. A more sedentary lifestyle and increase in fat intake have contributed to the obesity, the study notes.

Nicklas's study does not blame the fast-food industry, but Schlosser is convinced that McDonald's, KFC and other international fast-food giants are playing a key role in obesity not only in children, but also in adults.

He has repeatedly asked for a ban on advertising what he describes as unhealthy foods targeted at children. Every month more than 90 per cent of the children in America (estimated to be 50 million) eat at McDonald's, he observes.

It is not just the ingredients used in fast foods that upset Schlosser. Much of the food is produced in unhygienic conditions detrimental to the safety of the workers, he argues.

The fast-food chains feel little pressure outside America and Europe to maintain safe workplaces that also have very good hygiene.

In demanding a consumer revolt against fast chains, Schlosser would like to see organizations like The United Students Against Sweatshops to monitor and effect profound changes in fast-food chains abroad.

The student group has been a nightmare to Nike. When it launched its protest against the inhuman working conditions in factories that made shoes for Nike, the Seattle-based multibillion-dollar firm first merely shrugged.

As the protests grew, it said the factories in Indonesia and elsewhere were owned by independent suppliers. But eventually, Nike agreed to get the suppliers to pay better wages and improve working conditions.

The same tactics can be used to help workers in slaughterhouses in America and abroad, feels Schlosser. "As the nation's largest purchaser of beef," he notes, "McDonald's Corporation must be held accountable for the behaviour of its suppliers."

He has also attacked the notion floated by federal officials and meat-packing companies that America has the safest food supply in the world. Using pages after pages, he insists in the book that "a welter of competing bureaucracies [in America] leads to confusion, gaps in reinforcement, and numerous food safety absurdities".

For instance, the US Department of Agriculture is allowed to conduct microbial tests on slaughtered cattle, but cannot test live cattle for infection.

And while eggs are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, chicken are regulated by the USDA. There is hardly any cooperation between the two agencies, he notes. As a result the levels of salmonella in American eggs are not reduced.

Do you know that more than half a million people in America become ill after eating salmonella-contaminated eggs, he often asks his audience, some of whom find it difficult to believe him.

He goes a step further: More than 300 people die in America annually because of egg poisoning. Consumers in America and abroad should remember that no large corporation could afford to flout sustained public outrage, Schlosser adds.

Urging fast-food companies to produce free-range, organic, grass-fed hamburgers in a worker-friendly environment, Schlosser urges a consumer revolt, first in America, then abroad.

"The real power of the American consumer has not yet been unleashed," he asserts. "The heads of Burger King, KFC and McDonald's should feel daunted; they are outnumbered.

"There are three of them," Schlosser argues. "There almost three hundred million of you."

He might offer a similar mantra to one billion Indians.

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