Drinking one soda per day doubles your risk of type 2 diabetes compared to drinking a soda occasionally. That increased risk is attributable to high-fructose corn syrup, a manufactured product that is ubiquitous in our modern food system and that did not exist prior to 1970. Why? How did this toxification of the food system occur?
It all started in 1973 with Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz's reversal of U.S. agricultural policy, from paying farmers not to produce to paying farmers to over produce corn.
Do you want to understand the political-economic nexus of one key dimension of unsustainability? Then go to
http://www.pbs.org/pov/foodinc/. The film, Food Inc., with its simple inquiry into the source of supermarket food in America today, unwittingly unveiled the power dimension of the food economy. The resulting big business assault on the free market is revealed with the U.S. tax payer subsidy of corn at prices below production costs for the big fast-food producers, to Monsonto's cornering of soybean related food market with it's patented gene and associated strong-arm investigations against farmers who may or may not save their own seeds, to the market dominance of a few key firms and the astounding amount of power that they have leveraged through a 25-year cross-fertilization of government regulators and industry executives and lawyers. The net result is a massively efficient high-yeilding system of extremely profitable toxic food production. The public corn subsidies led to market distortions, which in turn bred new strains of e-coli and introduced it into the food system, the collapse of corn production in Mexico and associated recruitment of illegal labor by the big food producers, and an addiction to oil and oil-based fertilizer input that kills the soil that will only increase in price to unaffordable levels. Then, the food bubble will collapse. The irony is that the subsidized corn is uneatable; it is feed stock for the larger food production process that adds flavor, texture, etc. Food, Inc., is a must see/know documentary for anyone who thinks they are alive and wants to stay that way.
Food, Inc., Synopsis:
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli — the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser ("Fast Food Nation"), Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma") along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farms' Gary Hirschberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc.reveals surprising — and often shocking truths — about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
Food, Inc. will be accompanied by Notes on Milk, a short variation of the 2007 feature documentary Milk in the Land: Ballad of an American Drink. Ariana Gerstein and Monteith McCollum, whose Hybrid aired on POV in 2002, take a quirky and poetic look at some lesser-known aspects of America’s favorite drink: the industry’s spiritual underpinnings, politics and the struggle of independent farmers.
Companion Book: Food, Inc.: How Industrial Food Is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer - And What You Can Do About It, Karl Weber, Ed. (New York: Public Affairs, 2009)
Other Links:
Independent Lens: King CornTwo recent college grads discover where food in the United States comes from when they plant a single acre of corn and follow it from the seed to the dinner table. With the help of government subsidies, genetically modified seeds and powerful herbicides, the country's most subsidized crop becomes the staple of its cheapest — and most troubling — foods. On the website for the film, lean how corn farming has changed and find alternatives to high fructose corn syrup. (February, 2008)
June 30, 2010 at 09:39PM 
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