If you have not yet seen the documentary ‘Food, Inc.,” we strongly recommend that you rent it soon. It will not only change the way you eat, but the way you shop for groceries. Without sensationalizing the facts, the film builds a powerful case against agribusiness and its major players, just a few of whom control what we eat. It traces the rise of agribusiness to the explosive growth of fast food restaurants in the 1950s. McDonald’s, for one, became such a large purchaser of beef that the company almost single-handedly reshaped the meat-packing industry. Because only the very largest suppliers could meet demand from McDonald’s, and because the ground beef itself had to be standardized across the U.S., meat-packing came to be dominated by just a few giant suppliers. They transformed the business into a manufacturing operation, consolidating it so that only fourteen slaughterhouses remain from the many thousands that once served wholesalers and retailers.
At the same time, the corn business was experiencing similar growth and consolidation. America’s farms are now geared toward producing corn so cheaply that we can undersell growers in every other country in the world, no matter how low their wages. Because of this, most cattle in this country no longer graze on grass; rather, they spend their lives in pens, fattened on corn. The sanitation problems that have resulted have only increased despite the growing use of antibiotics by feedlots. As the film documents, E coli outbreaks throughout the U.S. have become increasingly more numerous and lethal, killing children in particular with a vile ferocity that overwhelms the best efforts of doctors to save them.
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Monsanto’s Lawyers
Monsanto comes off as a villain for the bullying tactics it has used to control the soybean business. Years ago, its patented soybean held a ten percent share of the market. That has increased to around 90 percent, and the company has unleashed a phalanx of lawyers on the farm belt to extinguish the remaining 10 percent who still dare to plant seeds not engineered by Monsanto. One of the firm’s primary targets is a man who cleans soybean seeds so that they can be stored and planted later. He reportedly has thrown in the towel, unable to meet the legal costs of battling such a powerful and well-financed enemy. His defeat will probably spell the end for all others in the same line of business.
The makers of this film were unable to elicit a single response from any of the companies reported on. We recommend it in particular because it does not sensationalize its subject. Rather, it musters the facts in a way that will leave you convinced that Americans know dangerously little about the food they eat.
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{ 23 comments }
Rick,
I saw the video and found what I saw despicable. Livestock being raised in confinement, up to their haunches in their own excrement, never seeing the light of day and being prodded electrically or, even pushed along by fork lifts, unable to move on their own. I, personally, have taken a very proactive approach to every thing I even consider ingesting in light of the corruption of our food chain.
An ominous sign of the times in which we live, accentuated by the flagrant manipulation of markets, precious metals being at the forefront.
Regards,
Jim
Dear Rick,
Many thanks to you for the heads up on this incredibly important and scary issue.
Cheers, Mario
As the, uh, great and wise Homer Simpson once said…
“Life is one crushing defeat after another… until you just wish Flanders was DEAD”
I’ve not seen this movie, but over the years, the last decade especially, I’ve seen it’s likeness countless times. And as one who has suffered greatly from botulism poisoning, I in no way downplay the seriousness of food borne illness. I just don’t see that there is problem where there wasn’t before. Think back to the times of hoof and mouth disease. I’m sure history is abundant with other examples. And factory farming, like all farming before it, will see improvements over the years so that we can move on to other, bigger challenges.
That said, that there is a duel theme in this movie, again, is telling. I was immediately reminded of the most recent Great Walmart of China scare, involving cadmium jewelry…
I’m not going to go into why Walmart caused a problem by listening to lawyer… I mean, public… chemophobic tendencies. One can look up cadmium, cadmium poisoning, and the evironmental issues of disposing large quantities of it (thanks to Walmart’s actions of giving in without a fight), and see why Michael Crichton had a point.
Rather, I’m going to talk about what the chemophobia is really based on. People want their jobs back from China. But using a chemical scare is futile, of course. If the U.S. wasn’t a place a million plus laws dictating our every action, the jobs never would have left in the first place. By extension, using the same thing (among other irrational things) that drove them away won’t bring them back.
