Response to Food Inc.

I don’t want to say that Robert Kenner's Food Inc. (2008) opened my eyes to what I put in my mouth, but it did. I haven’t been this disgusted in a long time. Not just from seeing where my food comes from, but how little the people in charge care for the wellbeing of the American people, and how much the care about their profits. These food companies have created the food industry, making food cheap, ready to eat, and available, at the cost of the long, and short, term health risks to both people and the planet.

One of the stats that really took me by surprise was the fact that while America once had hundreds of slaughterhouses, there are only 13 in America today. So the meat we buy comes from one of thirteen places in the entire country. Good thing we have preservatives! But, it gets worse. The ground beef that we purchase is not from one cow, rather it is from hundreds of different cows ground together into the stuff. The cattle ranch conditions out in the Midwest are pretty gross as well. The thousands of cattle are packed together in a confined space, to live the rest of their lives in their own feces. The feces is not removed when the cattle are brought to slaughter. This feces ends up in our steak, burgers, roast beef, you name it. But all the cows eat is corn anyway, so who cares? Capitalism sure is delicious!

That was another problem. Corn is in everything we eat, and stuff we don’t. The subsidies given to corn farmers have made corn production skyrocket. Where does all this corn go if it isn’t going to be consumed directly as corn? Everywhere of course! There is corn in everything you can think of, except maybe water, unless you are drinking waste runoff from the Factory style cattle ranches; that water will contain traces of cow fecal matter, which in turn is corn.

People have tried to take down the machine, but it is very difficult, seeing as several of the people in charge of the USDA and FDA have worked for the companies they are supposed to regulate. On an even sadder note, the true reason these companies are so hard to take down is that so many people are dependent on them. It is much cheaper to eat at McDonald’s everyday than it is to buy groceries at farmer’s markets especially when our country is going through a recession. But the more people eat this type of food, the more they are at risk of diabetes, colon and stomach cancers, high blood pressure, and various other health complications. The saddest part is that it can all end if these huge food companies spent some more money on developing healthier food, even if it is more expensive for them.