Cheap Food Isn’t Really Cheap

We live in a time when food is less expensive than it has probably ever been, yet the cost of that food is higher than ever. From HFCS to factory-farmed meat, the food we eat is shortening our life-spans and making us sick. Check out some of these articles for more information about where your food really comes from.

So much of our food ends up being a rearrangement of corn. – Food, Inc.

Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food – “Horror stories about the food industry have long been with us — ever since 1906, when Upton Sinclair’s landmark novel The Jungle told some ugly truths about how America produces its meat. In the century that followed, things got much better, and in some ways much worse. The U.S. agricultural industry can now produce unlimited quantities of meat and grains at remarkably cheap prices. But it does so at a high cost to the environment, animals and humans. Those hidden prices are the creeping erosion of our fertile farmland, cages for egg-laying chickens so packed that the birds can’t even raise their wings and the scary rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria among farm animals … A food system — from seed to 7‑Eleven — that generates cheap, filling food at the literal expense of healthier produce is also a principal cause of America’s obesity epidemic. At a time when the nation is close to a civil war over health-care reform, obesity adds $147 billion a year to our doctor bills.”

What the World Eats (part 1) – From Time Magazine, this visual representation of a week’s worth of food for families around the world will impact you as you see the discrepancy in the amount of produce consumed elsewhere vs. the amount we eat in the US (yes, I know it doesn’t represent everyone, but I daresay it isn’t far from the truth).

Food, Inc. – How much do we know about the food we buy at our local supermarkets and serve to our families? Though our food appears the same—a tomato still looks like a tomato—it has been radically transformed. In Food, Inc., producer-director Robert Kenner and investigative authors Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) lift the veil on the U.S. food industry – an industry that has often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihoods of American farmers, the safety of workers and our own environment. They reveal how a handful of corporations control our nation’s food supply. Though the companies try to maintain the myth that our food still comes from farms with red barns and white picket fences, our food is actually raised on massive “factory farms” and processed in mega industrial plants. The animals grow fatter faster and are designed to fit the machines that slaughter them. Tomatoes are bred to be shipped without bruising and to stay edible for months. The system is highly productive, and Americans are spending less on food than ever before. But at what cost?

Imagine what it would be if, as a national policy, we said we would be only successful if we had fewer people going to the hospital next year than last year? The idea then would be to have such nutritionally dense, unadulterated food that people who ate it actually felt better, had more energy and weren’t sick as much … now, see, that’s a noble goal.
– Joel Salatin, owner/farmer of Polyface Farms in Virginia, who lets his livestock graze on grass, the way nature intended.

Power Steer by Michael Pollan – Michael decided that if he was going to eat beef, he had a responsibility to know where it came from. Follow his journey from calf to steak in this article that was originally published in the NYT.

My interest in the steer was not strictly financial, however, or even gustatory, though I plan to retrieve some steaks from the Kansas packing plant where No. 534, as he is known, has an appointment with the stunner in June. No, my primary interest in this animal was educational. I wanted to find out how a modern, industrial steak is produced in America these days, from insemination to slaughter.

The Organic Octopus – Think supporting organic processed foods is a blow to traditional food companies? Think again.

Where to find local sustainable food

• EatWild.com – directory of farmers who use sustainable farming methods
• Eat Well Good – local sustainable organic food sources
• Local Harvest – input your zip code and a map of your area will be returned with with local farm listings (note that CSAs are on a different search tab)
• Sustainable Table – resources for getting started eating sustainable food
• Carma’s Traditional Nutrition Resource page – variety of listings and information
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Tags: csa, Health, local food, organic food, Sustainable Food