All I want is to eat some real food

This really freaks me out. Does this really freak anyone else out?

I was going to attempt to write an eloquent and persuasive post about the horrors of the modern food industry, but let me instead share with you an entry I wrote in my journal a few hours ago:

I'm watching the documentary "Food Inc," part of which I watched in Enviro this year. It's so disgusting how food is made in the U.S. I hate how even though you're told to eat more fruits + veggies, even THOSE are usually genetically modified + filled w/pesticides. Like, as a recent convert to vegetarianism, I've noticed that it's a lot easier to stop eating meat when I think about how DISGUSTING the meat industry is. Forget about the ethical issue of animals being TOTALLY abused for a second (even though that's sad) and just think about how STUPID this is. People get sick, e. coli, allergies, from this crap AND NOBODY CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! The animals get sick AND ARE JUST FED ANTIBIOTICS AND WASHED "CLEAN" WITH AMMONIA + SOLD ANYWAY! THAT IS SO FUCKING UNSANITARY! AND PEOPLE STILL REFUSE TO ADMIT HOW TERRIBLE OUR FOOD SYSTEM IS! I just think that it's so unfair that ALL of us pay the price for people being dumbasses and not caring about their health, and then for companies totally exploiting that. I just don't think that it should have to be a BATTLE to eat healthily.

Perhaps in other countries as well, and certainly within the U.S., people tend to follow capitalism with almost religious devotion. While the well-trained American within me definitely thinks that capitalism is the best economic system, there comes a point where you have to step back and realize that a totally "free market" is not worth totally screwing over everybody except for the companies that have monopolies on the market. Get some regulations up on that shit.

The problem that I have with genetically modified food and industrial food is not that it exists. To parallel, I am not overly concerned with fast food and junk food: I know it's bad for me and I tend to avoid eating it (fast food, that is. Still working on junk food), but other people are free to eat it if they wish, especially since they probably already know it's bad for them. The difference, however, is that there are plenty of alternatives to eating fast food and junk food. There are very, very few alternatives in the U.S. to eating industrial food. The most obvious is organic food, but that is legitimately more expensive, and I can't ask my parents to only buy organic food when I'm not even the one who has to pay for it.

One of the saddest parts of Food Inc. is an interview with a family in California. The mom talks about how she feels guilty for feeding her kids with Happy Meals but, as she points out, she can get a full meal for the price of a few vegetables at the supermarket. Her husband, who drives trucks as a main source of income, relies on two relatively expensive medications to keep healthy and so to keep his job, so the family has to choose between keeping the father relatively healthy on his medication or on keeping the whole family healthy through a better diet. There is no reason that people should have to make those kinds of choices. There is no reason that fast food should cost less than nutritious, healthy food. The actual reason for the skewed prices, which are to some extent beyond my knowledge of economics, revolves around the massive food companies, which are subsidized by the federal government. Organic farmers are not only not subsidized by the government, but they also have to pay extra costs to certify and then label that their food is organic. These massive food companies don't even have to label that their food is genetically modified! How insane is that?

I'm just saying: Republicans preach about family values. Making sure your family doesn't get sick from the food they eat is a pretty goddamn strong component to keeping together that family. Democrats are all about social justice. Holding companies responsible for completely destroying the integrity of our food, not to mention the integrity of smaller farmers and factory workers, sounds pretty socially just to me. The only people who don't possibly benefit from a mass upheaval of the food industry is the people who own the food companies. Unfortunately, they wield an absolutely astounding amount of power, among consumers, among the farmers who provide them with raw materials, even among the government and its regulatory agencies.

The other extremely disturbing thing about this whole food mess is the stigma around people who push for better food. By writing this post and having this perspective on food, I would probably be classified as a "foodie." Let me clarify, I am not in favor of depriving people of all the food that they love, nor do I intend to belittle my friends every time they order a hamburger. What I want is to be able to eat natural, healthy food at reasonable prices, and for the government to do their job and actually regulate the safety of food, rather than bending to the interests of the food companies. Yet people have this intense opposition to "health nuts," and I don't understand why. Sure, it's annoying to having people criticize your food choices all the time. But why on earth would you be opposed to making the food you eat healthier and safer? Nobody is going to come and snatch your cookies and pizzas and candy bars away from you. All I want is the knowledge that biting into a tomato isn't going to increase my chance of getting cancer and that my future kids won't develop food allergies and health problems from ingredients that have no business being in children's food.

I really, really, really, really recommend seeing "Food. Inc" if you haven't already. You should really also watch the TED talk I mentioned earlier. Opponents talk about skewed science, misrepresented facts, but I think what we have here is an issue of common sense and basic health. It's true that the issue isn't totally black and white. There are arguments in favor of genetically modified foods, most centering around increased food production -- the problem is, these potentially beneficial aspects of food modification are truly not used to better the lives of the hungry, but for the sole purpose of driving up profits, at the sake of the health and integrity of huge percentages of our food. It really should not be a challenge to find genuinely healthy food. Nobody should have to sacrifice their health -- short-term and long-term -- just to avoid starvation and placate the gigantic monster that is the food industry.