Food...We've Got a Problem!

The Nation's "One thing to do about food: a forum" proposes several solutions to the problems with the food system in the United States from a number of notable members of society. It is evident from this work that there is no clear cut solution to the issues at hand, but rather there are several possibilities that could be addressed as answers.
Michael Pollan displays his belief that the importance of the "farm bill" is not recognized, which creates many of the problems with our food system today. He notes that the importance of this bill can be used to earn votes for more important peices of legislation, yet it is not being used this way and therefore only several, small interests groups drive our food production in whatever direction they please.
Jim Hightower believes that the problem is because of businessmen and lobbyists who have a lack of understanding when it comes to our nation's food system. Hightower claims that these people are making all of the decisions, which they are unqualified to make, and the decisions should be made instead by the common citizen.
Personally, I do not have much strength in making my own arguements for a solution to the problem merely because I do not have the experience nor the knowledge to do so. I think that the arguement posed by Michael Pollan seems to make sense. That being said, I do not have a solid understanding of what the "farm bill" is and what it does. Hightower's solution however seems almost unreal. I feel as if the problems in our food system needs to help of the government. Giving the power to the consumers and local producers seems almost counterproductive because it would decentralize the food system and nothing could be done to make substantial solutions. Does a decentralized food system really make sense? If not, then how do we go about making the importance of the "farm bill" more easily recognized by Congress.

World Hunger

The article, "The Scarcity Fallacy" by Stephen J. Scanlan addresses the issue of World Hunger....actually...it doesnt. Instead it addresses what is NOT the issue surrounding world hunger. Scanlan acknowledges that most people believe that the reason for world hunger is an international shortage of food. However, it is actually a result of sociological and environmental factors that in turn result in a shortage of affordable food.
Solutions to world hunger have been approached through the method called "supermarket model". this method works to grow dependence on large global food industries. Unfortunately for the poor and hungry, the "supermarket model" is no productive but rather counterproductive because it causes an increase in the price of food on the market. Thus, hungry families can still not afford to buy food for themselves.
Today, the ratio of amount of food per person is the highest it has ever been. The real issue is the distribution of this surplus of food to areas with people that are poor and hungry. Scanlan addresses the true problems of world hunger as poverty, inequalities, and corrupution in food aid programs.

From reading this article I feel a little skeptical about the whole food aid programs. Why exactly is it that people as a whole havent quite figured out that what we are doing right now is counterproductive towards our goal? seems to me that we would have by now and that some changes would have been made. Yet even if changes were to be made, would it actually be possible to solve world hunger?

Burger King, Not So Cheap

Recently a friend mentioned to me that the most expensive burger in the world was made by Burger King. I immediately expressed my disbelief, asking exactly how Burger King went about making the most expensive burger in the world. He didn't know too much about, just that he knew it existed. When I got home, I immediately went to google....

Turns out, he wasn't kidding. As of 2008, Burger King's "The Burger" is the most expensive burger in the world. My mind was blown, especially by the fact that I personally do not think that "The Burger" looks as good as "The Whopper"....

Go figure...

http://most-expensive.net/burgers-world

The Food Stamp Issue

Last November, The New York Times produced an article regarding the recent incline in need for food stamps by people in the United States. With a brand new economic recession on our hands, many people have fallen to an economic level that puts them in need of food stamps. The people who have most recently began their use of food stamps actually have or had incomes that are or were higher than the poverty level, which just goes to show the intensity of the economic slump. Thankfully, the government has been willing to keep the program in motion and not made the decision to halt its growth. As a result, there is, unfortunately, more debt. Yet, at the same time, the once negative stigma attached to people taking federal aid via food stamps has diminished. The article makes the statement that fewer people felt ridiculed about using food stamps.

Personally, I do not quite agree that the stigma attached to food stamps is fully diminished. However, I believe that it is important that people who need the federal aid, take the federal aid. It is therefore crucial that the government continue to be prepared for an increase in the number of families on food stamps with the continuation of the economic downturn. Many families who were once very well off may suddenly need financial assistance.

