Food, Inc.

Anticipated conversation between a party guest and myself at a July 4th barbecue celebration after seeing the film Food, Inc.:

Guest: Hey C. Adolph! What's that I'm smelling on the grill?

Me: That would be the cloned modified bovine protoplasm fed an unnatural diet of corn which it cannot process properly in order to speed growth and decrease feed costs.

Guest: Hmmm. Maybe something else. Is that chicken over there?

Me: Oh, you mean the flesh from a bird that was grown in grossly overcrowded darkness and pumped so full of growth hormones that it was rendered unable to support its own weight, thus left to die in a heap of its own feces and urine before being indiscriminately slaughtered?

Guest: Yikes! Perhaps I'll go the vegetarian route today. Are those tofu skewers?

Me: Why yes! They were made from a soy bean seed which has been genetically manipulated and patented by the Monsanto Corporation so that they can one day control the food sources of the entire world. They already have 90% of the soy market.

Guest: I don't suppose the mac n' cheese-

Me: Produced from cows who have been stimulated with antibiotics, synthetic hormones and fed insecticide poisoned corn and grains.

Guest: The hell with it. I'll just get drunk.

Me: Just be aware that the Anheuser-Busch Corporation uses hops from non-fair trade-

Guest: Shut the fuck up will you?!

Me: Sure. Happy Fourth. Didn't mean to be a downer. Enjoy the fireworks while innocent men and women are being tortured and raped in our name by U.S. soldiers and government operatives stationed abroad.

Guest: I'm going home.

The alarming bit of agitprop (Food, Inc.) I witnessed the other day is one of those films that scares the hell out of you and then makes you feel guilty for all of your selfish life choices. Which is fine, really. That's what good documentaries are all about.

But, O Lord, I am so tired.

If I began to alter every last bit of unsustainable, myopic behavior that I engage in and listened to the macrobioticians or raw food enthusiasts, I'm not so sure I could do much of anything other than fall to the ground and moan until my timely death from malnutrition.

There are just too many rules.

Now, I'm not too bad as far as limp wristed, small footprint, enviro-whackos go. I recycle paper, bottles and cans. I drive (my small car) as little as possible and take public transportation when available. I have sworn off meat and cheer on the efforts of PETA. I support local farmer's markets and purchase food there often. I give to causes that work to prevent further global warming and environmental deterioration at the hands of industry.

I even pay $3.79 for a half-gallon of organic, non-BGH, fat free milk.

But there are those times when I walk up to the checkout line at my local supermarket, realize I have forgotten my reusable grocery bags and just say screw it, give me the plastic.

The pierced, tattooed freak at the checkout scoffs appropriately and I accept her condemnation. It is hard work being saintly.

And films like Food, Inc. are there to remind me of that. Like a scolding hippie asking me not to beat him to death with my half-empty vodka bottle. I get so tired. I get so drunk.

I often have to give up caring about self-righteously saving the goddamn planet because I will go mad at the futility of my efforts. This movie acts as my counselor. It assures me there are others.

It is a real eye opener.

A few facts from the film:

• In the '70s, the top five beef packers had 25% of the market. Today, the top four control 80%.
• Thousands of slaughterhouses existed in the U.S. in the '70s. Now there are thirteen.
• The USDA no longer has the power to shut down a plant that repeatedly fails salmonella and E. coli tests.
• In 1972, the FDA conducted 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006 it conducted 9,164.
• During the Bush II Administration, the former VP of the National Food Processors Association and a lobbyist for the beef industry were the heads of the FDA and USDA respectively.
• Justice Clarence Thomas was an attorney for the Monsanto Corporation from 1976-79. As a member of the Supreme Court he wrote the majority opinion in a case which granted the right for Monsanto to enforce its seed patents.
• 32,000 hogs are slaughtered per day at the Smithfield Hog Processing Plant in Tar Heel, N.C.
• The average American eats over 200 pounds of meat a year.
• 70% of processed foods have some genetically modified ingredient but do not have to be labeled as such.
• 30% of the land in the U.S. is dedicated to producing corn.
• Corn products now include Coke, Motrin, charcoal, diapers and batteries.
• One in three Americans born after 2000 will contract early onset diabetes. Among minorities, it will be one in two.
• In 2007 there were 73,000 people sickened by the E. coli virus through the food they ate.

So, as you can see, there are some issues with our food.

Other problems are quite apparent. The buying power of the fast food industry has entirely altered the way American food is being produced, distributed and marketed. It has also decreased competition among food producers and put many farms out of business.

Another negative aspect of this monopolization is in the labor force. Farm workers are overwhelmingly young Latino males who do not speak English. They make about $10,000 per year. Meat packers make double that. The majority of them are illegal immigrants who have no legal recourse against the factory farms or plants in case of abuse or injury. The companies actually work out deals with INS and local law enforcement where they have a few workers arrested at a time and deported. New ones quickly arrive to take their place. The company is never held accountable for hiring the illegal workers and maintains its cheap labor force by throwing some of its workers to the agencies who, in turn, meet their quotas for arrests. It is human trafficking. Yet the anti-immigration zealots refuse to hold the corporations responsible. Instead, they want to build a fence.

