When you step in line at your favorite fast food place, you’re probably only thinking about how hungry you are, and how cheaply you can feed yourself. You aren’t going to be thinking of the personal, local, or global impacts that the dollar menu truly has. Only a small handful of corporations are in control of most of the food on the shelf at your local supermarket, according to Michael Pollan. With a virtual monopoly over the global food market, these corporations rely on coercion, scare tactics, and abhorrent abuses of humans and animals to deliver to you the cheapest but most costly meals in history, and it’s bound to get worse before it gets better. Sickness, poverty, and death are the backbone of the food industry, and the few that control it don’t dare to admit it. In just a few years we’ve managed to completely transform the ways we grow, handle, and prepare foods, and those changes are taking a toll on everyone involved, from farm to table, cradle to grave.

In 2008, Robert Kenner put out a film called Food Inc., featuring testimony from food and industry experts like Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, farmers, and representatives from the meat industry. Food Inc. sought to illuminate some of the atrocities that go on behind the scenes in the American and global food industry, from farm to table so to speak. The biggest problem that we face is that there are, as Pollan says in the film, only a handful of large corporations guiding how food is grown, packed, shipped, and marketed. Not only that, but there are government officials working in the USDA, FDA, congress, and other branches that are out to represent the desires of these faceless corporations and not the people that need the most protection; the average American. What’s worse is that what we do to our food in the US has a global impact. The bottom line is that corporate greed is undercutting food safety and the very concept of what food is, and this has started to snowball out of control.

Let’s think of your average cow, raised for slaughter. These cows, which can weight up to 2400 pounds, are confined in spaces where they often can’t even turn around if they can even stand up at all. Add to that the fact that they’re often wading ankle deep in pools of their own feces, and you’ve already got a good idea what kinds of problems are bound to happen once you get the beast to the slaughterhouse. Now, take the cows natural food source which it has evolved to consume — that’s grass, in case you didn’t know — and replace it with something they’d never have started eating unless humans were dishing it out. That something is corn. Cows are ruminants, meaning they’ve got stomachs designed to ferment the grass they’d naturally eat so that they can digest it. When that grass is replaced with something like corn, their stomachs are thrown for a loop and they start to produce E. coli. Now, you’ve got this cow hanging out in crap, growing E. coli in its gut, and it’s finally gotten fat enough to warrant killing.

The cow gets crammed into a truck and brought to a plant where it’s systematically murdered and parted out. According to a Consumer Reports article, the meat from one cow can be spread out over eight tons of ground beef. Remember, that cow likely had E. coli, and now its getting spread into eight tons of beef. And that beef is spread all over the US, Canada, Mexico. The way that we, the consumers, have been taught to consume means that we’re constantly seeking the quickest, easiest, and cheapest sustenance we can most of the time. We’re a nation that can afford the Dollar Menu but not a head of broccoli and the time to prepare it. We’ve been duped into thinking that the stuff at the fast food drive-thru is a necessary evil, and we’re paying a toll with our lives. Not only is the food absurdly unhealthy, but the industry that produces it is abusing everyone in the chain from farm to table.

The human and societal costs of our current food system are too high to be sustainable. Michael Hurst, a well-meaning farmer, claims that a national switch to an all-organic food production system would actually tax our land and people even more so than the current model, one that relies on GMO’s and persistent chemical pesticides. He claims that there would be such a large amount of land needed that it would be impossible to feed the US on it’s available arable land. He also states that people would need to leave other industries to work in farming and food processing. Unfortunately, he doesn’t provide any evidence to support these claims. What he also doesn’t do is bother to mention the ill-effects of persistent chemical pesticides that are used in conventional farming. Pesticides can leach into the water table and affect the groundwater supply in areas surrounding farms. Run-off can reach rivers and lakes and negatively impact ecosystems of some of our other food sources (fish, for example).