By the same token, there wouldn’t be a corporate thuggery strong-arming food production as it is that we “must” we use alarmism to try and bring down if we hadn’t continued to vote away our liberties for perceived safety and other “benefits”.
But that’s what we’ve allowed to continue happening. The sad result is that people come to fear living more than they do dying.
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000000547E.htm
But okay, okay… I”ll watch the movie. I’ll even do the follow-up research when I have time. I don’t think I’ll be impressed, though.
People will tirelessly research the latest laptop for features, inspecting the CPU spec, memory expansion limits, software included etc. They go to buy a car and spend hours on the web checking out available options, reading reviews from prior purchasers and checking to see how reliable and safe their chosen model is.
This all sounds fairly industrious and worthy of the discerning consumer and yet when it comes to the substances people put into their mouths they invariably have NO idea as to the ingredients. What is a little more worrying is that even though they are fully aware that many foods contain substances possibly harmful to their health they show no interest to become educated on the matter.
I am lucky in that I am married to someone that educated me early on as to the devious practices used to ensure we eat a good serving of crap on a daily basis. We have changed our grocery list a fair bit and I do feel the results.
Think about why it is so easy to buy a full meal from McDonalds for a couple of bucks and yet a small tray of good quality vegetables costs the same amount.
Until people wake up and vote with their money in a major way nothing will change. The relatively recent introduction of ‘healthy’ meals has only came about due to the public demand. Product labeling changes are being resisted vigorously by the industry. They don’t want to properly communicate what is going into your mouth.
As long as we act like sheep we will be treated like sheep…
b’aaaaaaah
In many parts of the country, locally grown movements have sprung up. The cost of the organically grown meats and veggies are comparable to supermarket prices because of the lower transportation costs. And you get the added benefit of meeting the person who grows your food. You become more in tune with the Earth’s cycles as fruits and veggies are available only in season for your area.
These groups are big around most college campuses. I became familiar with the movement here in Athens, GA.
Funny you bring this up now, just after it was shown on Oprah. My wife and I saw the video 3 weeks ago and were amazed and shocked, although she read so many other books reporting this.
We were very surprised and happy to see this talked about on Oprah. If this gets the press it deserves, we have a fighting chance of improving the situation.
At least, it’s not all bad all over. A farmer in Virginia named Joel Salatin raises pigs, chickens and cattle in pasture. http://www.polyfacefarms.com/ He claims his farm is not organic but *beyond organic*.
His view is that the best way for food consumers to evaluate how the food they purchase is healthy is to visit the farms. He has an open policy where everyone can visit his farm anytime to check the conditions. We intend to visit his place next spring.
From all this reading, my wife and I decided to raise our own chickens last summer. Eggs from backyard raise chickens have 2 to 3 times of the better stuff and 2 to 4 times less of the bad than grocery stores eggs.
Thanks for reporting this!
The next step in the process comes when we all become feed stock ourselves.
Can you say soylent green????
I’m sorry. I just don’t have enough “pitchforks and torches” to deal with all the cartels at the top of the “food chain” AND all the cartels at the top of the “money chain”! Help anyone?!
Alright then. Just pass me the blinders, and my application to “join them”.
A nice bottle of Victory Gin goes well with some agri-beef!
Always available in unlimited quantities from the Ministry of Plenty!
