Food, Inc.

[k burke]

Morning all,

Sorry if this has already been hashed out, but I could not find anything posted previously. I know it's a bit old, but I just watched this movie last night. I'm wondering if anyone else he has seen it and what your thoughts were on it. I'd be especially interested to hear from those of you who are farmers or know farmers who can validate some of the facts portrayed by the movie.

For me, it motivates me to really try to only eat meat I hunted or was raised naturally. It also brings up a point that many I think many hunters are very aware of - many people's general apparent disconnect from where meat comes from. Also, the favoritism given to corporations that just roll over the average person - especially farmers - just makes me mad.

I'm not totally sold on all the facts portrayed as 100% correct, but my gut feeling is that they gave a fairly accurate view at the high level.

[Doc]

I'm not familiar with the program you are talking about. Can you explain a bit if what it was about?

[k burke]

It's a documentary, available on Netflix if you have it. Basically, it covers the changes to the American food system over the last 50 years or so. Something of a modern day "The Jungle" from Sinclair with a broader view on the food industry. Instead of focusing on the meat processing industry they shed light on the negative health effects from the U.S. reliance on corn and industrial farming practices, as well as, the social implications of the system more geared towards large corporations and their impact on small farmers.

[wooffer]

From what I have read the family farms are in decline every year as corporate farms take over. Sadly the whole farming industry and how the product (cattle) are treated is effected as well.

[SteveNY]

From what I have read the family farms are in decline every year as corporate farms take over. Sadly the whole farming industry and how the product (cattle) are treated is effected as well.

Every industry in the country is getting to be like this, and in my opinion is a big reason why we are in big economic trouble.

Think about it, pharmacies, hardware stores, even pizza shops, they are all being taking over by big business.

Think about Walmart. If you do regular shopping there, take a minute and realize what your doing.

[nyantler]

You have to remember too that its the people that allow all of this to happen by not patronizing small local businesses... they would rather save a few cents... if you research some of the small townships in the US that still have small family owned Mom & Pop stores that the community is loyal too.. you'll find that these communities thrive and the people in general are much happier and more caring of their neighbor.

The urban, fast paced, "me me me" mindset is eating away at the sense of community and traditional values... and we do little to stop it. People use to rely on hard work, their neighbors and the community for survival... now they rely on the government and big business

Edited March 26, 2012 by nyantler

[wooffer]

I buy a bit from the internet, but lately will support local businesses when I can. Suprisingly the local stores are as competetive as the big stores. If they are not I am still glad to support a local business when I can.

[Doc]

Yeah, I don't have Netflix, so I guess I won't be seeing it. But I guess I am really wondering how much of our food is actually U.S. grown anymore. I have heard that a lot of the produce and even some of the meat comes from South America and other foriegn ports. If that is true, then I would suspect that there may be quite a bit to worry about in terms of health practices in the growing, harvest and transport of what we eat.

As far as the practices of agri-business in the U.S., I'm afraid that even that is pretty well out of our hands. I couldn't even tell you where some of the stuff that we buy in small local markets comes from. Even some of the stuff in the local farmers market turns out to be mass-marketed product. Last year we went to a small farmer's market in town, and there was all kinds of exotic and foriegn fruits and vegetables that aren't even grown within our borders. There was all kinds of stuff supposedly being sold by local farmers that weren't even close to being locally in season. So who knows where any of that stuff really comes from. And these were little business guys (supposedly local farmers) that were selling it all. I'm afraid that dealing with Mom & Pop stores is not a very reliable answer either.

Of course, who can say that food grown locally that we consumed years ago was being grown and handled in the most healthy ways either .... lol. About the only way that you can have absolute confidence in the quality of your food is to grow it yourself.

[nyantler]

I agree that food items are a bit different than other consumer products when it comes to buying locally from a small business... Definitely safer to grow your own... but if I have a choice between food grown elsewhere and food grown locally... I'll take my chances on the local vegetable stand...

[Doc]

Yeah, if you want a real warm and fuzzy feeling about your food, just think that more and more our food is being grown by people who may very well have a powerful dislike of Americans. Isn't that a pleasant thought?

[k burke]

The urban, fast paced, "me me me" mindset is eating away at the sense of community and traditional values... and we do little to stop it. People use to rely on hard work, their neighbors and the community for survival... now they rely on the government and big business

I don't know that I would wholly agree with you on that and this documentary makes the case that it is not so much a conscious choice but frequently a decision forced by government policies advocated by food industry lobbying. The individual is playing with a deck stacked by industry / government.

