Extra Credit Entry: Food As Business
Today, I saw a documentary called Food Inc. that focuses mostly on how food, as a culture of business unto itself, works today in America. It focuses pretty heavily on how deeply consolidated by a few companies most of our food is, especially our meat. It also shows many workers that produce meat for these companies and the conditions in which they work. Many of them are very obviously being exploited, one stat shows that the average chicken farmer with two chicken houses has typically borrowed $500k and makes about $18k a year.
One chicken farmer for the large poultry and pork company Perdue has enough of what she has to do to make a living and decides to invite the film crew in to show them her working life on a daily basis. She goes into a dirty, dusty shed stuffed to the brim with chickens. She picks corpses out of them and tosses them out as she explains that the chickens bred for food have been made to grow to full size nearly three times faster than they would naturally and to grow much larger than they would normally. She says their "bones and organs" can't keep up with the growth so they can't walk for very long. As she walks out of the shed she nearly begins to cry and suppresses tears, she looks at the camera crew and says sardonically, "this is normal." The conditions are so poor that she has to wear a mask to enter the shed, and even this hasn't kept her completely isolated from the health hazards. She says her exposure to the incessant antibiotics the chickens in this environment need have made her allergic to all antibiotics. Later at night, a group of people come by to pick up chickens for delivery to a processing plant. They are rough and callous with the chickens. The woman says they are mostly illegal immigrants, it seems they are just taking the work that they can.
Later in the film, someone points out that these companies really don't treat their employees any differently than their livestock. They hire illegal immigrants because they are desperate for work and, without the protections granted by citizenship, the companies can pay them whatever they like. In a poorer neighborhood, one man describes how every worker in a meat processing plant can be found within a 100 mile radius of a poorer neighborhood where workers are scouted. These are desperate people, often poor minorities and illegal immigrants. They contract illnesses working in these devastating conditions for little pay. Later, immigration raids against some of the workers are shown. A community organizer points out that he doesn't imagine he'll ever see the lives of the people that hire these men (knowing they're illegal) be upturned the way the lives of these undocumented workers are. They hire them knowing the length of time they keep any employee they have will be temporary. Whether they quit from a loss of morale, a disease or injury related incident, or an issue with citizenship, they will always have a new desperate worker to fill the slot. The principal of 'economies of scale' weighs out over any type of humanity to be considered for nearly anybody involved. I would include the millions of people who consume this meat as well. It seems nearly impossible to avoid participating in this plainly unethical mode of production. Realistically speaking, we simply lack the ability to meaningfully rebuke this system with our dollar.
The film also focuses on this aspect, showing a poor Hispanic family dropping by Burger King to eat. They explain that with their work schedule and lack of income it is simply quicker and cheaper to spend a few dollars at the drive-thru than it is to go to the grocery store, find food that is cheap enough, go home, and prepare it into something. They also outline the fact that, for them, their costs are eaten into quite a bit by paying for diabetes medicine for the father in the family.
Rates of diabetes can be so clearly connected to the American diet in particular. The same diet that has been defined mostly by the stranglehold of industrial agriculture on what is available to consumers at the supermarket and in restaurants; the industry that has had its hand for so long in determining how we define nutrition. To me, the question as to whether or not they are partly responsible for this man's diabetes opens up.
To explore this question of responsibility in industrial agriculture and public health a bit more, the film also focuses on the mother of a 2-year-old boy who passed away from e coli in a contaminated burger. Her story is difficult to listen to. She shows a clip of him enjoying himself at a body of water with his father and says he passed away 12 days after that. E coli poisoning is a natural risk when consuming beef but the process of feeding the animals corn tends to exacerbate that risk. In fact, feeding cows corn is really not something conducive to their diet. High-starch foods don't tend to well with them. One website wrote this about the risks of feeding on a corn diet (the way most cows today are fed in America):
One chicken farmer for the large poultry and pork company Perdue has enough of what she has to do to make a living and decides to invite the film crew in to show them her working life on a daily basis. She goes into a dirty, dusty shed stuffed to the brim with chickens. She picks corpses out of them and tosses them out as she explains that the chickens bred for food have been made to grow to full size nearly three times faster than they would naturally and to grow much larger than they would normally. She says their "bones and organs" can't keep up with the growth so they can't walk for very long. As she walks out of the shed she nearly begins to cry and suppresses tears, she looks at the camera crew and says sardonically, "this is normal." The conditions are so poor that she has to wear a mask to enter the shed, and even this hasn't kept her completely isolated from the health hazards. She says her exposure to the incessant antibiotics the chickens in this environment need have made her allergic to all antibiotics. Later at night, a group of people come by to pick up chickens for delivery to a processing plant. They are rough and callous with the chickens. The woman says they are mostly illegal immigrants, it seems they are just taking the work that they can.
