Rick, your post on the book Fast Food Nation is timely in light of the Mad Cow scare here in the U.S.

I first read an edited version Chapter 2 of the book in the January 2001 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. The title of the article was "Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good," and delivered what was for me a riveting account of how the tastes and smells of almost all processed foods are chemically enhanced. Copies of the article are now mirrored around the web now that the article is gone from The Atlantic's web site. It's a great read.

There's also a good interview with the book's author, Eric Schlosser, on The Atlantic site.

I just might re-read the book to remind myself of the scary, fascinating facts in it.

- mike lee -