Who is in Control? The FDA? Industrial Food Companies? Consumers?
Consumers may think that they are fully aware of all the different ingredients and additives that go into their food products and that the Food and Drug Administration keeps a close eye on new products hitting the market, however, this may not necessarily be true. While it can generally be said that this agency works tirelessly to ensure that human health is not compromised, there are some loopholes in which companies can put their products on the market without rigorous FDA approval. In 1958 Congress passed the food additive law which stated that all new substances that were to be consumed by humans had to go through an intense approval process before their products could hit supermarket shelves nationwide (Warner, 2013, p. 106). Along with that piece of legislation, Congress also established the GRAS list- Generally Recognized as Safe List- which was a small loophole that essentially said that products that most people could recognize as being harmless to humans did not need FDA approval. In fact, this program was voluntary in it of itself meaning companies could run their own tests using their own scientists to determine if their food substances were safe to ingest (Warner, 2013, p. 107). As an ordinary consumer myself, I find it very troubling that I am putting my health in the hands of large corporations whose main concern is making a profit. This past year a new product called “The Impossible Burger” hit the market and many restaurants and fast food chains have already bought into this “burger.” The Impossible Burger is made from a genetically modified protein called soy leghemoglobin (SLH) or “heme” which is derived from the root nodules in soybean plants. This protein is then combined with a yeast strain and fermented before it is then isolated and added to the Impossible Burger. The burger has a meat-like taste and is colored red to have it appear as if it is meat. The producer of this product, Impossible Foods, claims that it could help to combat the extreme amounts of environmental degradation that the meat industry currently causes. The company tried to seek GRAS status from the FDA back in 2014 but the FDA warned them that their Impossible Burger would not meet this standard. The company argued that their SLH was the same product that has already been on the market; however, there was no data to back this up. Part of the problem with the GRAS list is that many manufacturers claim that because their new products are so similar to substances already on the market, then they can also be deemed as being safe. However, Impossible Foods noted that there were 46 unexpected proteins, some of which were not even properly identified, as being present in their burger. Despite this finding, they conducted no safety tests to ensure that these proteins would not have an adverse effect on human health. They withdrew their GRAS application in November of 2015 and then began selling the burger in 2016. Impossible Foods released a statement that said that a panel of food safety and allergy experts concluded that their product could be generally recognized as being safe. Many people felt that the release of this product was completely unethical, and that Impossible Foods should pull their burger from the market and conduct rigorous safety tests to ensure no person can become harmed from consuming this product. On top of this seemingly moral issue, this brings up the issue of the GRAS program in general. There is a lack of governmental oversight and regulation for products that are generally recognized as safe. The FDA warned Impossible Foods that they had concerns about the product yet this company was still able to release its product quite easily into the market without any problems. Companies have a vast amount of control over the products that go into the market which ultimately has the potential to put unknowing consumers at risk. The FDA does not oversee genetically engineered products produced from microorganisms such as this one which again, begs the question about what food products are going into our bodies and what are the implications of these unknown substances. If the FDA cannot even stop mysterious products from hitting the market, how are consumers supposed to protect themselves from something they are not even made aware about?
Migrant Who? Natural disasters produce devastating effects that often leave people and the environment in a frenzy. There never seems to be enough resources and places that were once thriving can barely function to serve its people basic necessities of life. When Hurricane Irma swept through Florida it had huge impacts that affected many parts of the economy, particularly the citrus fruit industry. Florida has an $8 billion agricultural industry and is the biggest producer of citrus fruits in the United States. The hurricane resulted in billions of dollars in profit losses as the fruit was whipped across the landscape into whatever shabby holes it could finally reside in. Despite the massive negative impacts this natural disaster caused, one thing many people fail to recognize is what happens to the migrant workers that are picking these fruits for a living? There are an estimated 300,000 migrant workers living within the state- some are there legally while others are not. When the storm was approaching, they had limited options about what they were going to do. Some tried to flea the state with what little cash they had left while others stuck around and waited out the storm in their subpar homes, most of which were destroyed. Citrus trees must be hand-picked by humans. There is no machine that can do this work to replace the need for human intervention. Because of this, there is a high price tag tied to these citrus trees- the livelihoods of thousands of workers that rely on this professor to make a living and send money back to their families wherever that might be. These workers do not have many options for employment so when they are not picking fruit they are not getting paid. And Tracie McMillan, in her book titled The American Way of Eating figures out that while she was working out in the grape fields the hourly wage she was making was around $2.17. If someone is already barely scrapping to get by, imagine having all of that taken away. A week without pay could mean you missing out on your house payment or not being able to buy groceries for yourself or your family. These people are not protected or given the same rights as middle class employees due to the work they are involved in. Food stamps and other forms of emergency help would not apply to these workers due to their status. It is typically the most vulnerable populations that tend to be forgotten. I find it interesting how Georgina Gustin states that these people wish they could be invisible due to the harsh political climate we are in. However, I would argue that most people do not even take a second to think about what happens to migrant workers that lose their only source of income and have little to no resources to protect themselves. In natural disaster situations they are often treated as invisible sectors of the population. Because fruit trees take a long time to cultivate, sometimes around 3 years according to McMillan, these people may be out of luck for some period of time. These large companies will not have a need to hire as many workers due to the fact that almost all of their product has been wiped away. While these companies have surplus of money to rely on and fall back on, migrant workers have barely anything. They cannot come forward and complain many times because if they do, they may reveal themselves as being illegal or get fired, due to their easily replaceable nature. Migrant workers live a tough life but they do so because they value hard work and believe that this is one of the best options they have for making a living. Just like the average person working in Walmart or on Wall Street, they seek the same desire for earning a decent income so that they can support themselves and their families it is just that they do not have the same protections that these other two people may have.