First, if you watch this documentary they will allege that the government policies advocated by big food industries is literally destroying many old values. For example, they cite that Monsanto corporation was able to patent some plant genes - a first in the history of the world that was supported by a Supreme Court decision. That court decision was authored by Clarence Thomas a former Monsanto lawyer. It gets worse. As we all know plant pollen disperses on the wind so they had one farmer who never used Monsanto seeds, but since all his farming neighbors did that gene got into his crop. Monsanto is able to sue him for patent infringement and - according to the documentary - food corporation lobbying has made it the farmers obligation to prove that he is innocent. They had the case as still pending, but obviously he will be bankrupted by the legal fees even if he wins.

Second, Monsanto has a team of investigators whose job it is to find farmers that are planting seeds with this patented gene that were not purchased from them. So, they find a guy that has a seed cleaning machine from the 1800's that has traditionally processed seed from a farmer's crops to be saved and planted the following year. Not allowed, so they sue him for "inducing" farmers to violate their patent. He's bankrupted by the lawsuit and get access to his list of farmer clients by subpeona of his bank records showing all his check payments.

Finally, I live in an urban area and my many of my neighbors are as least as community oriented as the neighbors I grew up with in the suburbs.

[k burke]

Of course, who can say that food grown locally that we consumed years ago was being grown and handled in the most healthy ways either .... lol. About the only way that you can have absolute confidence in the quality of your food is to grow it yourself.

I've always felt it would be better than industrial conditions and this documentary has the same position.

One of the most horrible things you will see is that due to the feeding of corn/grain to cattle who are evolved to eat grass, they are not able to properly digest it. So to figure out ways that they can improve digestion, they show a cow that has a hole in it's side (kept open by a rubber looking ring) so that a vet/scientist can look into and reach his hand into the cows first stomach and analyze how the digestion is going.

The way the had to treat just that one cow was disgusting, but on top of that the conditions that the vast majority of the animals are kept in that just invite E.coli and other pathogens into the processing. Does anyone remember back in the day ever hearing of vegetables contaminated with E.coli like we have now?

[Doc]

I've always felt it would be better than industrial conditions and this documentary has the same position.

One of the most horrible things you will see is that due to the feeding of corn/grain to cattle who are evolved to eat grass, they are not able to properly digest it. So to figure out ways that they can improve digestion, they show a cow that has a hole in it's side (kept open by a rubber looking ring) so that a vet/scientist can look into and reach his hand into the cows first stomach and analyze how the digestion is going.

The way the had to treat just that one cow was disgusting, but on top of that the conditions that the vast majority of the animals are kept in that just invite E.coli and other pathogens into the processing. Does anyone remember back in the day ever hearing of vegetables contaminated with E.coli like we have now?

I guess it all depends on your perspective, but back in the 50's when I was a kid, cows were already being fed a fairly substantial diet of grain and actually were doing quite well on it. We had a trough for sheep that was used for feeding them bags of minerals. That's not exactly an evolutionary part of their diet, but it was done for their health and was quite effective in keeping a healthy bunch of sheep.

So it all depends on how far back you want to go. If you go far enough back, you will eventually find a time where grazing farm animals were fed only hay in the winter and grass in the summer. Were products from those animals any healthier? I haven't seen anything that says so. The fact is that our life expectancy continues to extend as the modern marvels of food production advance. Some of those years added onto the average life expectancy, I suspect is due to our improved diet in spite of our fears and suspicions. So all the theorizing that farmers are forcing us to eat contaminated and poisoned food doesn't really get support from life expectancy data over the years. There may come a time when that all changes, but the evidence that I see today suggests that we have never ate better or more healthy in all of history.

In terms of farm animal living conditions, I again have to refer back to my observations years ago. Filthy stinking pig pens and crap-crusted dairy cows was not really all that rare. It never was any picnic being a farm animal.

Now as far as the cow with the hole in its side, I must tell you that back in 1958, our class went on one of the very, very rare field-trips to Cornell University. And guess what was the one thing that still sticks in my mind today ..... it is that cow with a hole in it's side and the light dangling inside so we could each walk up and see the mounds of green crap inside (no, none of us stuck our hand inside .... lol). Nothing new about that, and it really had nothing to do with any evil big food producer. By the way, the cow really didn't seem to mind. She just stood there munching her hay and having a great time.

[k burke]

I guess it's a matter of degree. Of course you will never find a clean farm animal - even a lone cow on acres of green grass will have manure on it - I've seen that first hand plenty. I think the point of this film was that things have strayed too far from the natural order of things. I would agree with that. I'm sure there were/are some benefits to modern techniques including increases in life expectancy but you can only twist nature so far before things begin to break. However, while life expectancy may be advancing at the same time as the food programs have come in place doesn't necessarily mean they are a cause for the increase. From my understanding the main increase in average life expectancy is from the survival rate of children under 5 - which is probably caused more by medical improvements. Take that out of the equation and that average would come down quite a bit.

