Tonight I was watching a segment of "Now" on PBS that was dedicated to food processing. Their guest was Robert Kenner, the maker of the documentary "Food, Inc." The main topic of the program was that our food is all being made around what McDonald's buys. For example, McDonald's is the largest buyer of beef in the U.S. which changes the way cattle farmers raise their cattle since McDonald's wants all the burgers everywhere to taste the same. While this topic is very interesting, one particular strain of the discussion struck me as perplexing. Kenner was talking about how people feel powerless as a food consumers to make changes in what is offered at the supermarket. It seems that WalMart says NOT true. Recently, it seems that consumers were buying more milk without rBST (artificial bovine growth hormone) and WalMart changed who its suppliers were. The owners of Stonyfield Farm are now supplying WalMart shoppers with growth hormone free dairy products thanks to consumer response to the negative impact growth hormones can have on us humans. The point to be made was that if the consumer can get WalMart & or McDonalds to change who their suppliers are, we can change the whole industry for the better.
While I agree with this, in theory I have some other thoughts as well. It seems that there is so much cover- up about harmful products in the food industry that it is often hard for consumers to know that there are harmful products in their purchases. When we don't know that there are harmful products in our products, we can not stop buying them. The other issue I have is that milk containing rBST is often $2.00 less expensive, if not more, than organic. So my question is this...can the consumer really be powerful with their choices when they can not consistently afford them or are not sufficiently informed about them? What do you think?
Click here to re-read Jim's post about corn corn everywhere which is a big chunk of what "Food, Inc." is about.
