Food

Tonight, Erik & I watched Food Inc. I learned a lot. Here are a few things -

1. There are a few huge companies that control all of our food - like 6 slaughter houses/Meat companies that own everything. Like Walmart for the food industry.

2. Cows are fed corn & not supposed to eat corn. They are overfed & unhealthy. They produce so much bacteria that when your beef is processed, it has bacteria in it. A company was created to CLEAN BEEF FILLER WITH AMMONIA to kill the bacteria. Think about it next time you buy ground beef - it has filler with ammonia in it.

3. McDonalds is the biggest buyer of meat & corn in this country. Do you think they care about fair treatment of animals or just about their meat case order for those big macs? It's the latter.

4. Corn is in EVERYTHING. Corn is the largest crop in the US and it is used as filler in absolutely everything. It's used because it is CHEAP.

5. Chickens from big companies like Tyson are grown in horrible conditions - they are stuffed in barns and never see the light of day. They are overfed & can hardly walk. In just 6 weeks, they go from chick to fully grown when this is normally supposed to take 3 months.

6. Workers in huge slaughter houses are underpaid, overworked, and work in dangerous conditions. Get this - Huge companies(Smithfield Meats) hire immigrant workers so that our meat costs stay low. However, they are in bed with government immigrant raiders who come pick up workers & deport them. Smithfield continues to do this to have low wage workers and could care less about their welfare.

7. You can get sued for talking smack on the food industry. I.e Oprah for saying she wasn't eating beef once Mad Cow came out. It took 6 yrs of a lawsuit for her to win.

8. A 5 year old kid died from eating at Jack In the Box. He had a hamburger filled with ecoli. Took 12 days after his death for the USDA to announce that the restaurant was serving ecoli burgers.

Bottom line - we can't escape capitalism and demand for food. However, we can make choices - look up local meat/produce producers in your area. Find a local farm to buy from. Go to the farmers market. These are ways you can control what you are eating. If you go to stop & shop and safeway, you are at the mercy of those big corporations. I go to safeway all of the time but this movie is making me stop & really think even more about where my food comes from.