Is there any way that the government can possibly change the name of the aid to something that could detach the negative stigma currently attached to it? or maybe make the aid more secretive that it currently is, so that people dont need to publicize their financial situation?

The Big Mac...Is it actually eating us?

George Ritzer's Sociological Odyssey, he scoops out the disturbing details on a sociological phenomenon called Mcdonaldization. Essentially, the name of this phenomenon means to imply that the United States is based solely on efficiency, speed, and rationality. The essay dishes out the driving forces of this idea of rationality in the United States: Efficiency, Predicatability, Calculability or Quantity over Quality, Substitution of Non Human Technology, and Control.

The article donates a section to each of these five categories and provides examples of each in our society. Efficiency is getting things done as fast as possible, which leads to the sacrifice of other aspects of production, such as quality. Predictablity is the idea of keeping production free of any dynamic variables so as to maintain a natural routine and consistency within the production, which in turn supports efficiency and quantity. Calculability or Quantity over Quality is exactly what is says it is. It is better for businesses to make more, poor quality products than for businesses to make fewer, good quality products, because people are willing to pay cheap prices for poor quality food. Substitution of Non Human Technology is in order to support the predictability of a business. By using robots rather than humans, each job done can be executed faster and thus more efficiently, so it creates a financial treat for the business. Finally, Control is the idea of knowing what is going to happen and how. The most important thing that businesses want to control is the people who are buying their product; They run their business to make sure people do what they want and that it is efficient and money saving for them.

Personally I find this sociological evolution to be a epidemic and extremely harmful to society. It seems to me that this is probably the cause of the huge issue of obesity in the United States. Not only that but with robots in the work force, jobs are lost and unemployment rates will rise. Finally, Being surrounded by this sociological way of life almost doesn't even allow consumers to make their own choice about whether or not they want to support quantity over quality, or quality of quantity. Eventually, nothing will have good quality anymore and the production system will yield nothing but garbage for less than a penny. Is that the sort of society we want to live in.

Does the "McDonaldization" of the United States have a spot on the list for why obesity is so prevelant in our country?

In terms of sociological evolution there must be a step that comes after this "McDonaldization"...where do scientists, sociologist, and people in general see where this is headed?

Politics of Government and Dietary Advice

The article "Politics of Government and Dietary Advice" addresses the ways that the government sets nutritional standards and the effect of these standards on food organizations. The original intention of each nutritional standard is to attempt to help the community make good choices about their eating habits. However, food organizations dont always go for the governments new standards because sometimes it gives the community a reason not to purchase their products, and so their business would be hindered. One particular example was when the World Health Organization advised the public to limit their sugar intake to improve their health. Of course everyone involved in an organization based in the production of sugar saw this as a threat to their business and fought to have the claim that sugar was bad for your heath revoked. The sugar organizations threatened to withdraw funding and so the World Health Organization withdrew their claim regarding sugar. Situations such as this continued to happen over time and the goverment could no longer tell the public exactly what they needed to do to practice a healthy diet. If they said that one thing was good to eat and another was not good to eat then not all food organizations would be happy with their new dietary guidlines. So, now these dietary guidelines are vague and can be broadly interpreted.

I find it slightly disturbing that the food industry has so much influence over the set dietary standards that the government publicizes. it would be interesting to see how much these industries spent on lobbying so that they can defend the health benefits of their products.

Also, I think that it can be assumed that the standard American diet is certainly one of the most unhealthy diets among those of other nations in this world. Would it be beneficial to mimic the dietary standards in countries that eat healthier than we do? Health in our country seems to be important, so the food industry should certainly not be able to call the shots on what makes a healthy diet.

