A Few Zen - Music, Fusion, and Life

The book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser changed my life. As a life-long cook and a current food scientist this book scared the hell out of me. And it's real life people, not fiction. It chronicles the history of all of today's major fast food chains and of Walt Disney. You might say.....Walt Disney.....but yeh, I said it. His connection to Ray Croc and McDonald's is so intrinsic and you never knew. The book details why America is getting so unhealthy and fat...fast food. It reminds me of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" because what he describes is like a nightmare but it is the truth. A fast food industry that both feeds and feeds off the young. The scary part is why fast food is so delicious and how it is so consistent. The food that is created has to be so consistent that mother nature herself had to be dropped by the wayside to achieve what they wanted. How is a burger at McD's the same in Istanbul and in Chicago? The food is all bioengineered. This book made me start buying only organic meats. And that is a big change with me being a cook. It costs more and is less easily found. It chronicles how all livestock for fast food is grown in the most disgusting and dirty conditions. All of the "veggies" are genetically engineered to unnatural states. Mad cow disease. Workers rights trampled to make a buck. Automation to replace workers. Farmers get screwed over. The truth behind the food you eat is in this book. The government facilitates all our health problems by not making legislation for more cleanly practices with our food supply. They make too much money from the meat industry to make any changes for our benefit. This is information everyone in the world needs to know, because in the future we will have no food left because we are poisoning and polluting it so much right now. Or we will become so fat we will not even be able to get up to go get fast food. This book is a must read because it contains information critical your health and of the injustice that these fast food stores are getting away with. 5 out of 5 Page-Turns

Posted by JJ at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As a huge Stephen King fan I just picked up this relatively new novel (I heard they are making it into a movie right now). It is about a small Nevada mining town named Desperation. It is the story of a "crazy" cop who stocks his jail full of random people he arrests on the highway passing outside the town. The cop is also literally falling apart and bleeding at the seams. No one has any idea what is going on with this cop. He's also killed everyone else in the town in cold blood. So the jail is full of random out-of towners having no clue what is going on. The story also has a religious little boy who has some connection he developed with God when his friend was in a coma. With the boy's help the people escape from the jail while the cop is gone, only to find out how crazy the town is. The cop has control over snakes, jackals, spiders, scorpions, wolves, and every other creepy animal he can get his mind on. From here I can't say much more but you can get an idea that this ain't no regular cop. More like a bat out of hell. It is a very well written story (as always Mr. King!). It has about 8 people's perspectives it follows. So as you get into how one character sees it, another character gives you a different perspective. Definitely a horror novel but it's exactly what you want more of from Stephen King. The book also has a large dose of religion as the characters grapel with their faith in God. And God isn't described as all good and mighty. The story shows how only the young boy has a new gained faith where all of the older charcters have lost theirs'. Probably better then the movie even though it isn't even out yet so read it if you would go see this in the theater.

5 out of 5 Page-Turns

Posted by JJ at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)