Food, Inc. – Nature as throughput
I and several like minded girlfriends got together last night to view the movie, Food, Inc. The FDA is in the midst of passing laws that involve trying to keep our food safe. Even if you live in a vacuum, the news of tainted food is getting to you. It’s been in peanut butter, poultry, spinach, tomatoes, beef to name a few. If you are a soap and/or cosmetics maker, you are aware of cosmetics being lumped into this same bucket. It is only recently that the subjects have been separated a bit.
Food, Inc. was not as graphic as I was expecting yet the pictures helped drive home the point. It was packed with many facts, statistics and real life stories of people directly touched by the evolution of our food chain. The pictures shown made it very clear that our food chain has become as industrial as the automotive industry. The processing machinery and conveyors are quite similar. I’m figuring that the 2nd and 3rd tiers of suppliers for this industry could actually overlap the automotive industry. This problem will not have an easy fix solution. It will in fact, impact us all.
One of many examples, chickens need to be roughly the same size and wieght to go along the conveyors. Nature as throughput. My background is industrial engineering. I can honestly say that the pictures I saw in this movie were hard to look at from that perspective. I was not excited to see these industrial processes as I was in engineering school. What did stay with me was the thought that there has GOT to be a better way. Machines that make machines or tools aren’t nearly as close to home as these pictures of the food industry. We have slapped nature and put her on a conveyor. Many statistics were shared in the movie regarding recent food industry changes. Here is one that stuck in my head. In the 1970s, there were thousands of slaughterhouses producing the majority of beef sold. Today, we have only 13. Why? We need that much throughput to justify the cost of these machines?
Fast food is part of the reason why. It seems that even if you don’t eat fast food, meat demand is still dictated by this “customer”. You still get the same meat when you shop for it at the grocery store. Do we really need meat at every meal, every day to be healthy? Vegetarians already know the answer. I’m not going to be a vegetarian. Will I back way off on my meat consumption? You BET! It’s my way of telling industry that fast food is not acceptable. It’s my vote. I talk here on my blog until I’m blue in the face. Money talks. Speak up by using your Big Green Purse to affect change. These same companies are spending a LOT of money to analyze each item that you purchase at the grocery store. If you don’t buy meat? They want to know why. Walmart is in the midst of scrambling towards more organic products for this very reason. Yes, it’s more expensive. If we buy it in masses, that all changes. They will find a way to get what customers want.
Cows that are by nature cud chewing herbivores are now consuming corn almost across the board. The big meat companies are now 80% of the market. There were several aerial shots of cows on brown spots of land flank to flank. What spooled in my head was The Smith’s song, Meat as Murder. If you’ve heard this song, the lyrics are short but the cow sounds are long. Even fish on fish farms are given corn to eat… :-O These are only words, you should go view the film. (Corn and soybeans I’ll talk up in another post along with the concept of seed saving.)
The other image that was forfront in my mind as I watched this movie was the image of my grandmother’s first cousin calling her cows on her farm in south Georgia. “Come on, baby….come on, baby” she would sing to them. They’d follow her anywhere. We all marveled as us city folk watched her corral the cows with love and kindness. That was good meat. That was honest food that we need to get back to. (That’s an artistic rendition of her in the photo above.)
The Food Inc. movie in all the hopelessness of the facts, did shine a light on an example of the way our country has changed things in the past. The tobacco industry at one time had a strong hold. Not so much anymore. This is the carrot dangled to provide a little hope that we CAN change things. First, we have to understand and accept that there is a problem. Then we can move forward and come up with creative solutions. The first step is to watch the movie and make up your own mind. Then take action. I’ll be talking a bit about what actions I come up with. My first reaction is to expand my own garden, learn how to can, continue to research and share. I hope you’ll start with going to watch the movie.
Happy Washing
~Regina