Food in our culture is one aspect of a larger nightmare." Write an essay that opposes, supports of qualifies this statement.
Every plant and animal on this planet coexists with each other and the plant we all live on. While large predators are on the top of the food chain and lions are kings of the jungle, no one animal is larger or more powerful than the system it lives in, the natural world. Birds build nests, beavers build dams and more recently humans have been building luxury condos, Hummers (the car) and shopping malls.
The nightmare we are all living in can be summed up as the human world where humans work to exceed the limits of this planet by using fossil fuel and technology to grow and develop exponentially, all the while developing false values. To mention some of the aspects of that larger nightmare: war, weapons of mass destruction/bombs/guns, murder, the use of fossil fuels (600 million motor vehicles on this planet, all the tractors and machines used to build huge buildings and hotels and shopping centers, etc.), the machines we depend on, the machine we live in, the population of the world (6,602,224,175 and counting), the mass power of America, the industrial food system, the starving children and adults, slavery, child labor, exploitation, all the garbage that human dump on this earth (plastic toys, diapers, strollers, garbage bags – most things will never decompose), beauty contests, designers like Prada and Gucci that have people dying for expensive bags and clothes, and it goes on. The reason the food in our culture (the American industrial food system) is an aspect of this nightmare is because like most other aspects it relies on fossil fuels, it contributes to many social problems, most of it is junk (bad for your health) and most people are oblivious and completely disconnected from it.
The American industrial food system, which includes many of the countries it imports its food from, is completely dependent on fossil fuel to grow the food, process the food, transport the food and cook the food. Fossil fuels are used as pesticides and fertilizers and then used to spread seeds and plant the fruits and vegetables, to spread fertilizer and pesticides on them, and to harvest them. Corn and soy, the main form of vegetable grown in the country goes through that process and is then transported several times till it ends up as cow and other animal feed, the animals eat the corn till they are fat enough to slaughter, then they are killed and dissected into meat by machines (and some poorly paid/treated immigrant workers) dependent on fossil fuels and transported by vehicles that depend on fossil fuel. Other foods made from corn (not meat) go through extensive processing that uses machines dependent on fossil fuels. The main point in this repetitive story is that all the food that comes to our supermarkets, restaurant and fast food chains are grown/raised, processed, packaged, transported and served to us using a great deal of fossil fuel, which is what makes it possible to feed the 300 million people that live in this country.
With so many mouths to feed and so much money to be made by the head honchos, the industrial food system is not only dependent on fossil fuels but also on cheep labor. The farmers that grow the corn, even though they aren’t directly dependent on the major corporation because they work for themselves and then sell the corn, are in a situation where they are paid as little as possible for the corn and then paid some compensation for by the government, which is all a ploy by the government to make the corn as cheep as possible for the 3 main large corporations to process and sell the corn. But what’s in store for the farmers that grow corn isn’t nearly as bad as what goes on the with immigrant workers who pick fruits and vegetables and work in the slaughterhouse and meat factories. The immigrants who pick fruits and vegetables work 10-12 hour days getting paid only $50 an hour, without health insurance, sick days, or the right to organize (create unions). The immigrant workers who work in meat factories have dangerous jobs working with hazardous machines, sharp knives and fast disassembly lines. As a result of the extremely difficult work they are required to do at such rapid speeds many of them use drugs to enhance their work ability, often given to them by their supervisors. Sexual abuse/harassment is not uncommon either; many of the women are forced to have sex with supervisors in order to get a better job or better pay.
For all the fossil fuels being used and the immigrant workers being exploited, the food we are receiving at the end of line isn’t what we should be eating. As human who have evolved over millions of years, hunting and gathering and growing whole foods we are designed to be eating whole foods. Instead we are eating highly processed food high in starch and sugar but not too high in nutrition. This is evident by the obesity and diabetes epidemics (that is only mentioning two of the many health problems this country is facing).
And lastly, how many people are aware of what is going on? For over 99 percent of the time humans have been on this plant they were hunting, gathering and preparing their own food; they worked hard to survive and had to be aware of what their food was, where is was coming from and how they were eating it. Now, people with absent minds go to the supermarket or fast food restaurant to get there food without thinking about what is in it, where it comes from or what it is doing to their bodies. There is little to no connection between Americans and the food they eat.