There is also a negative impact on the impoverished due to government subsidies of corn production. By being able to sell corn for less than the cost of production, products that rely heavily on corn (snack foods, sodas, candy, fast food) are cheaper to purchase than their healthy, nutritional alternatives. Corn can now be found in 80% of supermarket products. Families on limited food budgets, who also have very little spare time to prepare meals due to multiple jobs, take the cheaper, more convenient path of junk food. This, in turn, leads to a myriad of health problems which further impacts their ability to work and drains more money from the family via health care costs. The vicious cycle continues.

Ethics issues also arise over the treatment of the animals being processed for our meats. Chickens are kept in overcrowded pitch dark sheds and pumped so full of chemicals (in order to grow the breast portions larger) that now a chick can grow to adulthood in 45 days where it used to take three months. The chickens become so top heavy that many cannot support their own weight and can barely use their legs. It seems to hardly matter as they have no room to move anyway, crammed right up next to other chickens on all sides.

Downer cows who cannot stand are fork-lifted into the slaughterhouses and are put into the food supply. Packaged hamburger can contain meat from as many as ten different animals.

Many of the animals are even being manipulated and designed to better fit the machines that will slaughter them.

If indeed "we are what we eat", we are a vicious bunch of rotting flesh.

Food, Inc. reminds us that we can improve with every meal. Buy locally produced vegetables and ethically raised meat whenever possible. Read labels. Know what you're ingesting. Ask for information from the many food and nutrition resources available on the web or from your local supermarkets and growers associations. Be a proactive eater and purchaser. Spend the extra money for free trade products and buy organically produced foods.

I know it's tough. I turned vegetarian a little over a year ago and I am appalled at the amount of foodstuffs (oh so delicious meaty foodstuffs) that are now verboten to me.

Dining out has been sapped of its beautifully greasy luster. I've got to think about every little thing I pass down my gullet now. It sucks. But I know its the right thing to do. For my health, the planet's well being and for those around me.

As July 4th is looming I'll leave you with some quotes from the filmmaker and an interviewed farmer which reflect the path our nation is taking with regards to its food. It doesn't speak well of us as a people or as educated consumers. Think about this while you're downing your hamburgers and hot dogs on Independence Day:

"I met a cattle rancher and he said, you know, we used to be scared of the Soviet Union or we used to think we were so much better than the Soviet Union because we had many places to buy things. And we had many choices. We thought if we were taken over, we'd be dominated where we'd have to buy one thing from one company, and how that's not the American way. And he said you look around now, and there's like one or two companies dominating everything in the food world. We've become what we were always terrified of. And that's just always haunted me - how could this happen in America? It seems very un-American that we would be so dominated, and then so intimidated by the companies that are dominating the marketplace."

                                                            - Director Robert Kenner

"A culture that views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure to be manipulated by whatever creative design the human can foist on that critter will probably view individuals within its community and other cultures in the community of nations with the same kind of disdain, disrespect and controlling-type mentality."

                                                            - Joel Salatin, owner/farmer of Polyface Farms

Food for thought, eh?

Comments

[Daniel Angus Cox]

Glad to hear you are still on the righteous path brother. Meat IS murder. Morrisey was right. But yes, even being a vegetarian is controlled by big companies. Kashi tries to pass its self off as being healthy, organic, and a small company, but I think they are owned by some huge cereal company. Same with Morningstar. I think they are owned by Kellogs. Either way we lose, but at least our conscious is clear, if not our colons.

[C. Adolph Moores]

Yes. It was interesting to learn how many fledgling companies with good intentions and a clean record were bought out almost immediately by the conglomerates to reduce any form of competition or change to their market strangleholds.
Also, as a fan of The Smiths and about 25% of his solo stuff, I am shocked how much I have in common with Morrissey on policy matters. Who'd a thunk?
Writing frightening verse to a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg. She can probably gnaw carrots better that way.

[KC]

The Joe Salatin quote really resonated with me. The below bit of recent news is shocking in it's unapologetic disregard for life v. $

"The National Milk Producers Federation in Arlington, Virginia, will pay dairies to slaughter 103,000 U.S. cows in coming months, says the article, causing milk futures to skyrocket. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is forecasting butter, cheese, and milk prices will be painful in 2010. Consumers can expect milk prices to double."

[jjmitch21]

I'm sure this is a very compelling movie and full of awful truths about the food industry, but I'm not gonna see it because I like food - and I think I need it. I'll keep my eyes closed on this one and go ignorantly bliss to the grocery store tomorrow.

Oh yeah, don't all those cannibal movies make you crave some good ole meat every now and then? There's nothing like gnawing the last bit of meat off a good steak bone, my friend!