Later in the film, someone points out that these companies really don't treat their employees any differently than their livestock. They hire illegal immigrants because they are desperate for work and, without the protections granted by citizenship, the companies can pay them whatever they like. In a poorer neighborhood, one man describes how every worker in a meat processing plant can be found within a 100 mile radius of a poorer neighborhood where workers are scouted. These are desperate people, often poor minorities and illegal immigrants. They contract illnesses working in these devastating conditions for little pay. Later, immigration raids against some of the workers are shown. A community organizer points out that he doesn't imagine he'll ever see the lives of the people that hire these men (knowing they're illegal) be upturned the way the lives of these undocumented workers are. They hire them knowing the length of time they keep any employee they have will be temporary. Whether they quit from a loss of morale, a disease or injury related incident, or an issue with citizenship, they will always have a new desperate worker to fill the slot. The principal of 'economies of scale' weighs out over any type of humanity to be considered for nearly anybody involved. I would include the millions of people who consume this meat as well. It seems nearly impossible to avoid participating in this plainly unethical mode of production. Realistically speaking, we simply lack the ability to meaningfully rebuke this system with our dollar.
The film also focuses on this aspect, showing a poor Hispanic family dropping by Burger King to eat. They explain that with their work schedule and lack of income it is simply quicker and cheaper to spend a few dollars at the drive-thru than it is to go to the grocery store, find food that is cheap enough, go home, and prepare it into something. They also outline the fact that, for them, their costs are eaten into quite a bit by paying for diabetes medicine for the father in the family.
Rates of diabetes can be so clearly connected to the American diet in particular. The same diet that has been defined mostly by the stranglehold of industrial agriculture on what is available to consumers at the supermarket and in restaurants; the industry that has had its hand for so long in determining how we define nutrition. To me, the question as to whether or not they are partly responsible for this man's diabetes opens up.
To explore this question of responsibility in industrial agriculture and public health a bit more, the film also focuses on the mother of a 2-year-old boy who passed away from e coli in a contaminated burger. Her story is difficult to listen to. She shows a clip of him enjoying himself at a body of water with his father and says he passed away 12 days after that. E coli poisoning is a natural risk when consuming beef but the process of feeding the animals corn tends to exacerbate that risk. In fact, feeding cows corn is really not something conducive to their diet. High-starch foods don't tend to well with them. One website wrote this about the risks of feeding on a corn diet (the way most cows today are fed in America):
"Cattle create a lot of gas, which they usually expel, but when their diet is high in starch and low in roughage, a layer of foamy slime forms in their great food-processing tank, known as the rumen. This slime can trap the gas, so the rumen balloons out, pressing against the animal’s lungs. Unless action is promptly taken to relieve the pressure (usually by ramming a hose down the animal’s throat), the cattle suffocate."
Despite all the difficulties and health risks of feeding these animals corn, livestock producers still do it because the heavy subsidization of corn in America makes it so cheap. Is it really ethical or safe to allow these people behave recklessly and inhumanely for the sake of their own profit margins? To me the answer should be easy: no.
The film also featured Michael Pollan who seems like a really interesting figure to me. I recently read one of his articles and, while I think his tone was a bit abrasive for those uninitiated in the issues he examines, I found that his perspective really resonated with me. Even as someone who is sort of a go to personality on food/diet related issues, he seems to behave genuinely when interviewed. Judging by his rhetoric in the article I read and the documentary, he seems angry and a little bitter. Simultaneously, he seems to keep a positive attitude. Still, I wonder what someone so engrossed in these, frankly, demoralizing issues looks at the world and sees.
Overall, I think this film is a must watch and another like it is due today. No matter how little has changed, I think our national political dialogue could use this perspective to lend voters a critical eye not only towards where their food comes from but who produces it, how they produce it, and why they produce it that way. I think the state of social media today may stand a chance of making this a much more hot-button issue with a lot more attention than Food Inc. got in its day. Also, this issue seems pretty clearly bipartisan among anyone who doesn't stand to gain a dollar from supporting it. With the election coming up, it would be interesting to see who (if it even tallies up to more than one) of our prospective presidential candidates would call out by name the antagonists in this plainly morally bankrupt system organized around raising and processing food.
Nice job with your newest entries, Adam. You have great writing and ideas and development. You are very comfortable in this space. Well done. You should keep blogging!
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