Fast Food Nation Author: Things Have Only Gotten Worse

Barn cats staggering in circles on Texas dairies in 2024 turned out to be a warning flare for a food system that author Eric Schlosser says is more concentrated—and more dangerous—than when his Fast Food Nation came out 25 years ago. In a piece adapted from the 25th anniversary edition of that book for the Guardian, Schlosser explains that veterinarian Barb Petersen traced the cats' bizarre neurological symptoms to the raw milk they drank from cows infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza. The implication was clear: Bird flu was circulating in dairy herds and creeping into milk.

Schlosser argues that the obvious response—universal testing of cows and milk, quarantines, worker screening, and compensation for farmers—never materialized, thanks to split federal authority, industry resistance, and Texas officials downplaying risk. Since then, bird flu has spread through US dairy and poultry operations, with small human clusters among farmworkers and the ever-present concern that the virus could mutate to become more contagious or lethal to humans. For Schlosser, that episode is one more example of the "true cost" of industrialized food: mega-dairies, factory farms, and a heavily consolidated supply chain that create ideal conditions for pathogens and brittle systems when something goes wrong.

He points to E. coli outbreaks tied to mass-produced sandwiches, the 2022 infant formula crisis after contamination at one Abbott plant that supplied one-fifth of US formula, and a handful of multinationals that dominate everything from seeds and pesticides to beef, yogurt, and even the genetics of egg-laying hens. And he highlights "true-cost accounting" research estimating that Americans' $1.1 trillion in annual food spending actually amounts to $3.3 trillion once health, environmental, and social costs are factored in.

The way out, he concludes, lies in changing incentives so companies pay for the harms they cause, tightening oversight, and rethinking what we eat and how it's produced. "Changing this system won't be easy, and it may take years," he writes. "But it's been done before—child labor was once routine in US factories, until banned by the US Supreme Court. And the alternative to changing things will be a hell of a lot worse. So it must be done." (Read the full piece here.)