In light of my incoming diet and of recent events in the news about E. Coli and salmonella, I think it's a good time to review some of the things we learned and, for those who haven't seen it yet, can benefit from the movie "Food Inc."
1. In the 1970's the top 5 beef companies owned 25 percent of the market, the top four today own around 80 percent.
That's a big portion of the pie! Imagine almost all of your meat that you buy comes from the same four companies.
2. We all know who Monsanto is by now, but did you know prior to renaming itself to an agribusiness company, it was a chemical company?
3. In 1998, the USDA implemented microbial testing for salmonella and E. coli, that would test each plant and if the plant repeatedly failed one of these tests, it would be shut down.
However, after being taken to court immediately by the poultry and meat associations, the USDA no longer has that power.
4. During the 1970's there were literally thousands of slaughterhouses in America, today there are 13.
5. The average person in America eats over 200 lbs of meat per year.
6. In 1972, the FDA conducted 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006 they conducted around 9,000.
7. Now meat is not only being poorly regulated and checked up on with inspections of the food and safety kind, that would be bad enough, but it turns out the people who are running the inspections are the people likely to work the least for the benefit of American people.
Example 1:
During the Bush administration, the head of the FDA was none other than the former Vice President of the National Food Processors Association
And 2:
The Chief of staff at the USDA, James F. Fitzgerald was the former chief lobbyist for the beef industry in Washington.
8. The way livestock are treated is horrible.
From the way chicks are processed live in factories, to the way chickens aren't allowed to even see a day of sunlight before they're slaughtered.
9. 70% percent of hamburger meat in america is sprayed with ammonia, this is to kill diseases.
10. According to the professionals they ask in the documentary, a better way to do this would be to take livestock off of corn and feed them grass for five days instead of the constant feeding of corn that they receive.
There are many ways to combat this, in your own choices of food to your choice in who is allowed which position to take up. Certainly thats a political issue and so it would then follow that your political candidate would dictate the needs of the people. I urge people in America to make the right choices whether it be of food or political candidate. My vote would go toward Bernie Sanders, I actually believe he would put things straight or a lot straighter in America.
