This is a paper I wrote for my Organization and Management of Food Systems class. For those of you familiar with my status updates, this is the class that make me want to hurt myself. I had to write an analysis of the movie Food Inc. I got a 100% on it so I figured I'd post that here.
Think Globally – Eat Locally
“A culture that just uses 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 type of disdain and disrespect and controlling type mentalities.”
-Joel Salatin, Food Inc.
That quote solidifies and strengthens the ideology I believed even before viewing this film. I had always had a passion for food. I have spent a majority of my time in the workforce in food-service industry with only a few exceptions. When that was coupled with an overactive metabolic rate, it became clear this was to the recipe for inspiration for the rest of my life.
Food Inc. points out the major flaws the current food market suffers from while offering a compelling narrative provided by farmers themselves (since most of the companies mentioned refused to comment on their practices). They talk of how they are essentially indentured servants to the system and the many ways in which it has cheated them out of house and home. It provides interview segments with a number of authors and advocates speaking truths that most people simply don't want to believe. Then there's Joel Salatin. With his witty charms and personable cynicism he flamboyantly waltz through the holes that riddle the industrial farming industry.
The change from make line to assembly line and my career share a common beginning, though that's where the similarities end. They both start at McDonald's where both the fast food prototype and my first source of income were initially conceived. From there though they moved further away from serving true foods while I, in contrast, have drawn nearer to doing so. I have worked to find my individuality in the kitchen while they seek to create conformity in all of their franchises. I was the rebellious teenager to their overbearing parental figure.
That said, I am not free from guilt. In my tenure at Mickey D's, I ate my fair share of Double Quarter Pounders (with cheese and bacon), McChickens (cheese and bacon) and french fries (no cheese or bacon but if the option had been available...). While I endured three years at that job, I saw things that deterred me from ever eating there whenever there was any other options. I somehow failed to apply that same logic to the rest of the industry. I still crave Wendy's though I know it's no better than my previous employer. It took me years to eventually free myself from the shackles of fast food with a minimal number of relapses. I slowly pulled myself up from fast food to fast casual and finally to seated dining, all along the way learning the ins and outs of the kitchen.
Through my endeavors, I've sliced, I've diced, I've even julienned. Even with the past decade of experience, it came as a bit of shock to learn that one conglomeration of industrial farming companies controls more than 80% of the food market in the United States. Though I had always tried not to eat processed food products, I found myself in a predicament. I had grown to love working in the food industry and by doing so I was fueling the fires I was subtly trying to put out. It became apparently more drastic actions needed to be taken.
My first viewing of Food Inc., as there have been many for me, came at a time when I was in the preparation period for my post-graduation agenda. I reflected back to my childhood, remembering the joys of my grandparents' single acre family farm. They had no livestock, simply a variety of seasonal crops grown mostly for family consumption. The rest supplied their retirement plan – a roadside vegetable stand. They lived 15 minutes for our Ypsilanti home at which even there, in the suburbs, we grew peppers and pumpkins, strawberry and squash, we even had a gingko tree. We even had a handful of chickens producing fresh eggs and – eventually – fresh chicken.
The chicken I grew up on is vastly different from what I served at McDonald's. I watched my first chick be hatched and my first slaughter in the same fall. Both events were memorable and helped me to understand the life cycle at an early age. Though I had heard the horrors of the commercial chicken, it wasn't until I watched this movie that I truly understood them. The genetic modification for optimal muscular development, the plethora of antibiotics given and the complete detachment of any moral obligation to a living creature offering itself for the nourishment it provides us. The birds are plucked from farms much in the same way a child eats from a berry bush – without any concerns about whether the bush will bear fruit the following year. We see again that careless assembly line mentality applied to very things that we derive our very life force from.
Chicken is only the tip of the iceberg too. The beef industry is even worse. We have taken an animal that has evolve around the fundamental idea of eating grass and taught it to eat cheap corn. Coupled with lowered standards for food safety has in turn lead to a rise in E. Coli O157H7 and Mad Cow Disease. Simply returning cattle to a grass fed diet will result in a drop of 80% of the E. Coli existing in their system. Instead the industry started dousing their meat in ammonia to kill the bacteria as it was more cost effective. They never solve a problem without making two more in their wake.
When you take a cow off the farm, you generate a multitude of problems. On traditional farms. cows would generally graze and fertilize pastures, which would then be picked over for insects by chicken before the hogs would root around and in the process aerate the soil. Allow the fields to sit for one cycle and then start it over again. Industrial farms remove all the components and create them on an individual level. Cows excrete manure and rather than it going directly back into the earth, it sits – unusable for health reason – creating massive amounts of methane, polluting the very air we breath. By farming in a more holistic manner, we kill two birds with a single stone.
Herein lies the problem; Americans have grown accustom to cheap food, especially meat. We indulge ourselves endlessly, mimicking our commercial forefathers, believing there are no additional costs to our dietary habits. When I asked my 7 year old nephew where hamburger comes from, he quickly answers “McDonald's!”, much to my dismay. While the argument can be made that children do not know any better, this kind of disconnect is prevalent in most consumers. The truth off the matter is that we are eating beyond our own means and by doing so, we hurt ourselves, our communities and our nation as a whole.
While eating organic foods certainly lends a helping hand towards solving these problems. Organic products ultimately reduce the amount of petroleum that goes into our foods. Between chemical fertilizers and the transportation of food, agriculture uses the second largest amount of fossil fuels, beat only by the auto industry. The issue with organic is that it isn't necessarily helping the struggle against the commercial feedlots. The average American meal still travels over an astounding 1,500 miles before it reaches the dinner table. Why is this the case when Michigan's biodiversity is second only to California's?
This pains me as a culinary professional. The idea that many diseases and/or their symptoms can be prevented simply by logical dietary choices and walking around the blocks a few times a week seems like common sense. Many people argue that it simply isn't cost effective, to which I suggest growing your own backyard garden. No yard? Live in an apartment? That still isn't an excuse. You can take a walk to your local farmer's market, get a plot at your nearest community garden or join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). You can buy a share of a cow and enjoy farm fresh milk or even a portion of its meat when it is slaughtered. There are a wide selection of websites that can direct you to local sources of food. One such site is LocalHarvest.org at which you can enter your zip code, select a category of food you are interested in and they provide you with numerous choices and their approximate distance from your location. You can also search online for different locavore associations near you. They offer lists of local purveyors, specific challenges to keep you on track and they often sponsor meals featuring regional, seasonal ingredients.
Food is life. You can argue that it's the basis upon which civilization spawned from. We collected in clans and tribes to slay the mighty mammoths and as a result a shared in its rewards. We passed prized seeds from generation to generation in order to ensure a bountiful harvest of only the best produce. When drought and famine hit, we relied on the strength our communities to get us through our rough patch. With the rise of commercial farming, we have removed the safety net of our food system. So the next time your stomach grumbles, think not with your pocketbook but with a sense of community.
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