The American "Cuisine"

In the article "Eating American" the author reflects on the typical American cuisine and determines that it actually does not exist. Although it isnt exactly that it doesn't exist but rather that it is not its own cuisine. it is actually a conconction of many many cultural foods, which results in a variety of regional cuisines. This variety of foods is then combined with the American way of life, which of course is fast paced living. So the foods have become fast foods, so that Americans can eat and be as efficient as possible with their time management in their busy bee lives. So then this also leads to Americans not really caring about what they eat, or even enjoying it as much as other cultures do. The author therefore concludes that an American cuisine does not exist.

I personally think that the article seriously underestimates the reality of an American cuisine. As they said, Americans eat 'fast foods' because of the culture that we have in this country. But although Americans are more into eating fast foods, and not cooking home cooked meals but rahter eating out, that doesn't mean that an American "cuisine" doesnt exist. The American cuisine is actually everywhere. You can find a McDonalds and a KFC and a Burger King pretty much all over the world, and you cannot find a cultural cuisine that has the same massive expasion as the American "cuisine"....the author of this article fails to realize that the American "cuisine" actually monopolizes the world...so it therefore must exist.

Meat That Isn't Meat

Ben Paytner's work "The Other Other White Meat", opens the readers mind to the reality of cloned meat potentially being in the supermarket. Some farmers seek to maintain the current productive and beneficial state of their animals and so for that reason they clone them, to create exact replicas with the same beneficial and productive attributes. The meat from these clones is then circulated into the supermarkets, and it has become possible that whoever is reading this may have eaten cloned meat...how does that make you feel?

The FDA, although always imposing extremely strict regulations on the food industry in general, has not made a very difinitive judgment when it comes to cloned meat in the supermarket. in 2002 they declared that cloned meat was perfectly fine to eat because it was conventionally bred from animals. However, they asked that cloned meat was not to be sold. An interesting and confusing decision considering their opinion that the meat is safe. However, it is very difficult for the FDA to enforce their ruling because, as Paytner even observed, it impossibe to tell the difference between cloned and traditionally raised meat.

Why does the FDA care to make regulations when they deemed that the meat was safe to eat?

Down With the Sickness

Christopher Olsen and Mike Davis's articles, "The Triangle of Doom" and "the swine flu crisis lays bare the meat industry's monstrous power" respectively, reflect on the causes of disease among animals, such as H1N1. These diseases among animals, in turn, affect the health of the human beings who eat their meat. The issue is that the state in which the animals are kept before they are slaughtered provides a very disease friendly environment. Pigs and chickens are packed together in tigh spaces, so once one becomes ill, the rest become ill, creating a "continual cycle of viruses". So one may ask, why are the animals living in these conditions? lets take it easy here and give them so space. Down With the Sickness!!..right??...Well no. The meat industry can't "take it easy" because the demand for meat and animal products is driving the sytem of mass production in the system today, which in turn requires living environments that promote the growth of sickness. It is a terrible situation to say the least, and somehow we must find a way to solve this dilemma. Would it not make sense that the government makes regulations requiring meat industries to allow a certain amount of space per animal in their industrialized farms? this would only affect large corporations i think because small farmers dont seem to have the issue of the mass spread of disease.

It's All In Our Heads!

Diana Stuart's paper, "The illusion of control: industrialized agriculture, nature, and food safety," puts forth the idea that the industrialization of agriculture in the United States is a pivotal reason for food borne diseases today. The arguement makes sense as she goes on to say that the focus of these huge manufacturing industries is solely mass production for maximum output and maximum profit. As they syphine their focus into one aspect of the business, they lose control over the healthy aspect of their trade. Little care is taken to ensure that foods are clean and healthy, and thus there has been break outs of E. Coli in beef, peanut butter, and also leafy greens. This usually is caused by animal feces that have somehow contaminated the food when they are nearby in the packaging plants. Stuart states her belief that there is no possible way to retain control of food and continue at the level of production that industries are today. She also interestingly notes the "boomerang effect" which she describes as nature evading attempted manipulation but technology can lead to greater problems than it was originally designed to solve. This is releavant to our food system because no matter what is developed to protect our food, the disease mutates to become accustomed to its new environment. Especially in the food industries today which are so vulnerable to diseases.
Stuart ends by saying that the consumer has the mind set that theyhave control over their food because we think trust that the manufacturers are ensuring that the food that they sell is wholesome and healthy. Yet, the reality is the other way around, the industries are in control of the food, because the bond of trust between the consumer and the producer is not really there. The producers are looking to maximize profit.

