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Food, Inc. is a fantastic summary of all the food-related issues in the US today.

Marketing
The way we eat has changed more in the past 50 years than in the previous 200. But we still use the same images of agarian America to sell food.

Hillshire Farms, owned by Sarah Lee, a $12.8 billion company, represents itself with a little red barn.

There is a deliberate veil drawn between us and our food. Industry doesn’t want us to know where our food comes from because if we did, we might not want to eat it. In fact, 13 states even have laws making it illegal to criticize food (informally called “Veggie Libel Laws” because the criticism is usually aimed at the meat industry).

This issue isn’t just about what we’re eating, it isn’t just about health, it’s about what we’re allowed to say and allowed to know.

Monopolies
Just a handful of companies have changed the way we eat. The whole industrial food system began with fast food in the 1930′s. The McDonald brothers brought Ford’s idea of industrialization to food. Each person in their restaurants performed one simple task repeatedly (one person added the mustard to the bun, one person added the pickle, one person wrapped the burger in paper). This system allowed them to pay very low wages and to easily replace employees.

McDonald’s is now the single largest purchaser of both ground beef and potatoes inthe US. They are also one of the largest purchasers of lettuce, tomatoes, chicken, pork, and even apples. With McDonald’s focus on consistency (ensuring that a burger tastes exactly the same no matter where its ordered, or where the meat came from), they have led and driven the industrialization of our food chain. Today, even if you don’t eat fast food, you are eating meat out of this system.

Animals
By combining antibiotics, hormones, unhealthy diets, and genetic engineering, animals are fattened faster than ever before.

We have literally changed the chicken.

A layer hen (front) vs a broiler hen (back) at the same age of 6 weeks.

The food that is fed to livestock is cheap and fattening and is making the animals sick (which, in turn, is making us sick).

Farmers
Not only have we changed the chicken, but we have also changed the farmer. Today, nearly every chicken is owned by a large company (like Tyson’s or Perdue). The farmer simply raises them, but they are owned, from birth to slaughter, by a corporation. Farmers that raise chickens for a large company must continue to comply with the company’s regulations (such as upgrading their chicken houses on demand) which are often expensive. The typical chicken farmer has borrowed $500,000 and makes $18,000 a year. One chicken farmer who invited the cameras into her overcrowded chicken house said, “It is nasty in here. There’s dust and feces everywhere. This isn’t farming.”

Corn
What looks like a conicopia of veriety at the grocery store is not. it is an illusion. There are very few companies involved and even fewer crops. Nearly all of our food can be traced back to corn or soy. Much of our food is just clever rearrangements of corn and soy.

Thirty percent of the land-base in the US is planted by corn! Due to US government policy (the Farm Bill), farmers are paid to over-produce corn and soy. Since corn & soy are used in about 90% of processed foods, the large food companies lobby congress to continue these subsidies. This way, they’re able to buy corn & soy for cheaper than what it costs to produce.

Because corn is so cheap, it is fed to our livestock whose stomachs are not able to digest corn properly.  For more about this, see Feeding Our Food.

Food Safety (or lack thereof)
Feeding corn to animals that are not designed to eat corn has led to an abundance of an acid-resistant mutation of the E. coli virus.  This strain of the virus, which never existed prior to the industrialization of our food chain, is now prevalent in our food system.  The waste runoff from factory farms then spreads the E. coli to fruits and vegetables.

Each new step in “efficiency” that industrialization introduces to the food process just leads to more problems.  If a cow is taken off corn for 5 days (and instead eats grass), it will shed 85% of the E. coli in their system.  But instead of doing this, the industry comes up with another “solution” to the problem: ammonia washes.  Our meat is literally washed in ammonia (ya, the toxic stuff) to kill viruses and bacteria before it is packaged.

With all the new dangers in our food system today, you’d think the FDA would do something about it.  Turns out that in 1976, the FDA conducted 50,000 food inspections.  In 2006, they conducted less than 10,000.

Obesity
We have skewed the food system to favor the bad calories (High Fructose Corn Syrup is cheap) and it wasn’t an accident.  It is a direct result of US government subsidies.  Income is the highest predictor of obesity because a Big Mac is cheaper than a head of broccoli.  Type II diabetes used to only effect adults, but now it is effecting children in epidemic proportions.

Factory Farm Workers
The food industry has mastered the art of picking a workforce that they can exploit.  Slaughterhouses actively recruit in Mexico, seeking our employees who are desperate for a paycheck.  These type of employees can’t afford to quit or lose their jobs and the meat industry knows it and holds it over their heads.

The meatpacking companies even have agreements with immigration officers to give up as many as 15 illegal immigrants a day to avoid raids in their factories.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
In 1996, 2% of soybeans grown in the US contained GMOs.  In 2006, 90% contained GMOs.  Seventy percent of processed food in the US contains GMOs, yet none of it is labeled.  The food industry fights tooth and nail against labeling GMO ingredients.  They know that if we know what we’re eating, we may choose not to eat it.

Change
We have allowed ourselves to become disconnected and ignorant about something as intimate as what we are putting inside our mouths and bodies, but we have the power to change the system! When we run an item by the supermarket scanner, we are voting. (Even large corporations like WalMart have quit carrying milk containing synthetic growth hormones because of consumer demand.) It is up to us to demand a change.

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Breakfast: Bagel with “Better Than Cream Cheese” soy cream cheese
Lunch: Nachos with black beans, soy cheese, and homemade guacamole
Dinner: Veggie Pad Thai

Related Posts:

• A Brief History Lesson
• High Fructose Corn Syrup
• Frankenfish