Time Magazine Takes A Bite Out Of Cheap Food
Usually when the mainstream media talks about the plight of factory farmed animals and their deleterious effect on the environment, they do so in passing. It’s almost a casual afterthought to the story about why eating red meat will kill you faster, if it gets mentioned at all. Enter Times (online) magazine. The article Getting Real About the High Cost of Cheap Food doesn’t mince words:
Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed in so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped off so they won’t bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics. The waste produced by the pig and his thousands of pen mates on the factory farm where they live goes into manure lagoons that blanket neighboring communities with air pollution and a stomach-churning stench. He’s fed on American corn that was grown with the help of government subsidies and millions of tons of chemical fertilizer. When the pig is slaughtered, at about 5 months of age, he’ll become sausage or bacon that will sell cheap, feeding an American addiction to meat that has contributed to an obesity epidemic currently afflicting more than two-thirds of the population. And when the rains come, the excess fertilizer that coaxed so much corn from the ground will be washed into the Mississippi River and down into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will help kill fish for miles and miles around. That’s the state of your bacon — circa 2009.
And, that’s just the first paragraph. Byran Walsh writes that eating sustainably is admittedly a costly, uphill battle against entrenched agribusinesses, but doing nothing to change the way we eat will cost us much much more:
But we don’t have the luxury of philosophizing about food. With the exhaustion of the soil, the impact of global warming and the inevitably rising price of oil — which will affect everything from fertilizer to supermarket electricity bills — our industrial style of food production will end sooner or later. As the developing world grows richer, hundreds of millions of people will want to shift to the same calorie-heavy, protein-rich diet that has made Americans so unhealthy — demand for meat and poultry worldwide is set to rise 25% by 2015 — but the earth can no longer deliver. Unless Americans radically rethink the way they grow and consume food, they face a future of eroded farmland, hollowed-out countryside, scarier germs, higher health costs — and bland taste. Sustainable food has an élitist reputation, but each of us depends on the soil, animals and plants — and as every farmer knows, if you don’t take care of your land, it can’t take care of you.
Walsh goes on to talk about many of the food related catastrophes that have been addressed here (subsidies), here (obesity), here (safety), and here (the environment), etc. On the one hand, it’s really great that this issues are being tackled by the more mainstream media. On the other hand, who will this article that doesn’t already care about the origin of their foodstuff?
The question becomes, Will mainstream articles like these (and movies like Food, Inc.) capture the attention of those don’t think about what they eat or where it comes from? Harder still, will they actually get them to change what or how they eat? I think a lot of people see these problems not being, well, their problem. With a hamburger on their plate they make jokes like, “I am helping the environment; I’m getting rid of the cows.” Eating meat is American. Eating meat is manly. Eating meat is easy. Or, they are just one person, so how can they make a difference?
I ask, how can one article make a difference? I don’t think one, albeit excellent article will win over the hearts, minds, and stomachs of the average consumer. Gandhi said be the change you wish to see in the world. But, he neglected to mention how to get people to pay attention to that change.
My pessimism comes from the lack of change I see in my personal world and is perhaps unwarranted. A very recent USDA report (pdf) shows meat and dairy consumption to be substantially lower this past year. Despite having twice as many people in the US, cattle inventory is the lower than when records began to kept in 1973. Not withstanding summertime BBQs and the national obsession with bacon, pork prices have remained unaltered thanks to “lackluster” demand. Additionally, the Economist notes a growing vegetarian trend in Argentina, the most carnivorous country in the world.
Is it just the because of the recession? Are people paying attention to the role of our diets and the environment/global warming? Have they gotten tired of hearing the words ‘obesity epidemic’ and chosen to fight it?
I have too many questions and too few answers. If the trend away from mass produced animal products continues to abate, I won’t really care for the reasons. I will just be happy.
(Addendum: To emphasize, I don’t care if people eat meat. I just want it to be humane and sustainably raised meat.)
August 24, 2009
Tags: agriculture, bacon, cows, factory farms, farmers, Health, obesity, policy, waste Posted in: Health, Politics
One Response
you can always buy cheap foods on any supermarket these days because food production is mechanized already
Leave a Reply