so if what Staurt says is true, and there can be no control over food while maintaining this enormous production rate, then where do we go from here? how is this problem to be fixed so that both consumers and producers are happy? or is that possible and must there be a compromise of some sort?
Secondly, how seriously would the requirement of more regulations on food testing hinder small or local producers? and would it be worth it in the end?

Ethics on Eating Animals 101

Michael Pollan's seventeenth chaper in "Omnivore's Dilemma" titled, "The Ethics of Eating Animals," sheds some light on the morality of the soncumption of meat in a society like our own, where animals are slaughtered daily. Pollan makes the first point (made before in the book) that people would not eat meat if they had originally known where it came from and how it was obtained. That would explain why the way meat is packaged usually does not in any way resemble the animal from which it was taken, and thus those who buy it dont care to think about its origin. Pollan later quotes the famous Australian philosopher, Peter Singer, who relates animal exploitation to slavery and oppression of women. Singer and Pollan both believe that the main issue when it comes to animal's rights is their ability to feel suffering and pleasure. Since the animals that are slaughtered tend to spend the majority of their lives in suffering, he concluded that the raising and slaughtering of animals for meat was unethical, and thus he became a vegetarian. Yet, he later goes on to point out that the problem is not solved just by avoiding meat altogether, and that there is a necessary level of maintainence for certain species so as to avoid issues with overpopulation.
Personally i agree whole-heartedly with Pollan here. I think for example that it is absolutely terrible the way that baby calves are kept in small containers so that they cant even turn around, solely for the purpose of eating their tender meat when they are slaughtered. This makes me extremely sad. On the other hand, i think that the way the slaughterhouses handle their cattle is humane enough...the cattle are allowed to live and graze for a good amount of their life, and the way that they are killed is by no means a painful process. (Pollan even notes at the end of this chapter that after visiting a slaughterhouse he decided that animal killing is ok as long as it is humane). So my question is, where and when do we draw the line on what we consider humane treatment of animals?

Are you rich enough to eat your wealth?

In class the other day we were talking about Organic foods and an interesting discussion about what kinds of chemicals were put in foods came about. After this discussion i went to look up some more information about the topic because i was not fully aware of teh exact names or number of chemicals that were used in foods that could harm the human body.

You wont believe what i found during my search. Check it out.

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2009/01/16/why-the-rich-like-to-eat-gold/tab/article/

"The Pleasures of Eating" by Wendell Berry

What are the pleasures of eating? Is it good tasting food? food that fills you up? or maybe sitting down with family at dinner time? Although all of these may be potential answers to the question, Wendell Berry has a different point of view. In his article "The Pleasures of Eating", Berry addresses the issue of "eaters" in this country being consumers rather than "participants in agriculture." He spends the first half of his paper describing how this is an issue because the majority of people dont realize (or even care to realize) where the food that is on their plate came from, how it was made, or what is in it. Most people get their knowledge of food based on the advertisements of the food industry, "where the food where's as much make up as actors." Berry is telling us that this is not a legitamate, or even safe, way to gain information about our food. He then offers 7 things that we as "participants in agriculture" can do to make ourselves realize that eating is "inescapably an agricultural act that determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used."
1. Participate in food production as best you can (garden or farm the food that you can)
2. Prepare your own food (Revive in your mind the art of cooking and give yourself quality control when it comes to your food)
3. Learn the origins of the food you buy (buy food that is closest to you for the freshest meals)
4. Deal directly with a farmer or gardener when possible)
5. Learn about additives that the food industry may use in their products (for your own safety and well being)
6. Learn how to best farm and garden to be most efficient
and 7. Learn about the life histories of the food species.

