The Infamous Ink

As I read through this book I kept catching myself going “no way” and “yuck” which led to the startling realization that food is a fetish. I find this extremely peculiar especially since food isn’t necessarily something I would consider a commodity and that everyone needs it; in other words, food is not a luxury item that one can live without. Where this idea struck me most was the last few pages of chapter 7 when the author describes his trip through the McDonald’s drive through with his 11 year old son, a wife who watched her weight and their convertible. Until reading this book (was it the whole book?) I thought very little about the people and processes involved in what I eat.

I think most people know that the fruits and vegetables we eat here in the states during the winter months come from places like California or as far as Chile but, I think people fail to think about what that really means or what it means to be wolfing down McDonald’s cheeseburgers (or salads, nuggets, etc…) while cruising along in your car at 50 miles an hour. I know I didn’t and, for that, I believe I was being a bad consumer and a worse global citizen.

35 gallons, nearly a barrel, of oil is required to raise a head of beef from birth to slaughter or plant and harvest a bushel of corn; in what economist’s or business leader’s mind did that make any sense? As the author proves in his visit to U. Iowa-Ames, Poky’s feedlot and General Mills, sense is always relevant to the dollar in post-Industrial, post-Modern American policy.

The whole thing about squeezing as much money out of food disgusted me and was reminiscent of a Mafia squeeze—the author uses the funnel analogy but I’ve been reading Andrew Ross lately and now have a taste for the dramatic in academia. Either analogy is great; you rope in as many of the little guys like Farmer Blair or Nyler and continually find ways to make your investment in the raw material more profitable while leaving them holding the bag both fiscally and socially for your manufacturing process. More than anything else, that pisses me off. If agribusiness or petrochemical companies want to post the largest profits since the Gilded Age by cutting corners and filling me up with petrocarbons than they need to bear the burden of any ecologically related disease I may acquire during my lifetime. But, knowing the American legal system that can be circumvented with waiver or disclaimer on all food, much like those found on my two favorite commodities: cigarettes and beer. “WARNING:,” it’ll read. “Consumption of this product has been known to cause prostate, testicular, breast, and blood cancers; heart disease; Type II diabetes; E. Coli poisoning; Global Warming; Imperialism and, a false sense of comfort and fullness.” And when you hand the clerk a crumpled up $5 dollar bill, she’ll smile and say “Thank You, sir. Come again.”