The Business of Eating

Easier consumed than pronounced, niacinamide, sodium ascorbate, and thiamine hydrochloride, are some of the linguistic anomalies that make up my “all natural” Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. The confusion on the nutrition label is a microcosm for what is happening to us, and to our society at large. With more available information today than ever before, we don’t know what we should eat, or even what we’re eating. The truth is that every phase of the food cycle, from manufacturing to consumption, has become corrupted. This corruption, furthermore, will have ramification for future generations. This is because food manufacturing is not only making our bodies sick, but it also has a devastating impact on our environment as well. Using corn as an example, this essay seeks to explain how we are becoming sickened by food.
Unsurprisingly, farms are responsible for producing much of the food we eat, as well as the food for the animals we eat. Ideally, in a natural farm system, agriculture has a symbiotic relationship with its ecosystem. For example, natural, healthy soil contains water and nutrients for crops to grow. When the crops are harvested, their remains go back into the earth and act as fertilizer to replenish lost nutrients. Similarly, when livestock grazes, their waste is returned to the earth in the form of fertilizer. Fundamentally, in a natural system, whatever is taken from nature is given back. When food is grown in this manner, it reaches its potential in terms of taste and nutrition with no destructive effects on environment and ourselves.

But less than one percent of the world’s farms operate in such a way. The implication is that the foods we eat are most likely produced by farmers whose goals are not the achievement of quality and sustainability, but rather profitability and efficiency. Farms in which crops are mass-produced with the goal of productivity and yield are referred to as industrial farms. These factory like farms disregard the necessity of balance, and reject the fundamental human responsibility to live sustainably. To be clear, it is not immoral to produce crops in order to make money, and it is certainly not iniquitous to strive for efficiency. After all, even organic farms need to make profit to stay alive. However, when farmers emphasize profit and productivity, at the expense of nature, the effects are devastating.
In industrial farms, land is in endless use even though the land, in cycles, should be left barren and infertile. To compensate for the depleted nutrients, manure and artificial chemical fertilizers, like nitrogen, are pumped into the soil. Although these fertilizers induce crops to grow, they are no replacement for vital organic matter, such as fungi, bacteria, earthworms and microorganisms, and the 50 or so key nutrients, like zinc and magnesium, which have been decimated by the industrial machine. The lack of such key components to the ecosystem causes crops to become less nutritious and more susceptible to pests. Farmers are then compelled to apply pesticides that kills all pests, both good and bad. Thus, the industrial farmers have figured out how to trick nature into growing crops endlessly and without any product loss. It’s a seemingly perfect deal for farmers.

However, there is a catch: this practice ravages our environment, wreaks havoc on our water supply and makes people sick. Two things happen to the chemical fertilizers and pesticides: first, they are either washed away to the ocean, killing fish, and destroying marine ecosystems, or, second, they are absorbed into our precious underground water reservoirs, which we, and particularly residents of Midwestern states, rely upon. Consumption of this polluted water is responsible for thousands of diseases suffered by tens of thousands of people, which include cancer, kidney and liver diseases, and skin and stomach infections. The question is not whether such practices are ethical or not, but rather how is this legal?

The production of corn, a staple of both human and animal diets, exemplifies the problem. Corn is the most abundant cash crop in the US. Yet 95% of corn produced in the U.S. has been profoundly mutated on a genetic level so that it is toxic to insects. Farmers like this because no pesticides are needed, saving them money. This may seem positive at first, because lower pesticide use yields less pollution. However, there hasn’t been sufficient research on the health consequences of genetic modification to determine the long-term effects on human health. Additionally, genetic engineering has ethical implications, sparking controversy regarding the ownership of life.
Livestock has a stake in corn farming as well. Corn has replaced grass as food for cattle. However, cattle are not meant to eat corn, and this leads to painful health effects like high levels of stomach acidity. To combat stomach pain, cattle must be administered low doses of antibiotics. Antibiotics also help cattle survive the conditions of crowding and confinement. Even so, the concern, of course, is the toll on human bodies. Numerous health consequences of human consumption of antibiotic treated proteins, including milk, have included hormone imbalances, increased autism rates, cancer and resistance to antibiotics. Corn that is not used in the feeding of cattle is usually manipulated to make a processed sugar called high-fructose corn syrup. This syrup, along with artificial food colorings and preservatives, can be found in virtually every product in your local supermarket.

GMO Corn syrup is processed and unnatural, and we demand more and more of it every day. Our insistence upon this suggests we are detached from nature and from our food sources. If you live in New York, like me, the proof is all around you. Just walk a quarter mile in any direction and I bet you, you will find a fast food restaurant. In contrast, I’d bet that if you’d walk ten miles in any direction you couldn’t find an organic farm. I bet you couldn’t even tell me where your lunch originated. I certainly couldn’t. Consequently, we suffer from a food epidemic, in which people are becoming sick because of the food we eat. Undoubtedly, if I uttered such a phrase 100 years ago I would have been laughed at, or mocked. But, the facts are very real and very close to home. One in three people are overweight, diabetes is rampant amongst children, and the current generation is the first one in history that might not outlive their parents. The times we live in are so extreme that is no longer shocking to read the news and find that a 12 year old girl has decided to undergo liposuction. And undoubtedly, in a few years this stuff won’t even make news.

Good health makes a lot of sense, but it doesn’t make a lot of money. Evidently, we consistently choose financial convenience over our well-being. Industrial farmers choose to make money as opposed to producing healthy food, all at the expense of the environment and its consumers. Corn, as an example, is either fed to livestock, replacing their natural diet of grass, causing them to suffer from painful side effects; or is processed and combined with artificial chemical additives and colorings. And, we as consumers repeatedly reward these companies by purchasing their products-- even though we get sick in the process. Our values are flawed, and we have forgotten what has been common knowledge throughout every culture that has ever existed: you are what you eat.

Works Cited
1. Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.
2. The Peabody-winning Documentary from Mosaic Films Incorporated. Dir. Aaron Woolf and Aaron Woolf. By Ian Cheney, Curtis Ellis, and Jeffrey K. Miller. King Corn. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Nov. 2012. .