The way we eat has changed more in the last 100 years than in the previous 10,000, but the image used to sell the food is still the image of agrarian America. You go to the supermarket and you see the pictures of the farmers standing next a fence with their barn in the back ground. But that isn’t our reality. Food industry has placed a curtain between us and the origins of our food, fearful that if we discover the truth. Cause if you look deeper and trace the origins of the meat we eat, you won’t find a farm with cattle roaming around, you will find a factory. A factory controlled by four large corporations that have a monopoly on the food industry. An industry that genetically modifies animals for profit. An industry that mistreats farmers and workers. An industry that has infiltrated and corrupted the government, an industry that must be stopped.
“in the 1970s, the top 4 beef packers only controlled about 25% of the market, today the top 4 control more than 80%” That type of power has only led to detriment. The monopoly they hold has allowed them to change the industry to bend to their needs. Chickens are now raised and slaughtered in half the time they were 50 years ago, but now they are twice as big thanks to genetic modification. People like to eat the white meat of the chicken so the food industry genetically modified the chicken to have larger breasts. Increasingly our food supply has become more and more genetically modified, raising concerns about the quality of the food we eat. Costs of feeding animals was too high so food corporations turned to corn as a cheap food supply. The industry forced the farmers to growing so much corn that Over 30% of Americas land is covered by corn farming. Food industry has forced farmers into growing so much corn, it is sold for less than cost of production, making corn insanely cheap. Food industry now has a cheap food source they can feed their animals. The meat we eat now is fed with an almost all corn diet. Naturally cows do not eat corn, they eat grass. This unnatural abundance of corn in their diet has caused cases of E Coli to develop in some cows. And cows are placed in environments where they stand ankle deep in each other’s manure, if one cow gets it, all the others do as well. The solution isn’t hard either. According to (What are we eating), if you take a cow off a corn diet and feed it grass for just 5 days, it will shed 80% of the E. coli in the gut yet cows are still kept on a strictly corn diet because its more profitable that way.
E. coli in a hamburger is what turned Kevin Kowalyck from a normal healthy boy to a dead one in 12 days. The disregard of the food industry for safety is what killed Kevin, and the worst part is they faced no consequences either because of their ability to sway politics.
For years under the bush administration the chief of staff of the U.S.D.A. was the former chief lobbyist to the beef industry in Washington. (FSIS). The head of the FDA was the former Executive Vice president of the national food processors association. These regulatory agencies are being manipulated by the very companies they are supposed to be controlling. According to (Food INC), in 1972 the FDA conducted approximately 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006 they conducted 9,164. This corruption in our government should be alarming to many, but most people are oblivious or they brush it off irrelevant.
The food industry has taken advantage of the trust of the American people. They have taken advantage of the checks in our government. But the food industry is not invincible, they are only as powerful as long as we give them power. They have the power they do because we choose to give it them. As cliché as it sounds, one person’s choice to be aware of the corruptness and alter their behaviors because it, making drastic changes in the world.
Works Cited Page
Food, Inc. Dir. Robert Kenner. Movie One, 2008.
Adams, Mike. "Conflict of Interest." Natural News. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 June 2016. <http://www.naturalnews.com/020328.html>.
Nestle, Marion. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. Berkeley: U of California, 2002. Print.
Unknown. "Kevin Michael Kowalcyk Infected with E. Coli." Supporting Kevin's Law. 18 Mar. 2005. Web. 25 Apr. 2011. <http://www.cspinet.org/foodsafety/kevinslawbrochure.pdf>.
"What Are We Eating?" LabelGMOs. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 June 2016. <http://www.labelgmos.org/the_science_genetically_modified_foods_gmo>.
"FSIS." USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.
< "FSIS." USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2016>
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