Gordon G

From Factory to Supermarket: The Corruption of the American Food System

I wouldnt have ever thought of food as being dangerous. Food is a good thing, right? After all, we cant live without it. I certainly wouldnt have suspected that our food and eating habits are now the second largest source of preventable death in the US, beaten only by tobacco use. This year, about 600,000 Americans will die from what they eat. Obesity kills about 300,000 Americans each year, diabetes kills about 100,000, and heart disease kills many more. Most Americans have no idea about these facts, which is one of the reasons that so little has been done to heal our sickening food industry. Our food system, like much of our society, has become twisted and repurposed by a growing desire to make money. Food companies are so focused on mass production that they have forgotten their commitment to safety. As a result, our food system isnt just unhealthy anymore: its become downright dangerous, in many ways. This is a problem that only the American people can fix. Meat is a large part of the American diet, and its production is a perfect example of how unsafe some of our food is. Cows, the source of about 58% of Americas meat, are slaughtered en-masse in giant feedlots that are both unsanitary and inhumane. In order to ensure that the meat from these slaughterhouses isnt contaminated with bacteria, some corporations wash their meat in ammonia, a common ingredient in household cleaning products. The most infuriating thing is that these harmful bacteria are entirely preventable, so it would be easy to eliminate washing meat in ammonia by simply changing how it is produced. In feedlots, cows are fed mostly corn instead of their natural diet of grass. This naturally triggers different reactions in the digestive systems of the cows, and one byproduct of this reaction was the emergence of a new strain of E. coli bacteria- one that is resistant to antibiotics. When cows are transported to the massive slaughterhouses where they are killed and processed, it is almost impossible to keep some of these bacteria from getting in to the meat being packed and shipped off to supermarkets. There are all too many of examples of food turned deadly that demonstrate just how dire the situation is. In one case, a two year old boy went from healthy to dead in 12 days, as his mother later said. He had eaten a hamburger infected with E. coli. Another place where the deceptive nature of our food system is running rampant is in stores. The average supermarket has about 47,000 products, each one seemingly different from the next. In reality, 90% of these products contain a common ingredient. As Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivores Dilemma says, Much of our industrial food turns out to be clever rearrangements of corn. Corn isnt necessarily harmful, but a good diet is a balanced diet: the USDA recognizes this in their food pyramid. All sorts of problems arise when you eat only one type of food: just imagine if you ate only bread for a year. There is no way that you would get all the nutrients you need to be healthy. This is another factor that adds to the rapidly growing list of American health problems.

Many people, myself included, have been underestimating the consequences of this type of food system. Food out of factories has dire repercussions for most of those that eat it constantly. One perfect example of this is the rising obesity epidemic, which has gotten so bad that obesity is now classified as a disease. Our corn-rich diet is partly to blame for this. According to researchers at Princeton University, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup leads to abnormal increases in body fat. Problems like diabetes and heart disease go hand in hand with this epidemic: a recent report by the center of disease control revealed that 8.9% of all Americans now have type two diabetes and 35.7% are obese. Clearly our food is no longer safe. If we are to change this system, we will need to change the way we think about our food. Most people think that they are too small and unimportant to really change the way that giant corporations function. In reality, normal people can completely change the way the system functions. This is one of the upshots of having a consumer society: corporations must change their production to meet consumer demand. The current consumer demand is for cheap food that tastes good, but if we can change this demand back to food that is actually good for you, we can change the way that our system works. For the critics of individual activism among you, look at places like McDonalds. McDonalds started offering more healthy options like salads and wraps as a direct reaction to consumer demand after people saw the movie Supersize Me. They are is still anything but healthy, and are still the largest purchaser of commercial ground beef and potatoes in the US, but it is still a positive step. Even our local City Market shows the results of consumer demand. If any of you have been to South City Market after its remodel, I am sure that youve noticed the new healthy section behind the checkout stations. Ive never seen anything like it in any other City Market, and Im sure that it was a direct response to the generally health-focused community of Durango. Weve all heard the phrase that we are what we eat. I dont take this very literally, but it is certainly true from a health perspective. If our food is dangerous and damaging, it follows that our health will be endangered and damaged by these foods. We cant afford to stand by and watch the waistlines of America gradually increase as we have been; it is time for us to take the initiative and start voting for change through our food choices. As the movie Food Inc. so aptly put it, we can vote for change in the food system, three times a day.

Works Cited
Food, Inc. Dir. Robert Kenner. Movie One, 2008. DVD. "Overweight and Obesity." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 Aug. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. Parker, Hilary. "A Sweet Problem." Web Stories. Princeton University, 22 Mar. 2010. Web. 29 Nov. 2013.