The Politics of Food Julia Bowes in her article titled “Make School Lunches Great Again?” discusses how politics are unfairly putting the needs of personal agendas above the health and safety of school children. Food is a lot more than just food- it is a social, economic, and political force that transcends boundaries and affects people of all ages, social statuses and more. We all need food to live yet getting healthy and delicious meals to school children seems to be a challenge for a variety of complex and dynamic challenges. One of the biggest issues comes down to the partisan divide that is so evident in the United States and other parts of the world. Democrats, in general, tend to fair on the side of a welfare state and governmental intervention while republicans typically support local values solving local problems and deregulation in general. The school lunch program has produced heated debates that bring up valid points on both ends. According to the article “Revenge of the Lunch Lady” by Jane Black she discusses the history of the controversial program. It stems back to World War II and has since gone through many changes that either increased government spending on school lunches and decreases spending and put stricter guidelines and regulations on them. In the 80s, the Reagan Administration cut the budget by 25% which caused public schools to rely on cheaper and more processed foods to serve their food needs. Michelle Obama in 2010 headed a movement to make nutritious school lunches a national priority. Government spending increases significantly and one of the most effective pieces of legislation to come from that was the Community Eligibility Program (CEP). This program allows schools in areas with high poverty rates to provide free meals to all students. It is based on geographic districts and the demographics of those areas. It has been so successful because the administration no longer had to know who qualified for which tier of getting their lunch paid for, an increase in better cook wear, and decreased the stigma of receiving a free lunch. Typically it is the democrats that have supported this program and brag of its many successes in providing a universal basic human right to every student no matter what their home situation is like. The problem with many of these programs is that people have to fit certain standards in order to get the benefits of the program. Republicans on the other hand have strongly contested it is not the taxpayer’s job to provide lunch services to children because that is what parents are for. Many people of this political party have stated that it should be local schools solving local food insecurity problems. However, this begs the question of how does one solve a complex issue such as food insecurity with very little resources to do so? Also, the idea that parents should be the ones that are providing healthy school lunches for their kids is quite unfair because many parents living in poverty have to make extremely difficult choices in how they provide for their kids. Many have to decide between nutritionally below average processed foods where you can get a lot for a little versus more whole foods that always seem to cost too much of their budget. An article by Wei-ting Chen titled “From ‘Junk Food’ to ‘Treats’” notes that low income households spend up to 30% of their budget on groceries while non-poor households spend 11.4% of their income on food. When you have less income in general, it makes sense that you will spend it more on certain areas, especially food. With Trump’s agenda of deregulation, the status of the school lunch program is up in the air. No one seems to know how this will pan out and what the implications may be. However, despite the massive political divide within the country, one really needs to step back and look at this issue for what it is. Some kids are in jeopardy of serious health problems due to their poor diet. The reasoning behind their poor diets can stem from a variety of issues; it is important to stress that individual[JG1] decision making is not the only reason one child may be healthy over another. Every person has the right to food that does more than just provide them calories. The school lunch program at the very least, does offer many positive outcomes for disadvantaged families. Whether the current legislation and guiding principles on it are fair or not is another question. People should not be punished for the circumstances they are placed in. Schools are one of the first places children learn important values about healthy eating and living life in general. It is important that they are being nurtured to succeed in life no matter what.