There is so much confusion over what to eat–one day The Oprah diet makes a splash-the other day some MD comes out with a diet–but if we just take a quick glance at the findings of anthropology we find that makind DOES have a traditional diet–For 1000s of yrs the great cultures of the world ate LOCALLY available, organic food in the following proportions: 40-60% whole grains-20-30% seasonal vegetables,5-10% beans [legumes]–occasional meat or fish-nuts seeds, sea vegetables, fruits IN SEASON–[except in extreme climates-where it was appropriate & healthy for Eskimos to eat 95% meat]–smaller groups-usually nomadic–might have a more restricted diet-the Macrobiotic diet follows closely the traditional ways of eating of mankind–it also-IF DONE ACCURATELY AND OVER TIME-often cures just about all the chronic & degenerative diseases from cancer to colitis-I was hit-about 6 yrs ago-with a devastating tinnitus–many people commit suicide when it gets to this stage-there is no treatment for tinnitus–I started the macro diet and got immediate relief-now 6 yrs later, the tinnitus is 95% gone-I sleep like a baby and have nary an ache or a pain in my body and i am 66–An echo cardiogram 2 yrs ago showed my slight pulmonary regurgitation was gone and that my ejection fraction was the same as a marathon runner–76–and I do no aerobic exercise-my BP is 95/100 over 65/70–the diet is not a multi-level marketing scheme–just buy the foods and start cooking-here is a link for the “world’s healthiest foods”–it gives all the science for various foods–read the info for brown rice, kidney beans, kale, and salmon–all “superfoods”
http://www.whfoods.com/foodstoc.php
I don’t know if Dr Dean Ornish appropriated and modified the Macro diet–but his diet is very similar–and he takes patients with severe cardiac problerms and gets them back to normal and walking a few miles a day…
Dear Rick Ackerman, I am not happy!!! I subscibed 01/25/10 (1st week free trial) & more than once have not been able to access your daily comments. By example this AM I received your USDA article & below :
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Monsanto has also taken its wares – and monopolistic controls – overseas and into Mexico. Second, Monsanto has branched into GMO corn, which has been linked to kidney and liver failure – the body’s toxin-flushing systems – according to a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences. They added pesticides to the seeds. Third, Monsanto’s GMO vegetables’ seeds migrate with the wind and, as a consequence, find their way into other farmers’ fields who don’t use Monsanto seeds. Then Monsanto hires lawyers to prosecute the farmers for “unlicensed use” of those seeds.
All over the world where Monsanto has gone, local farmers go out of business because they can’t compete with the lower prices. A few years ago, news kept coming in that Indian farmers were committing suicide because they could no longer support their families. Mexican corn growers were driven out of business a couple years ago because they couldn’t compete and there were civil demonstrations because of both corn dumping and the second rail set up for using corn to make ethanol. The result for the Mexican people was that the price for corn rose too high.
Nor are these monopolistic policies confined to American agribusiness. Look domestically and internationally at a 20-year history of the consolidation of the pharmaceutical industry, banking and finance, book sellers; legislators in New York want to allow supermarkets to sell wine – what does that do to Mom and Pop wine and spirit shops?
Not only have we gone through the perils of laissez-faire practices in finance – as we’ve witnessed – but in the growing consolidation into fewer and fewer hands of each kind of industry. Thank the endless M & A activity of Wall Street. Frankly, I’ve wondered whatever happened to meaningful antitrust activity from the DoJ. We need to look into it. And Wall Street might just realize that antitrust would open up another income stream.
Another well done documentry is “King Corn”. Along the same line 2 Boston guys go to Iowa to grow an acre of corn. They also cover the ag industry. A start on how the system came to be.
It is amazing to me how few people can locate food that doesn’t come from a store or restarant!!
This is one of the primary reasons why the “buy local” movement sustains itself and grows (another of course is energy). Many communities now have local farmers markets that first concentrated on locally grown (and organic) fruits and vegetables. Increasingly, I am noticing locally raised beef. It’s quite a bit more expensive, but is done well and sustainably and I try to support them as well.
There’s not much your vote is good for, but your dollars spent wisely is one way to support what you believe in. cp
Aloha All
Right on Rick.
Worth recalling plutocrats favour population control. Organic Grass and insect fed free range beef and chicken far healthier, as corn sugars, oils and pesticides push cholesterol, diabetes and cancer higher. Monsanto death hybrid seeds, estrogen food additives and rapeseed finish the job.
Two proactive solutions to getting off the agribusiness bankster conveyor deflation repossession belt:
http://survivalseedbank.com/
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=31623 7:45
Good trades all.
Regards*Rich
Re Mr Market ignoring manufactured Bernanke reappointment, 5.7% GDP and 2 year highs in Consumer confidence, the same thing applies. Time to get off the conveyor belt before the knacker thunderbolt. These are the times that try men’s courage…
King Corn is another good doc on food and the victory that Lobbyists and Corporations have over consumers.
