After watching Food, Inc., my eyes have been spread wide open on the food industry and everything they’re doing and controlling. It seems that now, the food companies control almost everything having to do to with what we eat. They control what we see, buy, eat, and even what farmers MAKE. Major seed companies are almost dictators when it comes to farming, having total control over what farmers plant as far as soybeans. Terrible things are happening in the food industry, from Kevin Kowalcyk, a 4-year-old healthy boy, dying of E-coli poisoning, to chickens being genetically altered so much that they can’t even stand up, let alone see daylight. Food should be healthy, and we should have a choice with what food we want. Nowadays it seems that the only truly healthy food is organic food, and that is what is the worst. It has changed the way I see food, and brand names, and food companies. I’ll never forget what I’ve seen in this video, and it makes me angry with the food companies for being food dictators. They Should Not Be Controlling How We Eat!
The first few chapters of the movie were about chickens and cows. They said that chickens now have been genetically altered to have bigger breasts for more meat, and to resist diseases. However, this proves very bad for the quality of life for the chickens. Most of the chickens have problems standing because of how fast their body grows and develops compared to how much meat they have and how much they weigh.
They also showed that some of the chickens just die, and they don’t know why. The chickens have also been pumped full of antibiotics, which is very bad because the farmers who deal with the chickens have become allergic to the antibiotics just by being around the chickens. We are putting this stuff in our bodies! The very sad thing about chicken farmers is that they have no control over their lives anymore once they are in the chicken business. Big companies like Tyson™ and Smithfield™ have them under contract, and the farmers are in so much debt that they have no vote in what they do or say. The terrible control that these companies have over so much food, and so many farmers, should be illegal, but it’s not.Another thing that has spun out of control is the corn industry. Almost every product in a grocery store nowadays is made from, or of, corn. There are so many corn products, and the human population is ingesting large amounts of corn, when we are not naturally made to digest corn easily. The government is subsidizing corn with the farmers, paying them to grow corn crops. However, there is already so much corn being made, that corn is now being over-produced and over-grown. We are backing ourselves into a corner with the food industry, because if a corn virus or an insect that attacks corn comes, then our food industry could come crashing down. In addition, our animal industries are being overloaded with corn. The entire beef industry runs off corn-fed cows. The bad thing about cows being fed corn is that their digestive system is not created to digest the corn correctly. Cows that eat corn acquire E-coli in their stomachs. Just one cow that has been corn-fed can eat grass for just five days, and it will lose over 80% of the E-coli in its system. E-coli is very bad as it is a harmful bacterium that has caused many deaths since it’s discovery. The meat industry sees that grass-fed cows taste better, are healthier, and cause fewer problems for the human population that eats beef, but they refuse to switch cows to eating grass because corn is a lot cheaper and easier. Why has our food industry changed to care more about how much money they make rather than the health of the general population? It’s almost too terrible to even say anything about.
Not only has our food industry been compromised, but the farming industry has been, too. Major corporations like Monsanto™ have patented the genetically engineered soybean seeds, and they now control 90% of the soybean seed industry. They have made it where farmers cannot plant seed anymore unless they buy it from Monsanto™.
The patent infringement laws make it to where farmers cannot clean and re-plant their seed anymore, because the actually seed is property of Monsanto™, and it strictly enforced. Monsanto™ has sued many people for patent infringement, and has put many farmers out of business with their monopoly of the seed industry. To me, it seems like they are the seed dictators of America. It’s ridiculous that our industry has come to this. I feel that there needs to be more laws AGAINST the food and seed corporations, to prevent them from attacking farmers and other people who rise up against them, because it is obvious that the industry is becoming communist with how they control everything that happens. Many people who worked for Monsanto™, Tyson™, and Smithfield™ now work for the FDA, USDA, or even the Supreme Court justices. The laws that we try to pass against the food corporations will be shot down as long as there are biased, maybe even bribed, workers in the organizations that control the corporations. So many people have been sued, when the reasons they were fighting against the corporations were person, whether they lost a 4-year-old son, or whether the companies put them out of business. It shouldn’t be that the person with the most money wins the court battle. That’s exactly what our Constitution is against.
It is clear that many things need to be done to change the food industry and what is going on with what we eat, how we eat, and even what is made for us to eat. I’m not saying everyone who reads this blogpost (a pebble on the beach of the Internet) should fight the corporations and start eating everything organic. This post is meant to strike into the mind of whoever reads it and to make them think about what is going on, and hopefully, the reader will make a smarter decision next time they go to Wal-Mart™ to buy their favorite foods.
