food inc

Food inc was quite the eye opener for me. I had no idea that so much of our grocery stores could be traced back to a few corporate labels. When I go grocery shopping I notice labels from thousands of different companies and locations. Products that make claims about how healthy their food is. I had no idea that such a high percentage of foods contained some form of corn or what was once corn. When one ingredient is required for almost every food, that company has a monopoly over the entire farming industry. Soy beans are the same way and their are almost no public wild soy beans anymore. They are being genetically modified so that the company can own the seeds and have all the rights to them. Now that corporations own most of the seeds, they can dictate prices and other farming conditions. It's gross what it has turned farming in to.

Especially when you look at meat farms, specifically chicken. The farmers have no choice but to cooperate and run their farms exactly how the corporation that they signed their contract with wants them to. So when they ask the farmers to expand, they have no choice but to take out a loan for another $250,000 chicken house. Their $18,000 salary cannot possibly afford all of these equipment upgrades that the corporations require. I can't believe the dead end the farmers are in these days. The cows lived in even worse conditions than the chickens, up ankle deep in their own dung. It's no wonder so many cases of e-coli are showing up, and new types are developing.

Another interesting part of the movie was where they were talking about how the work force used to be predominately white people and now is turning to the latino population. The large corporations are funding for immigrants to come to our country and work the dirtiest jobs for the cheapest prices. Being that they are illegal, they have no say in their work conditions or pay they get. I thought our country was trying to work on the illegal immigration issue, but apparently they are just trying to make it look that way on the surface while they turn their head for corporations. Pretty weak.