Food Inc. by James Brewer - Essay Example

? Food Inc. This paper narrates James Brewer commentary about the documentary made by Robert Kenner which was released in 2009 (theaters) and 2010 (DVD). The film provides an indictment of how big business changed the way we eat which is not necessarily healthy. It included a brief summary of the work of Michael Pollan which was also included in the commentary on how our supermarket had the “illusion of diversity” where over 90% of its food contains corn and soybeans. This paper also included the perspective of Kenner as narrated by Brewer on what can we do to at least mitigate this pervasive unhealthy eating habit. The article written by James Brewer is an interesting review and commentary of the documentary “Food Inc.: What the food industry doesn’t want you to see” that it prompted me to watch the documentary itself since it is accessible in Youtube. In watching the documentary, the commentaries of Brewer about the arguments and claim posed by Robert Kenner in his documentary became animated which made me appreciate and understand where he is coming from. Indeed the shift in America’s eating habit and the way it is produced by big business is more disturbing that we think. The food that is now presented to us by big business is not produced the way that they are presented to us and borrowing from Kenner’s words “US does not jibe with the pastoral imagery often depicted on the packaging, but rather involves giant firms operating huge factories with brutal conditions” (Brewer, 2010). These brutal conditions meant that food are no longer grown the way they were but became industrialize that it can be likened to a factory. It was detailed in the Food Inc. documentary that chickens never saw daylight in their lifetime where cows are fed with corn and antibiotics standing all day in a cake of manure. The advent of this unhealthy food can be traced back to the idea of selling foods that are cheap, convenient and tasty to respond to the customer’s preference of a delicious and cheap food albeit unhealthy. This materialized when McDonald brothers had a very successful drive-in restaurant and decided to cut cost and simplify. They fired all their carshops and got rid of the things on the menu and mechanized the entire food preparation. This basically brought the factory in the restaurant kitchen and revolutionized how to run a restaurant. This proved to be a huge success that it inadvertently altered how and what we eat. The industry in raising beef was also changed. Compared to the 1970s where the top five beef packers controlled only some 25 percent of the market, the market now is monopolized because the top five beef packers controlled more than 80 percent of the market which could already qualify as a monopoly that contributed further to the deterioration of the food that we eat. This idea of cheapness and convenience brought by the fast food industry however is not necessarily healthy. It basically skewed our food preference towards the mechanized meat that produces unhealthy calorie that it is now cheaper to buy a burger than a carrot. The effect is devastating to our health. Statistics showed that one out of three children who were born from 2000 in America will contract diabetes and among the minorities, that will be one in two or 50 % (Brewer, 2010). And this new method of feeding corn to the cows (the feedlot operator can buy corn at fraction of what it costs to grow) resulted in E. coli that is acid resistant. This is the more harmful E. coli as its mutation evolves to a strain called "E. coli 0157:h7". And it's a product of the diet that is being fed to the cattle on feedlots (Kenner,, 2010). A diet of corn which cows were not made to eat by natural evolution but by deliberate government policy of heavily subsidizing corn which is central to U.S. agriculture. This E. coli 0157:h7 is so lethal that a child named Kevin, went from being perfectly healthy to being dead because E. coli caused hemorrhage after eating just three hamburgers (Kenner 2010 cited in Brewer 2010). It is also interesting to note that Brewer included in his commentary the famous organic food advocate and environmentalist Michael Pollan who argued consistent to Kenner’s perspective that in every supermarket, there is an “illusion of diversity” because in reality, only a “few companies and few crops are involved” (Brewer, 2010). Pollan’s narration that 90% of the supermarket contains either corn or soybean or both prompted me to do a cursory reading about his famous book “The Omnivore’s dilemma” where he illustrated the various sources of our food that can be had either from industrialized farms which utilizes GMO, to large scale organic farming to hunting (2006). In effect, both Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s dilemma: a natural history of four meals illustrated that the source of our food is becoming a factory and is no longer grown the way it used to be. Worst, industrial farm factory and the use of GMOs are even packaged to be a better food source than organic farming. This kind of food production or factorization of food instead of growing food has changed the eating pattern of America that it could now be construed as eating disorder. This is evidenced by the growing number of obesity that has already assumed the proportion of an epidemic whose main caused is our penchant for junk foods. Instead of eating the traditional healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables and cereals, we are now more predisposed to eating fast foods which are littered with oil, trans fat and glucose. Strangely, we have grown aversion towards healthy foods such as vegetables and increased our appetites towards hamburgers and pizzas. As a result, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes are on the rise and the people that are having diabetes are getting younger and younger and this can be traced back to our eating disorder precipitated by factorization or the change how our foods are produced instead of grown. Imagine the rate that kids are expected to develop diabetes when they grow up. Sadly, this kind of set up is enforced with coercion by big companies such as Monsanto through its battery of lawyers and political clout. They do this by legal coercion to force farmers to do business with them by preventing farmers to save their best seed for replanting which had been the practice since the early days of farming. Corporations such as Monsanto prosecute farmers under the guise of “patent infringement” where farmers was “forced to settle on onerous terms” (Brewer, 2010) because they cannot put up with a big corporation like Monsanto. The solution posed by Kenner is not a political one where we are going to depend on policy makers to make the change. It is because the regulation of food industry was weakened by policy makers who are under the influence of corporations. For example, government officials such as Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, Mickey Kantor and Robert Shapiro had either been under the employ of Monsanto or have received massive donations from Monsanto. What was instead proposed which I find more empowering, is for us to make our vote on what kind of food we want to eat by purchasing food that are healthy and churning the unhealthy foods that big corporations are selling. This is a more powerful tool than relying on politicians who are under the influence and employ of businesses like Monsanto. And to make this shift successful, we consumers should realize that good food costs a little more because they are grown naturally. The mindset of wanting to eat cheap is the very notion that made businesses thrive and change the way we eat. References Brewer, James (2010). Food, Inc.: What the food industry doesn’t want you to see Kenner, Robert, Elise Pearlstein (Producer). Kenner, Robert (Director). Food Inc.[Motion picture]. United States: River Load Entertainment. 2008.  Pollan, Michael. The omnivore's dilemma: a natural history of four meals. New York: Penguin Press, 2006. Print. Read More