Industrial Food is Not My Friend

I’m on the board of directors of an organization called Provender Alliance. The purpose of the organization is to educate and inspire our members about healthy food and products. We serve all aspects of the Natural Food Industry: retailers, manufacturers, distributors, and to some extent farmers and consumers. We put on a yearly conference of workshops and speakers.
This year our keynote speaker is Raj Patel. His name sounded familiar when it first came up as a possibility. A quick internet check revealed that he was quite good looking and had a lovely English accent (check out his website and you'll see what I mean). Aside from those two very important facts, I learned he had recently written two books: Stuffed and Starved; The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and The Value of Nothing; How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy.
When we got word that he was going to be our keynote speaker, I immediately got on the Sandpoint Library website to see if his books were available. I put a hold on both of them and, of course, they both came in at the same time and I had only two weeks to read them. I’ve been trying to read both of them simultaneously, which, it turns out, isn’t too hard. The concepts in both books overlap nicely and they both deal with a subject that is near and dear to my heart: the myth of cheap food, why it exists, the harm it does, and what we can do about it.
Cheap food (or as Patel calls it “cheat food”) is neither cheap nor food and Patel posits that multinational corporations are at the heart of the problem.
Here’s why: If you look at a picture of the distribution chain that gets food from a farm to our plates it’s shaped like an hourglass. At the wide top are lots farm operators and workers. There are a few less farm owners and suppliers, and, at the waist of the hourglass, quite a few less raw product wholesalers and distributors. The glass widens with manufacturers and finished product wholesalers. The base of the glass is the grocery stores and consumers.
The narrow waist is where the problem lies. That is where power is concentrated and where decisions about how much the farmers get paid and how much we pay for food are made. In the US there are 4 major meatpackers which account for 80% of all the meat sold. The top four flour millers control 60% of that market and recent consolidations of the grocery business means that the top 4 companies control almost 50% of that market. You need a lot of capitol investment in infrastructure to be a grain miller or meatpacker and transport your goods across the globe. It’s hard for the little guy to compete let alone get a foot in the door.
These companies are in the business to make money. It’s part of what it means to be a corporation. They are legally liable to their stockholders to make a profit. If feeding cattle poultry litter and packing them in to the smallest lots possible can eek out a few more pennies of profit then they must do it or be sued by their stockholders. They might want to treat their animals better. They might want to pay farmers what it cost to grow grain and pay slaughterhouse workers a decent wage. They may even want to sell you a burger that has no possibility of e-coli contamination because it wasn’t mixed up with the meat from thousands of different animals. But all these things cost more so they don’t do them.
Industrial food corporations also like to externalize their costs. They don’t pay for the environmental damage they do. They get subsides from us, the tax-payer, in the form of social programs like Medicaid and food stamps for their underpaid workers. Much of the crops used in industrial food production are also subsidized by our tax dollars. In one study, if all these external costs were accounted for in the price of a Big Mac, it would cost over $200.
As government money for education falls, corporations have been there to fund university research, making sure that research turns out in favor of the existing system. And they use a hefty amount of their profit to lobby the government to make sure laws are not changes to adversely affect them. In 5 years, food system industries spent over $400 million lobbying the government.
Concentrating the power of our food system in just a few corporations limits our choice as consumers. Choosing between Coke and Pepsi isn’t really a choice. With giant corporations buying up organic companies and using their political muscle to water down the organic standards, we don’t even have much of a choice between non-organic and organic processed foods (although it is still better for the planet not to have all the pesticides and herbicides that are used in non-organic food). If we have only a few dollars to spend on food, our choice can’t be between fresh fruit or candy. We can get hundreds of more calories per dollar if we go with the candy but only because the industry lobbies the government to keep subsides high on the ingredients that go into candy and not to support fresh foods. Someone else can pay for the negative effects on our health from eating a diet of cheap food.
Processed foods bear little resemblance to real food but make a hefty profit for the corporations that produce them. They require little effort on our part to consume which leaves us plenty of time to sit in front of the tv and be bombarded with advertisements for cheap processed food.
Cheap food has been around in some form or another for centuries. It has been used by the rich to pacify the poor and keep them from revolting. It has been grown and processed with slave labor. It has impoverished communities in the global south. But until recently, cheap food was at least food and we spent time preparing it.
Our habit and culture of wanting cheap food fast is a relatively new one and one that might not take much to change. There are alternatives to industrial food. We can stop paying into a system that is broken, that appears cheap but that is costing us dearly.
Paying attention and caring where your food comes from is a habit we will all benefit from. When you really start to think about what’s in your food and what it costs society, the alternatives to the industrial food system seem worth the little extra up front cost and effort.
And the alternatives are out there right now in our community. Locally grown food is a great way to cut out the corporate middleman. Growing some of your own food is a satisfying way to feed yourself and your family. Cooking at home with low cost bulk ingredients is healthier and more economical. They say changing a habit takes a month, why not start now?

Vicki Reich lives and rants in Sagle, ID. She is the Market Manager for sixriversmarket.org, where you can get local food, unsullied by multinational corporations, year round.


Local Potatoes au Gratin
Serves 4
It’s hard to find too much local food this time of year except for potatoes. Try this recipe with all the different varieties of potatoes that are still available. You can even mix and match purple and white potatoes in this dish for a colorful change of pace.

3 lbs. Local Potatoes (medium to large)
¼ c. Local Raw Milk Cheddar Cheese (from Cindy’s Curds and Whey), grated
2 Local farm eggs
1 c. Milk
Salt and Pepper to taste
Butter (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F.
Slice potatoes in half and place in a sauce pan (you can peel them if you like, but they are more nutritious if you don’t). Cover with water and bring to a boil. Cook until just beginning to soften. Drain and run under cold water.
When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, slice into ¼” slices. Mix together the eggs, milk, salt and pepper.
Grease a gratin pan, or shallow baking dish, with butter or cooking spray. Sprinkle half the cheese over the bottom of the pan. Layer the potatoes over the cheese. Pour the milk and egg mixture over the potatoes and cover with the rest of the cheese. Dot with some butter if you like.
Bake for 45 minutes or until the liquid is set and the top is nicely browned.