The McDonaldization of Food Production Food production within the United States has changed immensely over the years. The switch from small, family owned farms to large, industrial farms are a metaphor for the changing needs within America and around the world. People value products that are quick to assemble and relatively cheap to purchase. Agriculture used to be a process that required extensive planning and a large allocation of resources to growing a small amount of crops. Now, agriculture has become an extension of the process known as “McDonladization” which is defined by George Ritzer as “the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world.” Fast food is a phenomenon that almost everyone around the world either has access to or at least knows a great deal about it. The best part about fast food is that it is just as it sounds- something that is quick and convenient and requires very little effort. Essentially you get an entire meal in a matter of 5 minutes. The four main components that have allowed fast food and other industries similar to it, such as agriculture, to succeed are efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. In an article titled “Super Size: The Dizzying Grandeur of 21st Century Agriculture” written by George Steinmetz, he goes through and takes a closer look at just how “efficient” our food system has become. Readers are offered an up close and personal account of what exactly happens on the farms and in the factories. Efficiency is not always the pretty picture that is portrayed on websites and packaging. Modern agriculture is a product of the values that McDonaldization has had on our society. It is especially efficient because we are able to produce much more food that can reach consumers a lot faster and at cheaper prices due to the large-scale nature of the process. It not only satisfies hunger, but it also satisfies our need to produce other food items such as food for cattle or food that will be altered and placed in processed food products. Calculability, as Ritzer puts it, “emphasizes the quantitative aspects of products sold and services offered.” This basically means that our modern agriculture places quantity and quality on the same playing fields. We see these large farm fields that are producing thousands of pounds of crops yet when we go to the supermarket most items cost very little to us, at least in comparison to when agriculture was performed on small family farms. Because we are able to produce so much, consumers believe it is of better quality than how agriculture was done in the past. Predictability is another aspect of McDonaldization which is the assurance that products will look and feel the same no matter where one is. Because agriculture relies heavily on pesticides and particular growing practices and even the use of GMOs, consumers can be assured that when they arrive at their local grocery store, all the produce will look and taste the same. There are no surprises in the market because most stores will not allow less than average produce items on their shelves. The last component of McDonaldization is control. Control is the idea that workers must follow a very particular policy when it comes to producing a certain product. Farm workers and factory workers usually have very limited tasks that they must perform throughout an entire day. The process of getting food from the farm to the factory is a very calculated process with each person playing a particular role. This allows for maximum efficiency. In photo by Steinmetz, we see a worker spraying antibiotics on a turkey pen. This is likely one of very few tasks that this worker must complete in order to assure that the farm operation runs smoothly. The most appealing idea about modern agriculture is its convenience factor. As Tim Wu puts it in his article “The Tyranny of Convenience”, convenience has the ability to make other options seem ridiculous. It makes a lot more sense to go through a field with a tractor collecting crops than having humans spend hours harvest each plant individually. Pesticides make growing crops a lot easier because it requires less thinking and they can be applied to a wide variety of plants. Organic agriculture seems great until people realize that is does require a lot more planning and thinking outside the box to execute efficiently on a large scale. Convenience does not have to be an evil force within the world; however, we do need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of what convenience is doing to our society. Modern agriculture can have many devastating impacts on health and the environment. This causes one to ask the question: Is convenient agriculture really worth the trouble if it impacts land use and attributes greatly to global warming and the impacts it has on human health? Perhaps there is a way to intertwine convenience and a level of protection for both the environment and people.
Diet Patterns and the Environmental Consequences The way in which many people living in developed countries eat is not a sustainable way to preserve the integrity of our environment. Much of this has to do with an increased amount of meat and dairy consumption, along with the resource intensive system of our industrial food processing. In an article titled “The U.S. diet is a climate disaster. Here are four easy fixes.” Written by Caitlin Dewey, she explains four simple ways that the average person around the world can play their part in reducing global climate emissions. The first easy fix is something people have been hearing for some time now and it is to eat less red meat and dairy. One study in Annick de Witt’s article “People Still Don’t Get the Link between Meat Consumption and Climate Change” found that a global transition toward diets that consume low amounts of meat could reduce the costs of climate change mitigation by as much as 50% by 2050. This amount is substantial! As time goes on, climate change is going to continue to affect weather patterns, population densities, agriculture, etc. and the costs to mitigate these problems will only skyrocket as the solutions become more and more farfetched. The issue with this solution, which Witt points out, is that often times, behaviors inform knowledge as much as knowledge informs behaviors meaning that if someone’s actions go against the current facts, they will interpret the facts as being incomplete and simply wrong and continue on doing what it is that they want to do. However, if you tell someone to change their behavior because it will produce some time of good that is already in alignment with their current values, they will make the behavioral change will little to no resistance. Meat and dairy production contribute significantly to global emissions because cows and other