Food, Inc. -- The Food Industry STILL has it their way
Burger King ran a catchy, empowering slogan for years, "Have it your way." This sounds great. As a consumer, I have variety and diverse foods I can eat. It's quite a different picture once you see the independent, groundbreaking documentary, Food, Inc.
You are exposed to the atrocities a few multinational food processing companies practice that could lead to our deaths. The introduction says it all. It begins in a supermarket where you have this mirage of all these diverse products -- averages to 47,000 per supermarket. You have cereals, produce, meats, and dairy selections. On these products, you see these pastoral images. Those images are artificial.
The film takes you inside the every day struggles farmers and hard working Americans confront. A chicken farmer can no longer produce at the exponential rates of a Tyson Foods Corporation. So, these farmers really have no choice but to sign contracts with companies like Tyson and Perdue. It costs them an average of $280,000 for one chicken farm. Inside, chickens grow at very rapid rates, twice the amount they did back in the early 50s. The average paycheck these farmers receive from the great folks at Tyson and Perdue -- $18,000 per year.
What really will alarm the viewer is how a seed (soybean and corn) is processed and used by animals and us. About 90 percent of all foods has some ingredient from corn in them. Monsanto Corporation owns the "patent rights" for what farmers can do to these seeds. If a farmer decides to replant and clean the seeds, he or she can be met by one of Monsanto's team of investigators. The next step, you guessed it -- lawsuit. Naturally, the farmer has no way to win with a multi-billion dollar business.
I'm the last person who lives in a glass house. My diet is terrible and I'm a heavy smoker. Once again, this isn't about me. I highly encourage all you who read this to watch this must-see documentary. These corporations operate in economically depressed areas where the poor have little to no choice but work for these guys. At these factories, they perform one task over and over and over... It's really no different than how swine, chickens, and cattle are treated before their deaths. The way this industry is regulated, it will only be a matter of time before another health scare surfaces.
Today's Republicans continue advocating for individual freedoms and responsibilities. What good does that do when you strip away freedoms and don't hold yourselves accountable? The peddlers will continue distracting you with character assassinations on Democrats. That's all they've got. "Well, the God I believe in isn't short of cash, mister," Paul "Bono" Hewson, U2, "Bullet the Blue Sky," Rattle and Hum
P.J. Gaffney at Omaha, Nebraska's Mahoney State Park.
2 comments:
I'lll have to check that out. Thanks.
I've kinda suspected that something is up with that whole industry. Food just seems so bland these days. It all tastes the same.
I had to kid with my best friend about continuing to eat that artificial food when making a trip to McDonald's. The McDonald brothers really set the whole business model for how the industry operates today. The worker exploitation (repeating the same one task over and over where they're constantly expendible), unsanitary conditions cattle, pigs, and chickens enter the processing plants, and supplementing the nutrients through genetic modification.
There were a few good stories that came out of this. A few farmers were featured who take proper care of their livestock and used old-fashioned grass for cattle.
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