Food Inc.: the Relationship between the Government and the Food Industry

Food, Inc. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner. The film examines farming in the United States. It explores where the food we purchase really comes from, and what it means for the health of future generations. By exposing the comfortable relationships between business and government, Kenner gradually shines light on the dark underbelly of the American food industry. The movie is divided into three segments: first explores the industrial production of meat, second explores the industrial production of grain and last one is about the economic and legal power. The documentary is presented in a way where it allows its viewers to connect the dots. It gives you the whole picture by starting from the huge, aggressively lobbied government subsidies for corn. The same corn are then utilized to alter farm intro factories by keeping the cattles on a strictly corn diet. The cattles are then slaughtered and ground into hamburger meat filler which is then rinsed with ammonia. Food, Inc. shows how the use of high-fructose corn syrup in almost every supermarket produce is part of the same system that masses chickens in tightly concentrated coops, where they're bred for their oversize, flavorless white meat.

As I did more research on this topic, I was surprised by how much I did not know. Corn is everywhere. Ranchers feed corn to their cows and chickens, and food companies sweeten their foodstuffs with it. It even effects what we pay at the pump. Why is that? When did corn take over our life? Part of the reason is a subsidy system that has helped glut the marketplace with corn. Almost every supermarket product has high fructose corn syrup, so even if we don’t want to, we are consuming corn on a daily basis. If we forgo those supermarket products and only eat chicken or beef, guess what those chickens are eating: corn. In the news, we are always talking about war, foreign policies, economic crisis, but why is it that we never talk about this gigantic issue. After watching the movie, I feel like my food is slowly poisoning me. So I did what I always do; I dived into research. What I found astounded me. Between 1995 and 2006, the government paid out $56 billion in corn subsidies, according to an Environmental Working Group. My initial thought was that the government is helping out the farmers; sadly that was not the case. The real beneficiaries aren’t farmers, but rather the companies they sell their corn to: from grain trader/sweetener makers like Archer Daniels Midland to meat producers like Tyson. These federal subsidies are helping the mega corporation companies, not the farmers. According to a recent study by Tufts researchers, the subsidies saved chicken producers $11.3 billion, pork processors $8.5 billion, and beef packers $4.5 billion in the 1997-2005 time frame. I was outraged by this information. This lobbying relationship between the government and these mega corporations are hurting the general public.

            Then I moved onto learning more about this strictly corn diet that the ranchers keep their cattle under. Before the Second World War, all American beef was "grass-finished," meaning that cattle ate pasture grass for the duration of their lives. Today, the vast majority of cattle spend anywhere from 60-120 days in feedlots being fattened with grain before being slaughtered. So my question was why? Why can’t our cattles eat grass like they used to. The main reason is corn fed cattle gain weight much more quickly than cattle in a strictly grass fed environment. It is easier and cost effective because the current system of ranching is designed around the accelerated growth of cattle in feedlots. It might be cost effective, but it is not healthier. Meat from a grass-fed steer has about one-half to one-third as much fat as a comparable cut from a grain-fed animal. Lower in calories, grass-fed beef is also higher in vitamin E and omega-3 fatty acids, which are thought to help reduce the risk of cancer, lower the likelihood of high blood pressure, and make people less susceptible to depression. Research shows 64.1% adult Americans are overweight or obese. Even though there is no concrete proof, I would say one of the reasons behind that is this corn feed cattles we are eating every day. Eating a diet of meat from corn-fed animals hasn’t been linked to any specific health effects in humans. But it has resulted in widespread environmental degradation, including drained water supplies, degraded soils, and reliance on fossil fuels for fertilizer, pesticides and farm machinery fuel. There is a “dead zone” at the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico due to the nitrogen from fertilizers. The nitrogen from fertilizers applied to cornfields eventually finds its way to the water ways, like the mouth of the Mississippi river. The dead zones are basically large patches of the ocean depleted of oxygen and virtually all life. So our current way of life is harming the cattles, us and the environment.

            Large corporate farms are always looking for a way to add efficiencies. Instead of tossing out scraps, The meat companies’ scrape them together into a pink mass sell them to fast food restaurants to make into hamburgers. These scraps are also sold as pet food. Yes, when we go to McDonalds, we are consuming the parts of a cow that would otherwise end up in our pet’s bowl. So how are the plants sanitizing the meat filler? Aside from irradiation, the plants are injecting the meat filler with ammonia on the assumption it will kill of pathogens like E.coli and Salmonella. The USDA believes that ammonia treated products are safe for human consumption then why do we hear more and more about E.coli breakout now than we did in the past. The saddest part of the documentary was when they told us the story of the little boy who died because of E.coli poisoning. School children are eating these foods every day. These meat fillers end up in our school cafeteria and students eat them without questioning. USDA doesn't seem to be concerned with the fact that people are eating ammonia in their hamburgers. The government gave these companies permission to call ammonia a “processing agent”. So they are injecting our beef product with a chemical found in glass cleaners and they get to simply call it a "processing agent" with the full permission and approval of the USDA. The government is infringing the rights of general public by supporting these industries. . The USDA and FDA are supposed to protect the public, so why is it that both government regulatory agencies have been complicit in allowing corporations to put profit ahead of consumer health, the American farmer, worker safety, and even the environment? As chicken breasts get bigger and tomatoes are genetically engineered not to go bad, 73,000 Americans fall ill from powerful new strains of E. coli every year, obesity levels are skyrocketing, and adult diabetes has reached epidemic proportions. Perhaps if the general public knew how corporations use exploited laws and subsidies to create powerful monopolies, the outrage would be enough to make us think more carefully about the food we put into our bodies.