As of now, the industrial food system in America seems to be working, almost everyone is fed (74% of Americans are overweight, 29% obese) but fossil fuel wont last forever and neither will of system of food. Unfortunately, most of America isn’t aware of the nightmare we are living in so they can’t wake up and put an end to it.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Final: The Present and Future of Our Food
Describe the past and present of food. Predict the future of food, with reference to class materials and historical trends.
Food: The Past and Present
When most people think about the history of food they think about the ideal or cliché family farm, with the barn and the livestock and the eatable plants in the fields. Or they think about the Indians who grew corn and shared thanksgivings with the pilgrims. What people are really thinking about the history of agriculture, which accounts for only about 1% of the history of our food; for millions of years human collected all their food through hunting and gathering. Hunter-gatherers lived in small groups of people who occupied (but did not own) and survived off of the unmanipulated land. This required that the tribes of people stay small; a mother could only have a child every four years because the lifestyle required the mother to carry their children until they were old enough to keep up with the rest of the group. But when groups grew larger and people needed an easier way to feed themselves, agriculture was a very viable solution. And from there agriculture (and the world’s population) grew and developed into what we think of as the family farm that feeds everyone.
What was diverse agriculture became corn and soy agriculture, most of what the farmers in the US grow and most of what we eat is corn. Type-2 corn (not the sweet kind you eat at your dinner table) is grown and then distributed where it is processed (broken down into its many different parts and then put back together in the form of cereal or a Twinkie) or it is made into food to fatten our meat. The problem with corn, while it is easy and cheap to grow, is that we are not designed to eat it and neither are the animals. We are Omnivores and therefore, yes we are designed to eat all sorts of thing, corn included, but the mass production of corn has resulted in epidemics like obesity and diabetes. We have evolved over millions of years to become the humans we are, it is in significantly less than 1% of that time that we have started eating food like McDonalds and thrown ourselves into a food system with almost entirely processed foods, full of chemical and pesticides.
And the cows, who are herbivores and have stomachs designed to digest grass (not corn), which results in problems with the enzymes, bacteria and other diseases they carry. Once the cows reach slaughter weight (in 14 months rather than several years), they are killed, disassembles and processed. Within the processes of producing meat there are many complex issues, like those of the poor immigrant works and of the quality of the meat (20% of the time guts are broken and the meat is covered in shit). The entire process, which most of America is completely disassociated with, all gets carried onto our plates.
The most crucial part of our food system isn’t the corn though, and it’s not the processing either, it’s the fossil fuels. Without the fossil fuels there would no way to produce all the food for all the people in this country or this world. The farmers are dependent on them for their fertilizers, pesticides and tools (for example tractors), and so are the slaughterhouses, processing plant and especially the transportation companies. And with peak oil in the near future we have an even bigger problem than just the shit and chemicals on our food.
Food: The Future
Eventually, when there isn’t enough fossil fuel to run the food system we have now, there will have to be some major changes in the food we are eating and the way we get our food. In the past 100 years our culture has developed massive technology and grown by the billions. There is no way that this planet can support such an intrusive species that draws out all its resources and then continues to grow. If I were to predict what our food system will look like in the future, after peak oil hits I would say that it is possible that someone will try to invent a pill that supplements all the human nutritional values but I don’t actually think that will work. What I actually think will happen is that many people will starve and the population will decrease. Those who survive will have to grow their own food, hunt and gather their own food or depend on another person/family in the local area to do so.
The current food system is one example of how humans have pushed the earth past its limitations, and this planet isn’t designed to support what humans are trying to do. I believe this planet is designed to adapt but I definitely think there is a limit, if it hasn’t been passes yet it will be shortly; because (despite the fact that they think they do) humans do not have the power to live without the natural world that exists on earth and earth is going to force humans back to a way of life that is sustainable and without the magic of fossil fuels. That means a food systems and a life style that is scaled back, local and mostly independent from strangers.
Food: The Past and Present
When most people think about the history of food they think about the ideal or cliché family farm, with the barn and the livestock and the eatable plants in the fields. Or they think about the Indians who grew corn and shared thanksgivings with the pilgrims. What people are really thinking about the history of agriculture, which accounts for only about 1% of the history of our food; for millions of years human collected all their food through hunting and gathering. Hunter-gatherers lived in small groups of people who occupied (but did not own) and survived off of the unmanipulated land. This required that the tribes of people stay small; a mother could only have a child every four years because the lifestyle required the mother to carry their children until they were old enough to keep up with the rest of the group. But when groups grew larger and people needed an easier way to feed themselves, agriculture was a very viable solution. And from there agriculture (and the world’s population) grew and developed into what we think of as the family farm that feeds everyone.
