Eric Schlosser

Eric Schlosser (born 1959) is an American journalist and author. His most famous book to date is Fast Food Nation, an exposé on the practices of the fast food industry, especially focusing on its sanitary conditions and treatment of workers. Fast Food Nation evolved from a two-part article in Rolling Stone Magazine. He has also written Reefer Madness, a book about the three biggest sectors of the American black market: marijuana, migrant labor and pornography.

As an aspiring playwright Schlosser wrote the play Americans in 1985. Though it deals with the theme of American imperialism at the beginning of the 20th century, the piece has been given new relevance by international events involving the U.S. in recent years. It features Leon Czolgosz, William McKinley's assassin, who kills the President in anger over U.S. occupation of the Philippines. Americans was produced in 2003, but is not available in the United States.

He was born in Manhattan, New York and spent his childhood there and in Los Angeles, California. His father, Herbert Schlosser, was a former Wall Street lawyer, then turned broadcaster who became the President of NBC in 1974.

Eric Schlosser studied at Princeton (American History) and Oxford (British Imperial History). After working for a New York film company, he began a journalism career with Atlantic Monthly in Boston, Massachusetts. He now lives in California and is working on a book about the prison system. Schlosser is married to Shauna Redford, daughter of Robert Redford, and has two children.

Schlosser appears in an interview for the DVD of Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, having a one on one discussion with the filmmaker about the fast food industry. He refused to appear in the documentary itself and rarely makes appearances in public.

Food Industry Reaction

In May 2006, Schlosser and his co-author Charles Wilson released a children's book titled "Chew On This." The book, along with increasing publicity for an upcoming Hollywood movie based on "Fast Food Nation," resulted in 18 food industry associations launching the www.bestfoodnation.com website as part of a major public relations campaign. The site presents statements about health and and labour practices in the American beef, pork, dairy, potato and other industries. One page includes two press releases accusing Schlosser of publishing misinformation[1].

References

• Janet Adamy and Richard Gibson, Flak Over 'Fast Food Nation' U.S. Food Manufacturers Rally To Oppose a Film and a Book That Blame Them for Obesity, May 18, 2006.

• Crain's Chicago Business, Authors and McDonald's Exchange More Volleys, June 2, 2006

• Best Food Nation: What Others are Saying (Accessed July 26, 2006)