The human element is addressed by Food Inc., Consumer Reports, and Marion Nestle, although not completely. Most of what is addressed by the authors and experts of these pieces are due to foodborne illness or other persistent dietary problems like diabetes or malnutrition. What’s missing is a discussion of the horrible mistreatment of food industry employees, from those picking our fruits and veggies, to the people packing and handling them in various factories and plants, and the people that are turning those products into something we want to eat; the foodservice employees. It’s no secret that there’s a huge gap in the pay of corporate owners of food conglomerates and the people out there picking, planting, raising, slaughtering, packing, and preparing. Farmers are often horribly underpaid, especially if they are undocumented or illegal migrant workers. Hours are long, and pickers are paid by the pound, not by the hour. When this is the case, a person may resort to relieving themselves right where they stand so as to be able to get back to work as quickly as possible.

The mistreatment of the worker goes all the way to the restaurants and fast food joints that most Americans rely on for many of their meals. Foodservice employees are only just starting to get justice, with many areas offering a living wage of $15 an hour. Having worked for years in the industry, I can’t say that there truly is a fair price for our labor. But $15 is a good start. When foodservice employees are working for the current minimum wage, however, we’re often forced to go to work even when we’re exhausted, stressed, and sick. We can’t afford to take a day off to recuperate from the flu or a cold when we aren’t even earning enough to feed ourselves while we work 40 or more hours a week. One can see how this adds up to a further unsafe and unhealthy food industry.

While more people are becoming more inclined to inquire about the food and drug industries, the power that these organizations have over the American people are still overlooked. This is due to the strong ties that these companies have to the US government. These connections are exposed through many mediums of communication, specifically in the documentary Food Inc., and in the piece “Resisting Food Safety” by: Marian Nestle. This impact is pivotal to be aware of, as it directly impacts the nations present state, and future. While the cost effective and efficient nature of using technological and scientific mutations in the food industry is undeniable, the compromise of individual safety through the production of GMO’s and emitted pollution via pesticides is too impactful to ignore.  This aspect of the nation’s food industry is enabled by large corporations, often more powerful than the government, that therefore directly influence the health of our people and planet.

One of the most important concepts when dissecting the intricacies of the food industry is the government’s role in the process. Ever since the prominence of recording food-borne illnesses decades ago, the food industry has been the main obstacle in passing food and drug safety legislature. This is primarily rooted from the fear that these regulations would cause negative PR for the company, ultimately resulting in a drop of sales for the organization. This work is mainly done by lobbyist, individuals who’ll provide economic contributions in order to “save face” for their industry. The process of lobbying is chronicled the article “You Are What They Eat.” When a cow is ill or not fit to be processed, they are considered a downer cow. While these cows are believed to be taken away from the American dinner table, they are just set on a different course. Downer cows are incorporated in feed for other cows and chickens. As a result, these animals still impact the American people, making their execution insignificant. To help promote the safety of the American people, activists pushed to place strict regulations on the inclusion of downer cows in animal feed. These said regulations would have a positive impact in ensuring a higher level of protection for the consumer, however they would slow the production process, and would prove to be more expensive for corporations to carry out the same practices. The money that these organizations would lose is believed to be a main factor in the Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) altering of the proposed ban. Under the newer circumstances, the FDA called for “public comment,” essentially meaning the “ban would be stricter but, like any proposal in the public-comment stage, might not result in final regulations.” This lack of assurance form the FDA that action would be swiftly taken caused a delay, ultimately leaving a void that a solution was meant to fill.