Howdy Rick,
Acres is the name of a publication that’s been the voice of eco-agriculture covering every detail of the struggle for the past 30 years. Headquartered in Austin, it’s been a beacon for truth and a staunch defender of decency and fairness regarding animal husbandry, the soil, labor, farmers, ranchers and consumers. They do the hard work on multiple-fronts of the ongoing food-war here at home and have created a respectable and informative venue for alternative voices. I recommend it highly.
There’s quite a few uncanny parallels between what’s happened on the ground to those involved in food production – with the decades-long, relentless consolidation of everything from seeds to meat – and the abstracted world of finance with it’s derivatization of everything conceivable over time. The engineering of plants and animals based on manipulation of genes reminds me of the engineering of investment vehicles based on the manipulation of law. When the codes that form the blueprint of the end-product are deformed, due to the apparent need of psychopaths to control reality, the final result is a poisonous brew indeed.
The folks at NORM – National Organization for Raw Materials – who have a physiocratic notion of wealth – would argue that what happens first to agriculture in America will happen to the rest of the country in due time. I think we have seen the evidence of that in spades. City folks basically ignored the plight of family farmers in the 80’s when hundreds of thousands of them lost their livlihoods and land and Willie Nelson’s bandaids did little to patch a system bent on agricide – now to the point of designing plants that don’t reproduce.
Well, it has come full-circle to industrial America and the urban centers and we have to figure out how to bootstrap our way out of this situation. I’m not too hopeful that there’s any meaningful way to avoid hitting a wall that permanently injures our ability to reorganize. I think it’s far too late for that. This thing we’re facing only appears to be financial but in reality it’s physical – it is the utter exhaustion of the collective resources of the system. It’s like an engine that has reached the end of the line – still useful for parts but incapable of running. Sure, we can survive it as individuals but our relationship to everything around us will change dramatically when we fully understand that the system has failed and no longer exists. Something else will, but in the meantime …
One of our big problems regarding going local and such is the cost factor. CSA’s and personal relationships with food producers are expensive. Cooperatives have become co-opted by a margin mentality that doesn’t make them much of an alternative when 90% of their shelf-space is devoted to multi-national corporate products that rely on a cozy brandedness to impart that smug feeling for members. C’mon, didn’t we knew it was so over when Seeds of Change was purchased by M&M/Mars Corporation? I know, I know – they’re carrying the yuppie burden to the world of chocolate at large!!!
Then there’s Whole Foods Market’s new 5-Step Animal Welfare program which has not met the test of the marketplace and no one has any idea about its ability or desire to channel sufficient money to those producers who are willing to reach for a higher (more costly) bar – not to mention the various incentives – both internally and externally – to game the system and its new third-party, standards and verification arrangement called the Global Animal Partnership. It may be the best potential retail solution out there thus far but it’s most likely too little and far too late to be anything but window-dressing on this national calamity and it will be facing the 2010/2011 CAT-7 financial storm like a scarecrow on Mount Washington. Good luck with that.
I share John Mackey’s vision of a de-industrialized agricultural system but he can’t seem to keep his eye on the ball. The inconsistencies and outright contradictory forces afoot in Whole Foods lead me to believe that he is at best a fortunate person who rode a nice wave over the last 20 years but essentially couldn’t manage his way out of a paper sack (others did it for him) or at worst something that would take far too long to explain.
I’m pretty much critical of all the playerz at this point because it’s become such a free-for-all and everybody appears to be just talking their book – even Joel Salatin. With that said, I’d like to point out an exceptional report published in April 2009 – The Truth Behind the Labels: Farm Animal Welfare Standards and Labeling Practices – A Farm Sanctuary Report. It’s must reading for anyone who wants to get up-to-speed quickly on the retail and marketting side of the equation where confusion still reigns on the side of those who would mislead customers – or better said – allow customers to mislead themselves with their faulty assumptions regarding the meaning of words and phrases that conjure pastoral vistas.