What was diverse agriculture became corn and soy agriculture, most of what the farmers in the US grow and most of what we eat is corn. Type-2 corn (not the sweet kind you eat at your dinner table) is grown and then distributed where it is processed (broken down into its many different parts and then put back together in the form of cereal or a Twinkie) or it is made into food to fatten our meat. The problem with corn, while it is easy and cheap to grow, is that we are not designed to eat it and neither are the animals. We are Omnivores and therefore, yes we are designed to eat all sorts of thing, corn included, but the mass production of corn has resulted in epidemics like obesity and diabetes. We have evolved over millions of years to become the humans we are, it is in significantly less than 1% of that time that we have started eating food like McDonalds and thrown ourselves into a food system with almost entirely processed foods, full of chemical and pesticides.
And the cows, who are herbivores and have stomachs designed to digest grass (not corn), which results in problems with the enzymes, bacteria and other diseases they carry. Once the cows reach slaughter weight (in 14 months rather than several years), they are killed, disassembles and processed. Within the processes of producing meat there are many complex issues, like those of the poor immigrant works and of the quality of the meat (20% of the time guts are broken and the meat is covered in shit). The entire process, which most of America is completely disassociated with, all gets carried onto our plates.
The most crucial part of our food system isn’t the corn though, and it’s not the processing either, it’s the fossil fuels. Without the fossil fuels there would no way to produce all the food for all the people in this country or this world. The farmers are dependent on them for their fertilizers, pesticides and tools (for example tractors), and so are the slaughterhouses, processing plant and especially the transportation companies. And with peak oil in the near future we have an even bigger problem than just the shit and chemicals on our food.
Food: The Future
Eventually, when there isn’t enough fossil fuel to run the food system we have now, there will have to be some major changes in the food we are eating and the way we get our food. In the past 100 years our culture has developed massive technology and grown by the billions. There is no way that this planet can support such an intrusive species that draws out all its resources and then continues to grow. If I were to predict what our food system will look like in the future, after peak oil hits I would say that it is possible that someone will try to invent a pill that supplements all the human nutritional values but I don’t actually think that will work. What I actually think will happen is that many people will starve and the population will decrease. Those who survive will have to grow their own food, hunt and gather their own food or depend on another person/family in the local area to do so.
The current food system is one example of how humans have pushed the earth past its limitations, and this planet isn’t designed to support what humans are trying to do. I believe this planet is designed to adapt but I definitely think there is a limit, if it hasn’t been passes yet it will be shortly; because (despite the fact that they think they do) humans do not have the power to live without the natural world that exists on earth and earth is going to force humans back to a way of life that is sustainable and without the magic of fossil fuels. That means a food systems and a life style that is scaled back, local and mostly independent from strangers.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Lets Compost New York!
So I am looking for ways to compost in New York City and it seems pretty simple in terms of getting the compost bins into the apartments but I am not sure about how to get it out (where should it go?). Anyways, here is a collection of links about composting in the city:
http://www.nyc24.org/2006/issue2/story08/index.html
http://www.nyccompost.org/how/index.html#quickstart
HOW TO
http://www.nyccompost.org/how/wormbin.html
http://www.nyc24.org/2006/issue2/story08/index.html
http://www.nyccompost.org/how/index.html#quickstart
HOW TO
http://www.nyccompost.org/how/wormbin.html
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Peak Oil
There are some things that are more believable than others, but how someone could try and deny the fact that there is only so much oil on this earth and that people are eventually going to use it up driving there SUVs and eating food that has traveled on average 1,500 miles to their supermarkets.
The Theory
Peak oil is the point at which the oil being extracted begins to decline. When oil is first extracted from a reserve the rate at which they can pump oil continually increases until it reaches its peak, at which point the amount of oil being extracted begins to decline. Peak oil is reached when about half of the oil has been extracted from a reserve.
When?
M. King Hubbert predicted peak oil would be reached between 1995 and 2000.
Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) predicts peak oil will be reached in 2010.
Others predict peak oil will be reached in 2035.