American health is the primary concern of the food industry’s inclusion in government practices. The lack of regulations on food and drug corporations effects future generations. American director and producer Robert Kenner commented in his film Food Inc. that “one in three children born after 2000 will contract diabetes.” This statistic is alarming in that our food sources are directly impacting individuals from a very young age. Another devastating instance in his film that highlights the industry’s influence on young people is seen through Barbara Kowalcyk’s story. Kowalcyk tragically lost her son to e coli after he had eaten a hamburger from a “Jack in the Box” chain restaurant. It is remarkably terrible that a perfectly healthy toddler can lose his or her life in days after simply eating at a fast food restaurant. The idea that the food we consume can be lethal. It almost sounds irrational due to the common shared notion that government organizations such as the FDA are established to protect its people. This often leads people to not look towards the food industry when they are sick, even though their illness may be directly linked to it. This attitude is highlighted in Nestle’s journal “Resisting Food Safety.” Nestle recounts an instance in which she attended a family party decades ago. Many guests had contracted food poisoning from the evening. Nestle states that they “did not report our illnesses to health authorities…we did not try to trace the source of the outbreak.” She additionally goes on to note that she assumed that these minor sicknesses were “a normal part of daily living.” These perspectives are ones held by many in the nation. It is often difficult to have the awareness to trace back a food-borne illness to a specific company as food poisoning is so common. However, this explained commonality is what is most alarming. While one instance may highlight a minor case of food poisoning, another situation may include an outbreak of listeria or e coli.

On the opposition of individuals like Nestle and Kenner are authors like Blake Hurst. Hurst explains his support of the food industries use of GMO’s by preaching about the practices’ influence on production and generation of income. He states, “Millions of hands would be needed to produce food on America’s farms without modern technology.” This thesis does have some truth to it. While the use of pesticides in the raising of livestock has received some heat recently, it can be acknowledged that these strategies do save time and money. The reason for this heat is the proven “48 million Americans a year (that) become sick from food-borne illnesses.” This statistic, provided by Sabrina Tavernise in her article “U.S. Makes Final an Array of Rules on Food Safety,” encompasses the massive amount of US citizens that the compromise of food regulations effects. While she does stand on the other side of this issue than Hurst she does include the heightened cost that stricter legislature would contribute. It is noted, “The new duties would be difficult without significantly increased financing.” While these changes may prove to warrant the nation to empty it’s pockets a little, the positive influence regulations would have on personal health would be immense.

The key to winning an argument is persuasion. When an argument starts, persuasion stops and winning doesn’t become the priority because without persuasion, arguments are now merely just fights. Throughout the five sources I used, Consumer Reports’ “You Are What They Eat”, Food Inc., “Organic Illusions,” “Frontline, PBS.org” and “Resisting Food Safety,” each writer intentionally uses both statistics and facts in order to persuade the readers’ opinion of either agreeing with or disapproving the customs of the food industry. Even though these articles have different stances and opinions, the writers each are affiliated with a similar theme, how food safety is related to issues of power. Whether it be for/against big businesses, or for/against organic substances relative to conventional foods, the writer’s purposes are all comparative.

In the documentary Food Inc., experts argue for the transparency of the industrial food system, both questioning the efficiency of the system as a whole and the governments’ relation to big businesses involved. Eric Schlosser, author of “Fast Food Nation”, said “They don’t want you to know what you’re eating because if you knew then you may not want to eat it.” With recent outbreaks of E. coli across the nation one can only question how the FDA is handling the cleanliness and preparedness of our foods and the states at which the facilities are being maintained. Tyson, the biggest meat packer in the world controlling 28% of the worlds beef, 18% of the worlds pork, and 25% of the worlds chicken, declined to speak in the documentary when approached by Food Inc.. Food inspections across the nation have dropped from 50,000 to 9,674 from 1974 to 2006. In the decade of 1996-2006, there were a reported 20 E. Coli outbreaks, most of which due to poor facility maintenance for livestock. Carole Moreson, a chicken farmer for Perdue says that now-a-days it isn’t even farming anymore, but inhumane mass production as most chickens never even see sunlight. Due to the decline of tobacco, most farmers turned to the chicken industry but have to borrow nearly $500,000 from big businesses in order to run roughly 2 chicken coupes. This causes farmers to become in debt and have to do whatever the companies ask of them or else they will go bankrupt and lose everything. This causes a shift of power from the farmer to the company. Corruption at its finest.

