Normal Food

After three years of continuously consuming highly processed campus dinning hall meals I have found myself thinking more and more "I wish I could just have some normal food". Upon further thinking the matter through however, I've discovered I have no idea what "normal food" is. It certainly isn't the dinning hall chicken breast that looks like it was squeezed out of a tube labeled "Chicken". Does that mean normal food is the food the majority of Americans eat on a daily basis? Chickens that can't even walk because hormones and genetics make them grow too fast for their bones to support? Factory raised beef so rampant with e-coli that it's washed in ammonia before it's shipped to you to eat? That doesn't sound "normal" to me. I'm starting to think organic is the answer. I've always felt it got a bad rap as being some type of delusional hipster diet. Cows raised on farms that eat grass? What a bunch of nut jobs.


With this on my mind I decided to watch the 2008 documentary "Food Inc." and have to say I was pretty surprised by it. I wasn't shocked by how mistreated the animals were, or by all the unnatural stuff that gets pumped into them. Those are all things I, like most Americans, was already aware of but tried not to think about. The thing that really shook me was how such a hideous industry is so seamlessly veiled from the public. When you walk through the grocery store most of the packages and names imply that the products came from a small farm. Lets be honest, nobody would buy kielbasa from Hillshire Mass Production Slaughter Factory.



Over the past thirty years a select few companies have grown and put he rest out of business. In the 1970's the top 5 meat packing companies accounted for about 20% of the market share. Today the top 4 make up over 80%. These massive companies furiously work to find ways to lower their prices because thats what we, the consumers demand. Each step these companies take to increase their efficiency results in making the food they produce less safe. For instance, feeding cows corn instead of grass is cheaper and makes them grow much faster in addition to causing their e-coli to skyrocket. If they were to feed them grass for even five days before they were slaughtered it would get rid of almost all the e-coli but still they don't. Why is it that we as consumers don't demand safer, more expensive food? I believe it's because of this small farm veil companies create through marketing. Nobody would walk into a car dealership and say "An extra $20 for airbags? No thanks". This is because safety is at the forefront of your mind when you buy a new car, but why not your food?

Another reason people don't stop to think about the safety or quality of their food is the false sense of security the FDA gives them. After Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and the creation of the FDA "dangerous" food feels like a thing of the past. Everyone thinks its just big oil companies pulling strings within the government but large food production companies are just as involved. Just as Condoleezza Rice served on the Chevron's board of directors and Dick Chenney was CEO of Halliburton, there are similar love stories to be told within the FDA and food industries. Here's a few:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas--> Former Attorney of Montesano
This is especially significant because he was the Judge who decided that a company can "own" the genetic code of a seed which essentially allowed Montesano to own the entire soy bean industry and exploit any farmer who wants to grow them.

Donald Rumsfeld--> CEO of SEARLE Pharmaceuticals (owned by Montesano)

John Ashcroft--> Recieved record donations from Montesano

North Carolina State Senator Wendell Murphy--> CEO of Smithfield (one of those 4 largest meat packing corporations)

FDA Branch Chief Margaret Miller--> Former Montesano Chemical Lab Supervisor

FDA Deputy Commissioner on Policy Michael Taylor--> Represented Montesano in lawsuit about whether they should have to label genetically modified food (they won)



My favorite part of the documentary was how they essentially summed up my previous post "Get Out and Vote (with your money)" For those of who you might be interested in watching "Food Inc." Here it is below.
I realize the videos I post on here usually get cutoff (if anyone knows how to fix this please tell me) so here's where you can watch it in full... Food Inc.