While some people are more optimist and many would choose to believe peak oil wont hit until the latest date possible, peak oil is inevitable. The problem is, if you push peak oil further and further away, denying the problem and neglecting to form some solution or alternative way of living, when it does come people won’t be prepared.
Why does it matter?
As a society, we are completely dependent on oil. Without oil there is no way that the industrial food system will survive. Fossil fuels are used to grow plants with fertilizers and pesticides made from fossil fuels by tractors running on fossil fuels. The food is also transported refrigerated and processed using fossil fuel. It is an entire system based on fossil fuel.
Links
More About Peak Oil
http://energybulletin.net/primer.php
Community Solutions to Peak Oil
www.communitysolution.org
The Theory
Peak oil is the point at which the oil being extracted begins to decline. When oil is first extracted from a reserve the rate at which they can pump oil continually increases until it reaches its peak, at which point the amount of oil being extracted begins to decline. Peak oil is reached when about half of the oil has been extracted from a reserve.
When?
M. King Hubbert predicted peak oil would be reached between 1995 and 2000.
Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) predicts peak oil will be reached in 2010.
Others predict peak oil will be reached in 2035.
While some people are more optimist and many would choose to believe peak oil wont hit until the latest date possible, peak oil is inevitable. The problem is, if you push peak oil further and further away, denying the problem and neglecting to form some solution or alternative way of living, when it does come people won’t be prepared.
Why does it matter?
As a society, we are completely dependent on oil. Without oil there is no way that the industrial food system will survive. Fossil fuels are used to grow plants with fertilizers and pesticides made from fossil fuels by tractors running on fossil fuels. The food is also transported refrigerated and processed using fossil fuel. It is an entire system based on fossil fuel.
Links
More About Peak Oil
http://energybulletin.net/primer.php
Community Solutions to Peak Oil
www.communitysolution.org
Friday, March 30, 2007
Comments on Others People's Papers
On Gary's Paper: You talk about CEOs making all the money and getting all the benefits. I don't think that this is bad in itself. I think the reason it is wrong is because while the CEO experience the benefits the workers under them are all screwed over. Therefore, I think you should address the treatment of workers and the bad affects of the CEO's benefits on the rest of the people involved in the company.
On Josh B's Paper: I think there is a lot more to the industrial food system than just the break down of the words industrial, food and system. While I agree that the industrial food system uses machines I don't think that's all there is to it. I think if you want to focus your definition of the industrial food system on what it runs on you should also talk about the major companies as well as the animals and plants involved.
On Josh B's Paper: I think there is a lot more to the industrial food system than just the break down of the words industrial, food and system. While I agree that the industrial food system uses machines I don't think that's all there is to it. I think if you want to focus your definition of the industrial food system on what it runs on you should also talk about the major companies as well as the animals and plants involved.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
The Industrial Food System Paper
Descriptive
The industrial food system is millions of de-beaked hens that live their lives in cages without an inch to move and without ever seeing the world they live in. The industrial food system is growth of genetically altered corn that is broken down, separated and redistributed like automobile parts to become different parts of what we eat. The industrial food system is the rearing of hundreds of cattle in undersized pens that are showered with food in order to get fat, murdered, violently dissected at expeditious speeds and shoved out the doors of slaughterhouses and into our supermarkets. The industrial food system is the greasy, unhealthy Big Macs and French fries we eat for lunch. The industrial food system is the method in which America gets its food and its nutrients and rarely bothers to think or worry about.
The industrial food system is a compilation of different modernized farms and processing plants designed to produce mass quantities of food that is then distributed to fast food restaurants, restaurants and super markets. The industrial food system works through the many different farms that grow plants and raise animals that are then separated and broken down only to be latter processed and put back together in the form of “whole foods.”
Most of the industrial food system is based off of F-2 corn, which is fed to animals in order to make them grow faster and also broken down and processed into different ingredients that play a major role in adding flavor and texture to the “whole foods” that are made from the compilation of other processed foods. As well, the industrial food system run on fossil fuels, which are used in growing the plants we eat, transporting the food and processing the food.
Those involved in the industrial food system are the farmers of the corn, the people working in the elevators that collect the entirety of F-2 corn in a certain area who then distribute it to the animal farms and the processing plants. From the animal farms, the meat is sent to slaughter house where people kill and dismantle the different parts of the animal, which is driven in freezer trucks to places like McDonalds and Walmart Super Centers. From the processing plants (owned mostly by Cargill and ADM) the corn is sent to science labs and turned into different ingredients that then end up being made into chicken McNuggets and other packaged foods. And finally, at the very end of the chain of industrial food, lies the consumer, us, the people who eat the food.