In Consumer Reports’ “You Are What They Eat,” the writer argues that what our animals are being fed directly affects us as the consumer. With corn being the main ingredient in animal feed, there has been a large increase of Food Borne Illnesses in the last decade. According to Food Inc., 30% of the United States land base is used for corn and 90% of supermarket products would contain either corn or soybean. With an average of 47,000 products in the commonplace supermarket, that means roughly 42,300 of the products would contain Corn or Soy Bean. Larry Johnson, an expert from the Center for Corn Research, says that “so much of our corn is just a clever manipulation of corn, no matter how you write it.” “There is considerable potential for contaminated animal feed or animal-feed ingredients to move between and within countries.” (You are What They Eat) “Cows can take this grass which we can’t digest, very few creatures can digest, and turn it into fuel.” (Michael Pollan, Frontline) Experts suggest that if you cut down the highly concentrated amounts of corn and add in grass-feeding, the risk for food borne illnesses would decrease remarkably. We feed them corn because it’s the cheapest, most convenient thing we can give them. Corn is incredibly cheap; it costs about $2.25 for a bushel of corn, which is about 50 pounds. It actually costs less to buy than it costs to grow (Frontline, PBS.org). The average farmer could process 200 bushels of corn a day.

In the Nestle article, the writer states that there are large amounts of government oversight within the food industry. As cleverly represented in the Food Inc. documentary through the use of flashcards, we see that high end food industry employees of the big businesses have found a home in government with positions that make, enforce, and legislate different laws pertaining to the rules and regulations of the FDA. Some may call this strategy but most would call it corrupt. FDA stands for Food and Drug Administration but after reading these articles and watching videos and documentaries it seems more likely that the FDA is more focused on the Drug portion than the Food section. For example, there used to be over 1,000 slaughterhouses in America; however, today there are 13. One may look at this and say good, now they can regulate the facilities better because there are a lesser amount to check. But the sad reality is that because they don’t properly regulate these 13 slaughterhouses then some acts become more careless and if some sort of illness or disease falls upon the slaughterhouse, 1/13^th of the nation’s meats are put at risk of becoming sickly. Change begins with the oversight of the FDA’s slaughterhouse protocol and to maintain a strong code of ethics in the higher office. Humans are vulnerable to pathogens, drugs, and contaminants consumed by the animals we eat so why would we allow some things to skate by when it could put not only others but yourself at risk.

My call to action after reading this unit is that the change needs to begin in government. Put people in power that are rightfully deserving and can uphold the strong code of ethics and morals designed by this nation’s leaders. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, you just need to simply learn how to steer what’s already shaped for you. Make it so carrots are better priced than a bag of chips or a box of candy. The only thing that should be processed is what’s occurring in our government. It’s not that there is not enough food, it’s that the scales of nutritional value are unbalanced. Again, the key isn’t to argue, its to persuade the necessary parties involved.

In an article from Organic Illusions, Blake Hurst, a third generation farmer and volunteer member of the Missouri Farming Bureau discusses and advocates for improvements in farming.  He states, “It is the position of the critics that you just can’t trust the government on these issues, which may indeed be the case.” The “critics” in his quote are referring to those against conventional, non-organic insecticide, and the issue of regulation of chemical mixtures used to promote the protection of produce in the fields.  Although Hurst is arguing against organic methods of farming, he acknowledges the concern that the government is not properly regulating the food industry over what is acceptable risk.  It’s not just the regulations regarding synthetic insecticide which is questionably oversighted by the government.  Another issue is pointed out in an article by Consumer Reports entitled “You are what they eat”.

