With a food supply system completely motivated by profits, consumers are suffering adverse health effects in the interests of higher profits. Oversight is overwhelmed and ineffective. With these two major problems facing our population, a drastic change is needed. Supply should be nationalized and oversight privatized.
It seems like every day there is a new article somewhere on the internet about our food. It is a topic of the utmost importance to all of us. It seems, however, that most of us live under the veil that Big Food has pulled over our eyes, shielding themselves from being exposed. They are the wizard behind the curtain. But unlike Alice’s wizard, this one has no concern for us. They have done a great job separating the consumer from the supply. And it is a smart business decision. When a consumer goes to the grocery store, they see great packaging. Unfortunately, the packaging is not reflective of that which lies within. As Michael Pollen says in Food Inc: “There are no seasons in the American supermarket. Now there are tomatoes all year round, grown halfway around the world, picked when it was green, and ripened with ethylene gas. Although it looks like a tomato, it’s kind of a notional tomato. I mean, it’s the idea of a tomato.”
The biggest threat that the consumer faces is in the meat. Here are just a few problems with our livestock. 1) Cows are fed corn to fatten them, which works, but causes them to retain harmful and even deadly bacteria in their bowls. This can be avoided by feeding them grass, as they were intended to eat. But there is less profit in that. 2) The animals are slaughtered in such quantity that the contents of the bowls are sometimes released into the eatable meat supply. 3) Shortcuts are taken in order to minimize the risks, such as treating the potentially infected meat with ammonia. 4) Some poultry feeds contain antibiotics and cancer causing arsenic. 5) Farm raised fish are fed with feed caught in polluted waters that contain cancer causing dioxins and PCBs. Most consumers don’t know these things occur, and it turns out they don’t even wat to know. But it’s having negative health impacts on our population. We are growing ever more resistant to antibiotics. There are links to cancer and other serious illnesses. And as our population grows unhealthier, the supply companies grow richer.
Robert Kenner, the creator of Food Inc, attempted to change the market by placing more of a demand on organic foods. Unfortunately that documentary was not seen by enough people. Consumers still live under the veil. The only way to fix this problem is to nationalize the supply system. It is a drastic step, but these are desperate times. Do you really trust Monsanto with the health of your children? When a company’s primary concern is the bottom line, they will do whatever is necessary to ensure profits. There are ethical questions that arise as we give the food corporations this much power. “I’m always struck by how successful we have been at hitting the bull’s-eye of the wrong target. I mean we have learned- for example, in cattle we have learned how to plant, fertilize and harvest corn using global positioning satellite technology, and nobody sits back and asks, “But should we be feeding cows corn?” We’ve become a culture of technicians. We’re all into the how of it and nobody’s stepping back and saying “But why?”- Joe Salatin.
Put government in charge of supplying the food. They can make the health of the population their primary concern, and not profits. They would have to take over the feed supply as well. Rather than having “The goal: to fatten animals as fast and cheaply as possible,” it would be to nourish the animals appropriately to eventually nourish our population. “There needs to be rigorous analysis of the health impact of what’s fed to food animals.” Additionally the government might even look after the environment.
We do not have to abandon the new technologies we have applied toward farming practices. Blake Hurst seems to think that efficient farming and environmental consciousness seem to be mutually exclusive. “The organic farming narrative depends on the belief that conventional farming sacrifices the present for the future…Those of us who grew up with a hoe in our hand have absolutely no nostalgia for days gone by.”
Overseeing the process of supplying the food has been proven a huge failure. Marion Nestle almost comically points out in her about food safety. “Even with the best of intentions, it would be difficult to keep up with food safety problems given the chances in the U.S. food system since 1906. USDA has 7,000 inspectors or so, and they oversee 6,000 meat, poultry and egg establishments-and 130 importers-that slaughter and process 89 million pigs, 37 million cattle and 7 billion chickens and turkeys, not to mention the 25 billion pounds of beef and 7 billion pounds of ground beef each year…The demands on the FDA are even more unreasonable. About 700 FDA inspectors must oversee 30,000 food manufacturers and processors, 10,000 warehouses, 785,000 commercial and institutional food establishments, 128,000 grocery and convenience stores, and 1.5 million vending operations.”
Leave the oversight to private business. They can get paid per item. It is no secret that private businesses have done very well with government contracts. Having full transparency would be a good thing for the consumer. There could be a whole new industry created, responsible for overseeing the safety of the population’s food supply. As far as the economics of it are concerned, instead of the production companies earning huge profits at the cost of the health of our population, those profits would be rolled into the oversight side. The prices will stay the same but the product will improve. The more oversight, the more profitable the oversight company will be and the healthier the population will be. The logic is there.
These are desperate times. And desperate times call for desperate measures. Are we going to continue with the status quo, lining the pockets of a few fat cats? Or are we going to make a change? Make the population healthier by changing to motivation of the supply side from profit to health.