Around the age of one, when I was still breast feeding, I was also introduce to mashed up apples, sweet potatoes and many of the other fruits and vegetables I now eat today. My experiences with industrial food began when I started eating jars of baby food and will continue until I take my last bite of food. I eat industrial food everyday, from the packages cereals I eat for breakfast to the salad I eat for lunch to the burrito I eat for dinner. Like my friends, neighbors and the rest of the world, I have often ate my meals without thinking about where they came from or the process it took to get them into my stomach. Fresh and healthy or fried and unhealthy, home cooked or restaurant ordered, most of the food I consume comes from the long chain of industrial food. It is not until recently that I became aware of what it means to be apart of the industrial food system, and it was when I realized that every piece of food I was eating had a much longer history than I imagined. And that was when I became more conscious of where my food comes from and that I really didn’t want to eat some of the things I had been eating my whole life.
Analytical
The cause for the industrial food system and the reason it is the primary source of nutrition for America is because of America’s size and lifestyle and desire to get everything for as cheep as possible. With a population of nearly 300 million, it requires a mass production of food to feed all those people. But the real dictator of industrial food is the lifestyle; if we were to feed everyone locally it would require that many more people assume the profession of a farmer. With advances in science and society there are many different jobs for people take, if everyone had to grow, raise and hunt their own food there would be no time for building rockets, defending people in court rooms and writing books. In order to feed all 300 million people that are working in our developed society, there is no choice but to industrialize and mass-produce food. Plus, Americans like to consume more food than they need to. If you go to a diner, a typical representation of American food, and order a club sandwich it is enormous, stacked high with turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and comes with a whopping side of friend fries soaked in oil and coleslaw. If you eat all that food you stretch out your stomach and that just means you are going to want more the next time. This gigantic appetite America has is causing a greater market for food. And most of the time Americans are unwilling or unable to pay for expensive food, and therefore the food industry strives to make everything as cheap as possible.
As a result, the treatment of the workers is poor and the quality of the food is even worse. One example of the many different industries within the entire food industry is the tomato industry, where farmworkers are treated poorly.
Today, food harvesting in the United States is anything but fair: Tomato pickers in Immokalee mist pick two tons of tomatoes one by one – literally 4,000 pounds – just to make $50, and they regularly work 10- to 12- hour days with no overtime pay, no right to organize, no sick days and no benefits whatsoever (Buckley).
The workers at fast food restaurants, who were once teenagers who could afford to make less money (since they didn’t need to fully support themselves), are now mostly elderly, handicapped or immigrants (Schlosser 70). Workers at slaughter houses, who work dangerous jobs at the assembly lines, cutting up meat and fish as the line moves faster than they can safely work, are mostly immigrants and an estimated 1/4 of them are illegal. This is so because they come from places where they would be making much less money and are willing to work for less than most Americans, they are also less likely to join unions (Schlosser 160-62). Aside from the issues of financial exploitation, workers are also sexually exploited by their supervisors and co-workers as well as targets of drug dealers in their community.
The slaughterhouse and meat packing companies, who play a large role in the American industrial food system are the cause of not only the health problems in this country but also of the other issues society faces, specifically the drug and sexual abuse problem. Workers are forced into positions where they are powerless and often find themselves have sex with supervisors in order to gain better jobs, a secure place in America, a green card or a husband (Schlosser 176). Drugs enter the lives of the poor slaughterhouse workers when
The unrelenting pressure of trying to keep up with the line has encouraged widespread methamphetamine use among the meatpackers. Workers taking “crank” feel charged and self-confident, ready for anything. Supervisors have been known to sell crank to their workers or to supply it free in return for certain favors, such as working a second shift (Schlosser 174).
Mixing sex and meat packing is a dangerous thing to be doing. A woman working in the disassembly line that is being felt up by a supervisor or coworker cannot possible be safe trying to cut up meat with a sharp knife. Nor is a person much safer working with large machinery if they are on drugs, even if they feel more pumped to being doing that work. The industrial food system is responsible for mixing meat, sex and drugs; they are also responsible for the poor health of this country.