red meat producing animals emit methane into the air as a result of their digestive processes, which is much more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to degrading the ozone. People do not need to completely switch to vegetarian or vegan diets because even a reduction by 18% can have drastic effects in mitigating climate change. Even switching to eating more poultry and fish can help to offset the many negative consequences associated with animal agriculture. The next easy fix people can start to implement in their daily lives is to buy more seasonal and local produce to reduce food miles, which again impact global warming. On the farm, vegetables and fruits have a small carbon footprint, but where this footprint grows is through transport and processing. In an article by The Week Staff titled “The Limits of Locavorism” contradicts this statement statement saying that transportation only contributes less than 11% to the overall carbon cost of an average foot item. While this may be true, 11% still would have impacts that may begin to reach people all around the world. Buying local is not going to save the world and there are indeed much greater things consumers can be doing; however, climate change is a multifaceted problem that will take a many small fixes in order to achieve a greater good. The next small fix people can do is to shop at stores and restaurants that watch their emissions. This has more to do with the idea that people enjoy supporting companies that are socially conscious and care more about how they can serve society as a whole rather than just making a quick profit. This information is not always easily accessible but when companies such as Meijer or local restaurants are upfront about what they are doing to reduce their carbon footprint, it makes people more willing to support these businesses. Also, by supporting these businesses, it may incline other companies to adopt similar practices. This could produce a domino effect where companies begin doing their best to offset their emissions and therefore improving the global environment and economy as a whole. Finally, people should try to cut their food budget if they can. The article stresses that foods that cost more topically required more resources. This may be true, but people should also be taking health factors into this decision. By no means should anyone stop buying carrots to buy cookies. However, by reducing food spending, one may actually be able to reduce food waste, which also has an enormous environmental impact. What all these simple fixes have in common is that they rely on the consumer to change their habits and behaviors. If people truly want to live in a more sustainable world, it is going to start at the individual level. Despite the daunting problem of climate change, everyone has the opportunity to play their part in offsetting environmental degradation. No act is too small!
Providing Cities with Nutritious Foods Detroit lost a substantial amount of its population which left behind thousands of vacant buildings left to decay in the city without proper maintenance and management. This seemed to have left a sense of hopelessness within the city because everywhere you looked, it was a reminder of a once thriving past. However, this is not the case anymore. City planners have found a way to turn this image around through the implementation of a zoning ordinance that allowed urban farming to cascade within city limits. In an article written by Breana Noble titled “Indoor Farms Give Vacant Detroit Buildings New Life” she speaks about a few of the 78,000 abandoned buildings that are now being used to house indoor agricultural farms that provide fresh, local produce to surrounding restaurants and farmers markets. Vertical farming is a system that allows produce to grow without using soil or even natural sunlight. Instead, plants are grown in nutrient rich water and housed under fluorescent lights and are stacked on top of one another. This system acts as an indoor greenhouse that is capable of growing produce all year round. Tammy La Gorce talks about another farm in her article titled “How Does This Garden Grow? To the Ceiling” which can grow their produce in 12 to 16 days rather than the typical 30 to 45 days that it would take for the produce to grow in a conventional field. This company also used 95% less water than traditional farms and gets 75 times the crops per square foot of growing space compared to crops harvested in traditional fields. One Detroit farm, Artesian Farms, uses three-tenths of a gallon of water to produce a head of lettuce in comparison to the 7 gallons of water used in California to produce one head of lettuce. Water conservation is a huge issue that is arising in our global economy. If there is a way to grow more food using less water, doesn’t it seem obvious that this is the way to go? The food that is grown at Artesian Farms reaches the market within one to two days of being harvested which means that it retains a lot more of its flavors and nutrients. It also reduces the amount of the miles that the food must travel in order to reach its final destination. The produce in regular supermarkets are typically at least already 10 days old. Perhaps locally grown can encourage more people to eat healthy, leafy greens because the taste will be better. Another Detroit farm, Eden Urban Farms, which is located on the border of Corktown and Mexicantown, plans to expand its business so that it will hire 70 new employees. This could be great for providing local people with jobs they can be excited about. It is no secret that conventional agriculture contributes greatly to climate change. Without prompt action, we could be looking at irreversible changes to earth’s surface that may make living here more difficult than it was for our ancestors. One of the biggest draws towards vertical farming is the fact that it does not rely on soil to grow crops. Moises Velasquez-Manoff writes in his article “Can Dirt Save the Earth?” that erosion and degradation of soil caused by plowing, intense grazing and clear-cutting forests has played a significant role in the atmospheric accumulation of heat trapping gasses. Vertical farming bypasses all these negative aspects of conventional farming and instead provides a source of healthy and local nutritious produce that not only serves individual health and wellness, but also contributes to health and wellness of the local economy as a whole. While urban farming may have its shortcomings in some aspects, the potential that it has to offset some issues of climate change while still providing a large amount of food to people is enough to convince many people that this is the way to go, especially those that have been disadvantaged for some time now.