In this article, Consumer Reports illustrates the feeding and medication of the meat industry.  The primary focus of this article is to provide readers with the details of the diets of animals raised for eating.  From this article, it is evident that the dieter habits of beef, pork, chicken and fish have been altered greatly and far beyond what is natural. One such point is the feeding of processed chick feathers and secretion categorized as “rendered animal by-products” to cows and fish.  Although this is not a conventional feeding method, and frankly disgusting I understand the idea of supplementation and how cost effective it can be.  There is high risk in combining the meat industries in such a way that may promote the spread of illness in poultry, beef and other animal products.  Consumer Reports continues to identify an interesting contradiction among the FDA and EPA standards.  The FDA allows the use of a drug called Roxarsne (3-Nitro), which is placed in non-organic feed for the purpose of killing microbes. This drug among others contains arsenic in a form less toxic to humans and deemed below the threshold of cancer causing.  Although concerning, what is interesting about this case is that the FDA/USDA have a higher toleration for arsenic levels in chicken meat and livers, than EPA allows in water.  In fact, by EPA standards some of the levels found in chicken liver could cause neurological damage to young children when consumption exceeds 2 ounces of liver a week.  A similar trend to the contradiction between two governmental regulatory bodies was presented by Marion Nestle, a Professor and author on nutrition and food safety.

Nestle outlines the fact that there is a functionality issue existing in the government’s regulatory agencies protecting consumers. In her book “Resisting Food Safety,” Nestle illustrates how primary regulatory agencies such as the FDA, and the USDA are not structured in a way that promotes communication both internally or between agencies.  She states, “35 separate laws administered by 12 agencies housed in six cabinet-level departments.”  Although the intentions of these agencies seems to be in the right place there is concern that the bodies are unequipped or that the lines of jurisdiction of these two agencies is not how it should be.  This situation calls to question that if the regulatory bodies are so badly fragmented, how can they be effectively overseeing the large companies in control of the food industry? And in what other ways can the government be failing U.S. consumers?

In 2008, Robert Kenner, a producer and director released a documentary pointing out more issues within the governmental involvement in the food industry.  In the documentary Food,Inc., he expresses the very real concern over how big food organizations have become, and just how unencumber those companies are introduced to viewers. The intention behind this documentary is to inform consumers as to what the current food production industry is doing, how much control the leading companies have, and how governmental food laws lean toward protecting these companies.   One of the best examples of the U.S. government’s close relationship with the food industry is the “Veggie Libel Laws”.  Within this law there exists a provision that makes it easier for food producers to file lawsuits against public criticisms.  This fact is depicted in the Food, Inc.  via the rehashing of the Taxes Beef Group v. Opera Winfrey 1996 case.  Opera was sued for outwardly expressing she will “not eat another burger” on her populate television show.  Although Opera won the case, from that example, one can gather that the food industry has protection privileges beyond that of other industries.  As a business student I have studied the role of government in a capitalistic market.  Ideally the government should be promoting transparency instead of allowing companies to engage in scare tactics such as lawsuits.  If Opera didn’t have the support from followers or the financing to fight the lawsuit, I am sure a differing outcome could have transpired.

With the government is favoring the food industry with protection laws, fundamentally broken and has contradictions between regulations, who should consumers turn to for change?  John Mackey co-CEO of Whole Foods presents a very intriguing answer to that question.  In his article “Conscious Capitalism” John addresses the anti-corporation movements and the Hollywood “evil” appearance that large companies seem to carry.  John points out that there exists a voluntary exchange between the consumer and the company.  He states, “If consumers are unhappy with the price, the service or the selection at Whole Foods Market, they are free to shop at competitors.” This is the source of the power consumers have to change companies.  When consumers make a choice to not buy from a particular company it can cause a ripple that turns into a tidal wave of change.  It begins with consumer choice, which will start affecting the company’s profits.  From there it then affects investors in the company who will be calling up the CEO who will ask what they are going to do about the issue.  An example of this effect is the green energy movement.  As consumers stop buying from companies who do not strive to reduce waste, or lower greenhouse gas emissions and turns to competitors who do, this can force change in company policies. Now I am sure by that example you are wondering who to turn to as a competitor of these food agencies, and there are a few answers to that question.

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