While NY is not the midwest in terms of big crop farms, I'd still be interested to know of any farmers perspectives particularly with regards to Monsanto. That company has quite a bad reputation - even among my MBA classmates.

[Doc]

I think the point of this film was that things have strayed too far from the natural order of things. I would agree with that.

I think the problem with that philosophy is in choosing the metric for determining when things have strayed "too far" from the natural order of things. Ever since man first began domesticating animals, they have been messing around with the natural order of things. So what exactly did they pose as the proper way to measure how far from the natural order of things we have strayed, and how far is too far. Is change necessarily bad because it involves processes, materials and procedures that have never been done before. There very well may be some lines that should not be crossed ..... maybe. But did they indicate where those lines exist? When we make the conscious decision not to stray from the natural order of things, we strike a death blow to progress. Sometimes I think that may not be all that bad a thing, but I'm sure most people would disagree with that.

It's one thing to criticize an industry, but unless they offered proof that harmful effects are coming from that industry along with some credible metric to guage the severity, I tend to be a little skeptical. After all, it wasn't that many years ago that the TV program 60 Minutes aired a hatchet job on the use of the chemical Alar in the apple industry and labeled it as causing cancer in consumers. As it turned out, the report was completely fabricated. So without having actually seen the program you are referring to, all I can say is to approach the info with a certain demand for proof and credibility.

[nyantler]

I think that is right Doc.. you can't believe everything reported... as for knowing when a line has been crossed... most intelligent human beings know when they are stepping into "iffy" territory... so is true with big business... the people in charge know when they are pushing the envelope... I agree that we must be careful not to hinder progress, but there is a difference between progress and flat out pushing the envelope for greed... I think the greed is what we're talking about here... in todays wallstreet driven business world... the family doesn't own the business anymore... shareholders do.. and they really don't care about what product is being produced... they care only about the bottom line and are willing to do anything they can get away with to make a profit.. knowing that as soon as profits begin to wain.. they can sell away their interest without any attachment.. that is much harder to do for family owned businesses.

[virgil]

The book and the movie highlight the shortcuts that are taken in the food industry in order to get food on the table cheaply. The animals are abused, they're pumped full of hormones and antibiotics in order to maximize production and minimize cost. I think that the take home message from the book and movie are just how little regulation there is in the food industry- we allow food producers to use methods and sell products that would not be acceptable in most other advanced countries.

[nyantler]

Not really true virgil... we have the highest standards of almost every country in the world when it comes to food... yet it still is not good enough... I will agree though that are treatment of animals in some cases falls way below many other countries... hard to believe sometimes.

[Doc]

I guess I just haven't researched the subject well enough. I haven't heard of a whole lot of cases of abusive practices when it comes to treating farm animals in an abusive fashion ..... except in sound bites from the animal rights people. Sure, there are periodic news reports of animal abuse, but that is always some inept, uncaring, incapable, animal owner, not an agri-business entity.

Stuck in pens ... being fed diets that improve flavor and meat quality or milk or egg production ... periodic injections ... crowded conditions ... shortened lives based on prime market readiness... it all sounds pretty gruesome doesn't it, especially when we assign human qualities and emotions to the animals living those kinds of lives. But then I'm not sure, given an animals mentality and actual awareness, that all that stuff truly does constitute abusive treatment. Let's face it, farm animals raised for our consumption probably are never going to live an ideal humanistic existance by our human-based standards. I guess as long as we believe in eating meat and keeping animals for food products and other consumptive uses someone will always be able to throw stones at the kind of lives we force on these critters and it will always be followed with, "how would you like to live that way?".

Are we more abusive toward animals than other countries are? I don't know, I would have to see some proof of that. I kind of doubt it. Are we at an all-time high in terms of treating our animals poorly? I really doubt that too. Is the U.S. treating their animals more cruelly than other countries? I'd have to see specific proof of that before I believed it. Did this program offer any proof of their claims, examples, etc. that show this to be the case? I know that we can quite easily get all hyped up on campaigns against big business of all sorts. I've been known to occasionally get off on that tangent myself. I think that we generally automatically start off with a bias against business interests, and the suspicions and animosity grow as the size of the corporation grows. Business has been labled the enemy, and as such they are assumed to be evil. Maybe they are, but let's understand that they are the very core of our way of live and existance, so if they are evil, what does that make us? We also have some built in need as Americans to engage in self-flagellation .... for what purpose, I'm not really sure. But the instant assumption is always that if there is something evil in this world, we have to be the worst example of it.

