Should the fast food produced system be accepted?

Should the fast food produced system be accepted?

          Nowadays, people seemed to equate eating food produced by big enterprises to be much healthier. Yet, there is a huge blind spot which most of us might lack of notice, that is how was the food produced? In the film Food, Inc. (2008) presented by Robert Kenner, it firstly talked about fast food, a term that can not be even familiar to our generation, and he gave it an interesting title, “Fast Food for All Food”. To, be honest, I was pretty much confused about what might the relationship of fast food and other food be? Since in my cognition, fast food had always been an unhealthy term that is consist of cheesy burgers and pizzas, fatty French fries and chickens, and also, don’t forget the large size soda drink. Though unhealthy and high-calorie, younger generations tend to go to fast food restaurants whether for small gatherings after school or for celebrations of all kinds of reason, and it had almost turned in to some sort of normality. However, even it had become normal, how was it related to other food? After watching the first of the six parts of Food, Inc. on YouTube, it seemed more obvious to me of why did Robert Kenner titled it“Fast Food for All Food”.

          McDonald’s, as the first multinational fast food restaurant in America and also the biggest leading chain restaurant over the world today, it was primarily opened in 1940. The McDonald brothers basically ran the restaurant following the new-raised form for restaurants which called the drive-in in the 1930’s. Fortunately, they had a very successful drive-in, however eight years later, they decided to cut cost and simplify the form of their restaurant. So they eventually created a revolutionary idea of how to run a restaurant by simply brining in the factory system to back up the restaurant kitchen. They trained each workers to just do one thing again and again and again, for that by having workers who only have to do one thing, they can pay them with much less wages, and moreover, it is easier to find someone else to replace them. “That mentality of uninformative conformity and cheapness applied widely and on a large scale has all kinds of unattended consequences.” (Eric Scholsser) Shortly after their success, McDonald’s became the biggest purchaser of beef in America, and due to their ideas of having their hamburgers to taste exactly the same no matter where it is made, they changed the way how beef is produced. Also, being the biggest purchase port of not only for beef but also pork, chicken, potato, tomato, lettuce and even apple, the chain restaurant had to find bid suppliers and so consequently, our food system fell into the hands of a few companies. 

          In the 1970, though, the top five beef producer only controlled about twenty-five percentage of the market, however, to 2008, the top four controlled more than eighty percentage of the market. So clearly it is not just about whether we eat in fast food restaurants or not, because even if we are not, we still might be eating the meats produced by this system. (And we should notice that even if the labels of the meat package tells you which farm they were produced in, in reality, it is really the big companies behind them that controlled the whole process) For example, in the film it talked about Tyson, which is one of the biggest meat processing plants in the world, changed the entire way of how chicken is raised. Normally, it took about three month to raise a chicken, but due to the chicken farmers, who signed contracts with Tyson, it only took them forty-nine days to raise the chicken. And in order to cater the costumers need, it is not only about having the chicken doubled, What’s more? Due to what people like to eat most, Tyson redesigned the chicken to have larger breast. And besides changing the way chicken is raised for the profit for the customers, they also changed to the right of the chicken farmers for the company’s’ profit. Chicken farmer now are only responsible for raising the chicken, but a big company like Tyson owns the chicken from the day they dropped off till the day they are slaughtered. On account of Tyson’s success in meat producing industry, more and more meat processing plants around the world are following the same pattern.

          Maybe some of the people would think of this as a profit chasing game for the meat industry, yet Richard Labb, who worked in the National Chicken Council, explained that in their way, they are rather producing chicken than food, since it is all highly merchandized so all the birds coming off those contract farms have to be almost exactly the same size. He also pointed out that the achievement of intensive production is to take advantage of small unit of land and create considerable amount of food for the market so the prize can be affordable for everyone. At the end of the interview, he asked “Can somebody explain to me what’s wrong with that?” However, little does the chicken farmer dared to go against their contract company and tell the truth of what illegal doings the company had really done. According to Carole Morison, one of the contract chicken farmers with Purdue, she said that in seven weeks a chicken would grow into a five pound chicken, yet their bones and their internal organs can’t keep up with the rapid growth. So a lot of these chickens in the farms tends to flopped down after a few steps of walk for they can hardly hold on with all the weight they are carrying. That is truly a damage to the health of the chicken, not to mention that he antibiotics add in the feed, and that is one problem. Other conflicts that deals with human rights in this incident is first of all why can companies like Tyson and Purdue kept the farmers under their thumbs? From what Carole later on points out in the film, we can infer that it’s mainly because of the debts the chicken farmers had. Usually, to build one henhouse can be anywhere from two hundred eighty thousand dollars to thirty thousand dollars, and once you made your initial investment, the companies will constantly come back with newly upgraded equipment to improve the function of the henhouse, and yet usually the chicken farmers had no choice or else they will be threatened of contract. So the debt will just keep rolling on under such circumstances. “It’s like being the slave to the company.” (Carole Morison). The workers which the company hired to deliver chicken to processing plants is as well an important segment to the market, for the workers are mostly illegal workers or Latinos that have no guarantee and rights, so apparently they would not dare to risk to expose the truth and bad doings of the companies to the crowd.

          Therefore, I think the fast food produce system truly has a lot issue that should be carefully discussed. However, the discussion is never as simple as simple as whether we are putting our health under risk anymore. When talking about the produce system, and by sequently analyze how each instinct mentioned above might affect one and another in different aspect we can have a clear understanding of it is not just about what we are eating but what we were allowed to know and what we are allowed to say which really matters. That is when fast food chain restaurant asked for great amounts of meats, the most processing plant will seek for ways, no matter how unhealthy to human beings or how illegal it might be, to provide the right amount for restaurant. Not to mention it is of course under the premise of pursuing their own profits. So under such premise, it is not only the costumers’ rights being at risk but also the workers behind those restaurants or meat processing plant. Consequently, I don’t believe the fast food produce system should be accepted.