Thinking Twice Before I Put It In My Mouth

For all you dirty pervs out there who thought this was going to be a naughty post, it’s not. It’s about food. More specifically, it’s about a documentary I saw last weekend called Food, Inc.

The movie addresses issues ranging from animal cloning to big business farming to the poor living conditions some livestock endures. All of those issues are rattling to the psyche, but the stuff I found most upsetting is how the food we eat is making America sick.

Because the government subsidizes corn, there are “corn-derived” products in almost every processed food we eat. And it’s fed to animals. Even the cows who are supposed to eat grass, and fish who are supposed to eat…I don’t know what…bugs? Well cows and chickens and pigs and fish are eating corn now. And you know what corn breaks down to in our bodies? Sugar.

A different film I watched recently, called King Corn, asserted that a serving of corn-fed beef has 9 grams of fat in it, whereas a serving of grass-fed beef has only 1.5. Hello growing obesity rate in this country!

With the ratio of people with Type II Diabetes now at 1 in 3 (one in two for certain minority groups) can we really afford to have government subsidizing and “efficient feed spending” contributing to our decline in overall health?

And if people are saving money by buying corn-fed burgers, (corn oil) fried potatoes, and (high fructose corn syrup) soda off the dollar menu at McDonald’s, aren’t they potentially paying that right back in medication costs when they fall victim to high cholesterol and heart disease?

The other wildly upsetting thing about this whole factory-tized farming issue is that cramped living conditions and mass "production” of meats contribute to the spread of bacteria like E.coli. If you have hundreds of cows standing in a small corral in their own poo, don’t you think some of that poo could make it’s way into the slaughterhouse? Uh yeah, check the papers every year for outbreak headlines.

My point in sharing all this is that if we know what’s going on and we don’t like it, we can change it. If all of us are grossed out and switch to organic meat and veggies, the market will follow. Look at the auto industry—everyone’s coming out with hybrids because people started demanding them.

I’m not going to stop eating salami and I’m not going to boycott salad dressing with corn syrup in it. But I can tell you I’m checking a heck of a lot more labels, eating a lot more organic products, and avoiding all the packaged crap that could make me the next person dependent on insulin.

If these issues interest you, give the Food, Inc. website a looksie. There’s all sorts of stuff there to whet your appetite for change.