The meat is unsafe to eat. “A nationwide study published by the USDA in 1996 found that 7.5 percent of the ground beef samples taken from processing plants were contaminated with Salmonella, 11.7 percent were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, 30 percent were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, and 53.3 percent were contaminated with Clsotrudium perfringens. All of these pathogens can make people sick; food poisoning caused buy Listeria generally requires hospitalization and proves fatal in about one out of every five cases. In the USDA study 78.6 percent of ground beef contained microbes that are spread primarily by fecal material” (Schlosser 197). It is the fast moving lines that is not only the cause of a dangerous work environment but also the feces in the meat. While removing the guts of the expeditious moving animals, the guts are often broken and the contents contaminate the meat. The meat is clearly unhealthy and sickening, but it isn’t even those contaminations that are causing the many other more predominant issues associated with the food most people eat today. Diseases like obesity and diabetes plays a major role in causing poor quality life and death in this country. And while there is some attention paid to obesity and diabetes this country still doesn’t think enough about what they are eating, what microbes are contaminating their food and what their food is going to result in (poor health and disease).
The core of the industrial food system is really just death production that reduces the process of eating to survive and to enjoy the pleasure of food into a final product that will cost little and lack quality. In the process, and in essence, the industrial food system is not only killing the food we eat but also disregarding the harm it is doing to the environment and the health and well being of the people it is working for.
Martin Heideggar says, “Agriculture is now a motorized food industry, the same thing in it’s essence as the production of corpses in the gas chambers and the extermination camps, the same thing as the blockades and the reduction of countries to famine, the same thing as the manufacture of hydrogen bombs.” Which is to say that in providing meat to the people they are simply working to herd millions of animals to their death, but is not only specific to the animals that are being killed. In addition to being a production of animal death, the industrial food system is also responsible for the death, suffering and injury of the workers that work in the dangerous mechanical plants and the people eating the meat who are often sickened and killed by the food they eat.
Evaluation
The industrial food system plays an essential and influential role in the lives of nearly every person in America, but does not pass through the minds of the majority of the population. And while it isn’t something many people put much thought into it is extremely import because food is the essence of life; we are what we eat. When consuming a BigMac, that person becomes the poor quality beef made of chemically injected and corn and antibiotic fed cow, the bun made from cornstarch and the tomatoes picked by immigrant workers paid near to nothing. As a part of the industrial food system we are not only the animals we think we are eating but also the process in which they are produced. Which means we are responsible for consuming the fossil fuel that goes into production of the meat, that antibiotics and other steroids and drugs that are fed to the animals we eat, the diseases the animals contract in the unnatural living environments they are raise in and the gut contents (shit) that gets all over our meet.
As a part of a system that is feeding animals chemicals to make them grow faster and spraying plants with pesticides there is a lot to be said about who we are, the culture we live in and the situation we are faced with (not to mention the situation we are going to face when this industrial food systems falls). We are a part of a complex industrial system but are unaware and completely disassociated with what we eat are what we are made of. We simply just don’t think about what we are eating. And as a society, we are just a group of people who don’t think about we are eating. We are also a group being manipulated by not only the people who make the decision about what we are eating but also by our lack of values, that have allowed us to become people that care so much about the price of things that we disregard all the morals we claim to have while we disassociate with the process of living.
The industrial food system is millions of de-beaked hens that live their lives in cages without an inch to move and without ever seeing the world they live in. The industrial food system is growth of genetically altered corn that is broken down, separated and redistributed like automobile parts to become different parts of what we eat. The industrial food system is the rearing of hundreds of cattle in undersized pens that are showered with food in order to get fat, murdered, violently dissected at expeditious speeds and shoved out the doors of slaughterhouses and into our supermarkets. The industrial food system is the greasy, unhealthy Big Macs and French fries we eat for lunch. The industrial food system is the method in which America gets its food and its nutrients and rarely bothers to think or worry about.
The industrial food system is a compilation of different modernized farms and processing plants designed to produce mass quantities of food that is then distributed to fast food restaurants, restaurants and super markets. The industrial food system works through the many different farms that grow plants and raise animals that are then separated and broken down only to be latter processed and put back together in the form of “whole foods.”
