When I first decided to become a vegetarian, my mom couldn’t help but take it personally. Her family comes from British farming stock, and growing up I was raised on variations of the Sunday roast. So when I started cooking dishes like tofu and sweet potato jambalaya, she inevitably assumed I was making a statement about her cooking. But I wasn’t. I decided to give up meat when I began learning about how our food is produced.
In 1906 Upton Sinclair published The Jungle. His novel exposed the disgusting filth and contamination in American food. As a result, President Theodore Roosevelt demanded an official investigation, which led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug laws.
Today, food poisoning still sickens 48 million people each year in the U.S., puts 128,000 into the hospital and kills 3,000. Fortunately, President Obama signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) earlier this year. This law expands the reach and regulatory powers of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The FSMA is vital for improving the safety of food in our country. Previously, if a company produced contaminated food, the FDA would have to arrange a voluntary recall with that company. Now the FDA has the power to directly issue a food recall.
Still, what hasn't changed are the highly mechanized and often unregulated methods used in food production which have only helped to pad company profits at the expense of consumer health. In recent years, factory farming has created dangerous new strains of E.coli and contributed to widespread obesity and diabetes among adults.
Indeed, the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations is at the root of my dietary concerns. The industrial production of livestock consumes excessive amounts of energy, pollutes water supplies, generates substantial greenhouse gases and requires environmentally destructive amounts of corn, soy and other grains.
Ultimately, this dependency on assembly-line meat factories is unsustainable, and until changes are made I will continue to eliminate animal products from my diet. The purpose of this blog will then be to discuss developments on the fast food front, as well as to document my transition from vegetarianism to veganism.
Bon appétit.
What about Monsanto?? Should a vegetable producing company really have the power to register and protect their own strains of particular vegetables like certain strains of corn so other companies can't compete with them? Are we heading down a monopoly road with these large food production companies that could gate off the market preventing healthy competition?? Your thougts please...Thanks, JN
ReplyDeleteI remember the section of Food, Inc. that deals with the Monsanto Corporation, and I think it would be fair to say that it already has a monopoly in the sale of modified soybeans: It has captured over 90 percent of the market. The clout that the company has is also pretty frightening, especially in the way that it deals with soybean farmers. In the documentary, the filmmakers show how the company can put farmers out of business whom they only suspect of "patent infringement," simply because these farmers can't afford the high legal fees of going to trial.
ReplyDelete