Again I have to admit that I do not have access to this TV program, and I am kind of flying blind here, but I must admit that if there is one entity that I am more suspicious of than big business, it's the media. So if I appear to be a bit skeptical about the claims as being relayed here, it is only because I know how tempted the media types get to ensure at all costs that the conclusions always come out to agree with the assumptions going in regardless of how the facts develop along the way. As they say, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.....lol.

[virgil]

I agree that animal cruelty is an issue. But, my comments about poor regulation were more about what we as a country allow to be put into our food, as compared to other countries. We probably do have some of the highest sanitary standards for food. But, we have poor standards as far as the use of hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, etc.

[Doc]

I agree that animal cruelty is an issue. But, my comments about poor regulation were more about what we as a country allow to be put into our food, as compared to other countries. We probably do have some of the highest sanitary standards for food. But, we have poor standards as far as the use of hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, etc.

Personally, I have absolutely no direct knowledge of how our standards in hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and such rank in terms of what is truly harmful, what is imagined as harmful, and what all that is used that we are not even aware of. The Food and Drug Administration is probably equipped to evaluate that, but I definitely am not. So I cannot even begin to comment on that. I will say that it would be nice if I could look at a label and understand 1/10th of what is written on there .... lol. Let's hope that someone is paying attention to that stuff. I guess I haven't heard of mass deaths occurring in the U.S. because of all this stuff, but maybe we are just lucky so far.

[sampotter]

I have not seen Food, Inc., but as a dairy farmer I need to make a few points regarding some earlier comments:

1) The rules, regulations, and restrictions for food quality that American farmers have to follow and adhere to are some of the most strict and heavily enforced in the world. Countries in Central and South America are still able to use pesticides that were long ago banned in the U.S. because of their dangerous nature. When we import fresh produce it is ispected in the U.S., but there are no U.S. regulations on how it was grown. Think about that next time you pop a grape in your mouth grown in Chile.

2) Animals destined for the food chain that are raised in the U.S. are not constantly fed or injected with antibiotics. Antibiotics are used to treat sick animals and have FDA required withdrawal times after treatment ends. They must stay out of the food chain while the anibiotics leave their system. Tissue samples are taken after slaughter by an inspector to ensure that no animals that have antibiotic residues are consumed by humans.

3) Any hormones given to food animals in the U.S. were rigorously tested by the FDA and obviously were not found to be harmful for human consumption. Do you really think bovine somatotropin (growth hormone) is going to have an affect on humans? When you buy milk that says it is "Free of Bovine Growth Hormone" it is actually false advertising- cows produce a heck of a lot more growth hormone naturally than is ever adminstered to them artificially. I have heard the claims that children are reaching puberty earlier than ever. It is a fact that mammals reach puberty based on their body weight. It is a fact that American children have an obesity problem. Fat kids go through puberty at an earlier age! Keep the soda, potato chips, and candy away and give them a glass of milk.

4) The small mom and pop family farms most of you like to think of have been decreasing in numbers, but don't forget that there was also a time when every family had a cow, some chickens, pigs, and a sheep. Farming is constantly progressing- its called EVOLUTION. The larger farms that PETA likes to call FACTORY farms are still family owned and operated. Now instead of one family, a large farm supports several families and provides an opportunity for us to raise our kids in an environment that instills a work ethic in them that too much of America has forgotten. We take pride in the way we raise our animals, till our soil, and feed this country.

Every imrpovement made in American agriculture is driven by our nation's need for cheap food! Unfortunately the farmers' inputs keep going up (think fuel, feed fertilizer), while consumers are not willing to pay more for the final product. Therefore farmers have to get bigger, faster, more efficient. The days when a 50 cow dairy herd could support a family of six are over. There is a great quote at the end of this article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/03/06/148044744/even-dairy-farming-has-a-1-percent

"Bob, her grandfather, told me a number of hysterical, unprintable farm jokes during my visit, but he turned pensive when it came to his farm's future. When times were bleak, he said, it used to be possible to work your way out of the problem. "You just stay in the cowshed longer, work harder," he says. Now, he realizes, "if you don't use your head, your hands aren't gonna help you." And even then, you might not make it."- Bob Fulper, 85 year-old retired dairy famer.

[erussell]

And lets not forget to mention alot of the family farms went out of business because the kids didnt want anything to do with it. They found it an easier life to go to college and sit in an office all day instead of getting up at 3am and not getting into bed till 10pm. I worked on several dairy farms from when I was 13 till I went in the army. All are gone now because the kids didnt want to deal with the hassel. The owners got old and had to cut back yr after yr untill the kids put them in homes and sold the land to developers.

[Doc]

I guess I'm done with this thread. Sampotter just said everything I was saying except he put some real facts behind what he was saying ....... Good reply!!!