Most of the industrial food system is based off of F-2 corn, which is fed to animals in order to make them grow faster and also broken down and processed into different ingredients that play a major role in adding flavor and texture to the “whole foods” that are made from the compilation of other processed foods. As well, the industrial food system run on fossil fuels, which are used in growing the plants we eat, transporting the food and processing the food.
Those involved in the industrial food system are the farmers of the corn, the people working in the elevators that collect the entirety of F-2 corn in a certain area who then distribute it to the animal farms and the processing plants. From the animal farms, the meat is sent to slaughter house where people kill and dismantle the different parts of the animal, which is driven in freezer trucks to places like McDonalds and Walmart Super Centers. From the processing plants (owned mostly by Cargill and ADM) the corn is sent to science labs and turned into different ingredients that then end up being made into chicken McNuggets and other packaged foods. And finally, at the very end of the chain of industrial food, lies the consumer, us, the people who eat the food.
Around the age of one, when I was still breast feeding, I was also introduce to mashed up apples, sweet potatoes and many of the other fruits and vegetables I now eat today. My experiences with industrial food began when I started eating jars of baby food and will continue until I take my last bite of food. I eat industrial food everyday, from the packages cereals I eat for breakfast to the salad I eat for lunch to the burrito I eat for dinner. Like my friends, neighbors and the rest of the world, I have often ate my meals without thinking about where they came from or the process it took to get them into my stomach. Fresh and healthy or fried and unhealthy, home cooked or restaurant ordered, most of the food I consume comes from the long chain of industrial food. It is not until recently that I became aware of what it means to be apart of the industrial food system, and it was when I realized that every piece of food I was eating had a much longer history than I imagined. And that was when I became more conscious of where my food comes from and that I really didn’t want to eat some of the things I had been eating my whole life.
Analytical
The cause for the industrial food system and the reason it is the primary source of nutrition for America is because of America’s size and lifestyle and desire to get everything for as cheep as possible. With a population of nearly 300 million, it requires a mass production of food to feed all those people. But the real dictator of industrial food is the lifestyle; if we were to feed everyone locally it would require that many more people assume the profession of a farmer. With advances in science and society there are many different jobs for people take, if everyone had to grow, raise and hunt their own food there would be no time for building rockets, defending people in court rooms and writing books. In order to feed all 300 million people that are working in our developed society, there is no choice but to industrialize and mass-produce food. Plus, Americans like to consume more food than they need to. If you go to a diner, a typical representation of American food, and order a club sandwich it is enormous, stacked high with turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and comes with a whopping side of friend fries soaked in oil and coleslaw. If you eat all that food you stretch out your stomach and that just means you are going to want more the next time. This gigantic appetite America has is causing a greater market for food. And most of the time Americans are unwilling or unable to pay for expensive food, and therefore the food industry strives to make everything as cheap as possible.
As a result, the treatment of the workers is poor and the quality of the food is even worse. One example of the many different industries within the entire food industry is the tomato industry, where farmworkers are treated poorly.
Today, food harvesting in the United States is anything but fair: Tomato pickers in Immokalee mist pick two tons of tomatoes one by one – literally 4,000 pounds – just to make $50, and they regularly work 10- to 12- hour days with no overtime pay, no right to organize, no sick days and no benefits whatsoever (Buckley).
The workers at fast food restaurants, who were once teenagers who could afford to make less money (since they didn’t need to fully support themselves), are now mostly elderly, handicapped or immigrants (Schlosser 70). Workers at slaughter houses, who work dangerous jobs at the assembly lines, cutting up meat and fish as the line moves faster than they can safely work, are mostly immigrants and an estimated 1/4 of them are illegal. This is so because they come from places where they would be making much less money and are willing to work for less than most Americans, they are also less likely to join unions (Schlosser 160-62). Aside from the issues of financial exploitation, workers are also sexually exploited by their supervisors and co-workers as well as targets of drug dealers in their community.
The slaughterhouse and meat packing companies, who play a large role in the American industrial food system are the cause of not only the health problems in this country but also of the other issues society faces, specifically the drug and sexual abuse problem. Workers are forced into positions where they are powerless and often find themselves have sex with supervisors in order to gain better jobs, a secure place in America, a green card or a husband (Schlosser 176). Drugs enter the lives of the poor slaughterhouse workers when
The unrelenting pressure of trying to keep up with the line has encouraged widespread methamphetamine use among the meatpackers. Workers taking “crank” feel charged and self-confident, ready for anything. Supervisors have been known to sell crank to their workers or to supply it free in return for certain favors, such as working a second shift (Schlosser 174).