"The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy and remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating." (perfectly sums up the article)

Omnivore's Dilemna Chapter 9: "Big Organic"

Michael Pollan's ninth chapter in the book focuses mainly on, as the title would suggest, the popularity of organic foods in our society and how they are becoming "big" in industry. Pollan makes the realization that the labels on most dairy and organic products cannot possibly have flawless truth to them. he essentially decides that what isnt necessarily true, is typed on the label in order to give him the inspiration to imagine where he wants his food to come from, which makes him more compelled to purchase that product. However, reading a label with fancy words is, as Pollan says, "an imperfect substitute for direct observation of how a food is produced."

It becomes impossible we realize for an industry such as whole foods to maintain the simple and agricultural foundation on which it was built while industrializing the industry which makes it possible to mass produce their organic products (or really any of their products for that matter). This issue is supplemented by the high demand for fresh, healthy, came-from-a-good-place food at low prices. There is no way that everyone is happy here, because it is impossible to accomplish all of these goals within one industry.

Reading this chapter made me wonder, if people were really adamant about feeling good about where their food was coming from then would they be willing to pay even more for it? because it seems as i said before that there must be some sort of compormise when it comes to this issue.

Omnivore's Dilemna Chapter 8: "All Flesh is Grass"

In chapter 8 of the book, Omnivore's Dilemna written by Michael Pollan, the author gets the oppurtunity to pay a visit to Polyface Farms. He describes the unique way that the farm is run, which exploits the cirlce of life, if you will; most notably refering to the relationship between the grass and the animals.

Polyface farms raises about half a dozen different animals to establish this natural circle of life, which makes living much more efficient and easier for the animals and human beings as well. Pollan specifically talks about certain aspects of this style of farming. Polyface will have graze on the grass all day which in turn supplies beef for the human population. When the cattle are done grazing for the day, the chickens are let out to to peck at the nicks and crannies in between the grasses, eliminating any grubs, mosses, weeds, fly larvae, parasites, and also spreading manure. The chickens' fecal matter in turn supplies the fields with large quantities of nitrogen and also produce eggs. After the end of the season, Polyface farms unique life cycle will have created quite a multitude of beef, pork, eggs, turkeys, rabbits, etc.

After reading this chapter in the book, I began to think that this multi-species animal farming is probably a good way to go about running an efficient farm. So i was wondering why exactly it is not as prevalent as it deserves to be in our agricultural system?

"Meat and Potatoes": Where the Beef has Been.

This article, by E. Schlosser, sketches in our minds an idea of what exactly occurs in the high plains where cattle are kept and raised and in the slaughterhouses where they are killed for their meat, packaged, and shipped away. he begins his article with a quite thorough overview of the history of the meat packing industry and its development since the early to mid 1900's. he establishes that the competition was high and the business was very cutthroat, which took its toll on union members and eventually consumers. He recalls interviews with several employees at a slaughterhouse, describing the low pay and poor conditions that they suffer everyday. He then twists the focus slightly and goes into intense detail on the actual slaughterhouses themselves. He gives accounts from his time spent visiting a slaughterhouse and mentions the heinous conditions that he encounters (pools of blood ankles deep, the dangerous machinery, and the disgusting nature of the killing of cattle). He finishes the article by addressing issues with the cleanliness of the meat that is being packaged.

After reading this article i was left with one question that really stood out to me... Schlosser is addressing all of these issues about meatpacking and slaughterhouses in general, but which one seems to be most important to him? or even the general public? It seems like he is trying to attack too much at once with this article (could you even say he has a little too much on his plate?) And if there is one that is more important, is it possible to go about finding a solution for that specific issue without addressing all of the issues mentioned in the article?