Outline of the Movie Food Inc - Essay Example

?Outline of the Movie Food Inc. First Paragraph: Fast Food Fast food changed the way we eat food in the last 50 years than in the last 10,000 years from how it was grown to being delivered at our tables. And it is not necessarily good. First, it changed how chicken, beef and hogs are grown. Where before it was naturally grown, it is now made to eat corn because corn is being sold below at production cost due to government subsidy. Fast foods demanded that foods are to be sourced cheaply and produced efficiently which changed the food industry system. The effect is devastating to health. One out of three children who were born from 2000 will contact early onset of diabetes and among the minorities, that will be one in two or 50 %. Outbreaks of E-coli are already common that takes toll to our health due to unnatural way of growing and processing this foods which are demanded by fast foods. Second Paragraph: Hidden Cost in Encouraging Locally Produced Food (perhaps you have to re-evaluate this, I saw the movie and this does not fit) The hidden cost in encouraging locally produced food is that is that it is more healthy because it is grown by farmers in the natural way and as such organic and healthy. When the food that you buy does not have to travel that long, no preservatives are added to it to store it longer. It will also discourage multinational corporations, especially the fast food corporations, to control and demand how the food industry should be produced. When their control is weaken in the food industry by encouraging locally produced food, the mechanization of the food industry will also be discouraged. Third Paraghraph: Hidden Cost in Encouraging Others to Shop Locally Shopping locally will create demand for the local produce of the farmers and will make their products more viable in the market. As the movie puts it, the answer should not be David fighting Goliath but local producers should be like Goliath. It should be prove itself to profitable as well to compete with the industrialized food corporations. Also, shopping locally encourages the production of organic farming, which is the natural way of growing food. Last Paragraph: We Have to Make Change Everytime we shop at the supermarket, we are making that vote on how the food industry could change. This has been done before in the tobacco industry where the manufacturers were irresponsible in producing and advertising them and it has been changed. The same can go for the food industry. We can make the change by buying foods that are not only good to us but is also good for the planet. When we demand a higher quality of food and the standards in producing it, the industry can change and will deliver. Ultimately, the consumer is still powerful if it knows how to shop responsibly. The change in the food industry precipitated when the consumers preferred the mechanized method of food production as they are cheap. But only if we realize its true cost, including its cost on health, environment and government, we could have the realization to change our buying preference for food and make the food industry change. This can be done by altering the way we buy food. When the mechanized food industry and fast foods are no longer profitable, the industry will eventually change to a healthier food that makes us more energetic, healthy and makes us feel good in eating them. The consumer is powerful only if we realize it. Hidden Cost of Fast Food Just when we thought that we were able to save money when we avail of fast foods as they are cheap, we are in fact very wrong. There are a myriad of hidden costs associated when we avail fast foods that when they are factored and included in accounting its true cost, it is in fact more costly. In fact, experts had this consensus that “consumption of fast food, which have high energy densities and glycemic loads, and expose customers to excessive portion sizes, may be greatly contributing to and escalating the rates of overweight and obesity in the USA (Rosenheck, 2008). Similarly, other studies has also concluded that “our findings suggest that increase in the supply of fast food restaurants have a significant effect on obesity” (Currie, 2010). The typical allure of fast food chains is that they are cheap and convenient. And for a few more dollars, you can upsize your order through bundling of its “value meals”. McDonalds Big Mac retail cost is estimated at around $3.50 and for few dollars more, you can have French fries and soda. Same with outer food chains like Wendy, Cinnabon etch. This is a doable marketing proposition of the fast food chain operators because “for food companies, the actual monetary costs of larger portions are small, because the cost of the food itself is small (on average about 20% of retail costs) relative to labor, packaging, transportation, marketing, and other costs (Nestle, 2002). But just when we though we got value from it, it is in fact a bad bargain as Larger portions not only provide more calories, but studies show that when people are served more food, they eat more food (Young & Nestle, 2002; Rolls et al, 2000; Wansink, 1996; Booth et al, 1981). As portion sizes have grown over the past two decades, the prevalence of overweight and obesity among U.S. adults and children also has risen. Obesity is one of the leading public health challenges of our time. Overweight and obesity affect the majority of American adults (61%) (NCCDPHP, 2002). The negative health consequences of the rising obesity rates already are evident. Rates of diabetes (most of which is type 2, which is largely due to obesity, poor diet, and physical inactivity) rose 50% between 1990 and 2000 (Mokdad et al, 2001). But these are the only more obvious unaccounted cost of fast foods as it can be easily inferred due to the high caloric and glycemic level of fast foods. There are however, other hidden costs as enumerated by Erika Freeman (2010) that prove fast foods are indeed costly that what they seem; 1. A Big Mac, at 540 calories, provides 30 percent of the average woman’s daily caloric needs and nearly 25 percent of the average man’s. It also contains 10 grams of saturated fat—that’s half the daily upper limit of saturated fat for most women and 40 percent for most men. Costs to treat diet-related diseases in the U.S. are estimated at up to $735 billion annually; excessive meat consumption figures largely in heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer. 2. Worldwide meat production is estimated to emit more greenhouse gases than do all forms of global transportation or industrial processes combined. Just producing the 550 million Big Macs sold each year in the U.S. creates 2.66 billion pounds of carbon dioxide. Offsetting these emissions could cost as much as $36.4 million. 3. Cattle are fattened on corn, the most highly subsidized crop in America. (From 1995 to 2006, federal corn subsidies totaled $56.2 billion.) Thanks to corn subsidies, the American beef industry saves, on average, $501 million a year. 4. Fast-food companies are keeping people employed, but the average full-time fast-food worker makes less than $17,000 a year—poverty-line wages that the government supplements at a cost of more than $1 billion a year in taxpayer-funded Medicaid, food stamps and direct payments. REFERENCES: Currie, Janet; Della Vigna, Stefano; Moretti, Enrico; Pathania, Vikram; The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity and Weight Gain; American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2010, v. 2, iss. 3 Erika Freeman, Fast Food: The Real Cost of a Hamburger  "Is Your Burger Really That Cheap?," March/April 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.eatingwell.com/food_news_origins/green_sustainable/fast_food_the_real_cost_of_a_hamburger?page=2 Mokdad AH, Bowman B, Ford E, Vinicor F, Marks J, Koplan J. “The Continuing Epidemics of Obesity and Diabetes in the United States.” Journal of the American Medical Association 2001, vol. 286, no. 10, pp. 1195-1200. National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “Obesity and Overweight—A Public Health Epidemic.” Nestle M. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002. Rosenheck R, Obesity Reviews: The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity and Weight Gain. An Official Journal Of The International Association For The Study Of Obesity [Obes Rev], ISSN: 1467-789X, 2008 Nov; Vol. 9 (6), pp. 535-47; PMID: 18346099 Young LR, Nestle M. “The Contribution of Expanding Portion Sizes to the U.S. Obesity Epidemic.” American Journal of Public Health 2002, vol. 92, pp. 246-249. Read More