Mixing sex and meat packing is a dangerous thing to be doing. A woman working in the disassembly line that is being felt up by a supervisor or coworker cannot possible be safe trying to cut up meat with a sharp knife. Nor is a person much safer working with large machinery if they are on drugs, even if they feel more pumped to being doing that work. The industrial food system is responsible for mixing meat, sex and drugs; they are also responsible for the poor health of this country.
The meat is unsafe to eat. “A nationwide study published by the USDA in 1996 found that 7.5 percent of the ground beef samples taken from processing plants were contaminated with Salmonella, 11.7 percent were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, 30 percent were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, and 53.3 percent were contaminated with Clsotrudium perfringens. All of these pathogens can make people sick; food poisoning caused buy Listeria generally requires hospitalization and proves fatal in about one out of every five cases. In the USDA study 78.6 percent of ground beef contained microbes that are spread primarily by fecal material” (Schlosser 197). It is the fast moving lines that is not only the cause of a dangerous work environment but also the feces in the meat. While removing the guts of the expeditious moving animals, the guts are often broken and the contents contaminate the meat. The meat is clearly unhealthy and sickening, but it isn’t even those contaminations that are causing the many other more predominant issues associated with the food most people eat today. Diseases like obesity and diabetes plays a major role in causing poor quality life and death in this country. And while there is some attention paid to obesity and diabetes this country still doesn’t think enough about what they are eating, what microbes are contaminating their food and what their food is going to result in (poor health and disease).
The core of the industrial food system is really just death production that reduces the process of eating to survive and to enjoy the pleasure of food into a final product that will cost little and lack quality. In the process, and in essence, the industrial food system is not only killing the food we eat but also disregarding the harm it is doing to the environment and the health and well being of the people it is working for.
Martin Heideggar says, “Agriculture is now a motorized food industry, the same thing in it’s essence as the production of corpses in the gas chambers and the extermination camps, the same thing as the blockades and the reduction of countries to famine, the same thing as the manufacture of hydrogen bombs.” Which is to say that in providing meat to the people they are simply working to herd millions of animals to their death, but is not only specific to the animals that are being killed. In addition to being a production of animal death, the industrial food system is also responsible for the death, suffering and injury of the workers that work in the dangerous mechanical plants and the people eating the meat who are often sickened and killed by the food they eat.
Evaluation
The industrial food system plays an essential and influential role in the lives of nearly every person in America, but does not pass through the minds of the majority of the population. And while it isn’t something many people put much thought into it is extremely import because food is the essence of life; we are what we eat. When consuming a BigMac, that person becomes the poor quality beef made of chemically injected and corn and antibiotic fed cow, the bun made from cornstarch and the tomatoes picked by immigrant workers paid near to nothing. As a part of the industrial food system we are not only the animals we think we are eating but also the process in which they are produced. Which means we are responsible for consuming the fossil fuel that goes into production of the meat, that antibiotics and other steroids and drugs that are fed to the animals we eat, the diseases the animals contract in the unnatural living environments they are raise in and the gut contents (shit) that gets all over our meet.
As a part of a system that is feeding animals chemicals to make them grow faster and spraying plants with pesticides there is a lot to be said about who we are, the culture we live in and the situation we are faced with (not to mention the situation we are going to face when this industrial food systems falls). We are a part of a complex industrial system but are unaware and completely disassociated with what we eat are what we are made of. We simply just don’t think about what we are eating. And as a society, we are just a group of people who don’t think about we are eating. We are also a group being manipulated by not only the people who make the decision about what we are eating but also by our lack of values, that have allowed us to become people that care so much about the price of things that we disregard all the morals we claim to have while we disassociate with the process of living.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Homework - 3.2.07
2 Comments on Elliot's Paper
1.) "'But what if there was a diet that said that thoughts are the worst of the all and that the best to eat for fast results is meat and cheese.' I don't understand what you are trying to say here."
2.) "Do you actually believe what you are saying about the Atkind Diet being better than all other diets?"
1.) "'But what if there was a diet that said that thoughts are the worst of the all and that the best to eat for fast results is meat and cheese.' I don't understand what you are trying to say here."
2.) "Do you actually believe what you are saying about the Atkind Diet being better than all other diets?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