Also, check out the upcoming PBS movie on Temple Grandin and the impact she’s had on slaughterhouse practices – albeit mainly it’s the McDonald’s and Tyson’s who can afford to implement her unique perspectives – at least there’s a well-deserved reduction in suffering at the end of the line for those particular animals.
Finally, although I understand the importance of division of labor, economy of scale, trading futures and free market ideology – I think there must be a place for what existed during WWII and that was the condition of Parity in Agriculture whereby cost of production was ensured. The fact that food producers are among the very few businessmen who don’t control the price of their product is one that has come back to haunt us. Many have forgotten or never learned that there really is no such thing as cheap food. Lamenting the fact that we’ve gotten exactly what we paid for – corporate agriculture and all of its tender mercies – is as short-sighted as pointing fingers at Goldman Sachs for everything wrong with the country today. Maybe they’re just serving a noble purpose like an opportunistic fungus that feeds on a dying life-form. God’s work as someone recently put it??
Thanks for an informative site.
Adios
Oh, and while you’re at it…don’t forget the global water grab… sponsored by such innocent names as coca-cola, perrier, nestle, and of course the Canadian government.
http://www.canadians.org/water/issues/right/index.html
“The Canadian government has tarnished its reputation on the world stage by continuing to oppose attempts to enshrine the right to water at the United Nations.
At the World Water Forum at The Hague in 2000, in Kyoto in 2003, and in Mexico City in 2006, Canada refused to assert water as a human right. In 2002 and 2003, Canada was the only country to vote against United Nations (UN) resolutions on the human right to water, stating, “Canada does not accept that there is a right to drinking water and sanitation.” The Harper government also played a key role in blocking a motion by Germany and Spain to officially recognize water as a human right at the UN Human Rights Council in March 2008.”
We are screwed as far as food goes, but….it’s very easy, and much cheaper to drink your own tap water, filtered of course, than to pay 500 to 1000 times more for bottled water from the global water thieves.
I have a filter with silver as the active ingredient. Works good…no chlorine taste, kills bad stuff!
I am looking for your opinions on this article? Thank you, sincerly Mike
Click here: Is George Soros After IMF Gold? | Before It’s News
Whenever I think about Monsanto,,,I always also think about what Henry Kissinger had in mind in 1970 when he said: “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”
Food Inc is a must see for all,,,,disturbing, but worth seeing. I’m not sure I would let small children see it, it is very disturbing in some parts.
On a side note,,,,the recent Supreme Court ruling now will allow foreign corporations influence our elections.
Gee,,,,do you think you could control who you wanted in office if you sit on 2 Trillion Dollars. A slippery slope indeed.
Step 1. Go vegetarian. We did some time ago and it is no real effort. Of course it helps to add Asian vegetarian food to the menu as Western vegetarian food is BORING to the extreme. With the Asian variety you hardly notice.
We use a lot of tofu (many different kinds), and lots of Asian vegetables. We actually try to avoid organic as organic has its own problems (plants have their own immune systems and to ward of pests/disease they excrete/produce their own toxins. organic varieties may have to increase production of these to compensate for a lack of pesticides).
Finally we cook from scratch almost all the time. The cost is far less ( excluding labor of course), and you know what you are eating. After a while of this you find almost all restaurant/packaged food inedible (no taste or incredibly salty).
Cooking is not that hard – especially with youtube videos for everything.
The answer to these atrocities is the same as the answer to the financial and medical atrocities that are foisted on us by Too Big To Buy Off industries…take your energy out of the system. I have been a vegetarian for nearly 35 years and have no doubt it has been the primary reason I have been healthy as I approach my 60th birthday. It ain’t genes…all my immediate family has already succumbed to the usual chronic diseases.
Try to eat better, seriously study alternative health avenues (food/vitamins/sunshine) and avoid the medical community as much as possible, and withdraw your financial resources as you can. We will NEVER be able to change it THROUGH the system…we are going to have to go AROUND the system.
There is no leader, no political party, no religion, no movement, no cause, no anything that is going to do what needs to be done. Just make a vow to yourself that you’re going to start, and watch what happens in your life.
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