BeanDiet

If you haven't heard, there's a new movie out these days, and it's not exactly your run-of-the-mill summer box office hit. But it's good. REALLY good. In fact, I think it should be required that every American watch this movie before their next trip to the grocery store. (The Food Dictator in me is on high alert.)

Food Inc. is a documentary that tells us what's incredibly wrong with our food supply. It stars such celebrities as Eric Schlosser (of Fast Food Nation fame) and Michael Pollen (Omnivore's Dilemma). Both these gentlemen are investigative journalists that have focused on the food industry, and uncovered myriad problems.

I found one of the most frightening problems to be what is termed "meat packing". While this wasn't the focus of the entire film, it has stuck in my mind more than anything else.

For example, did you know that there are only 13 slaughterhouses for cows in the entire United States? I certainly didn't. One slaughterhouse shown in the movie (the footage wasn't nearly as gory as I anticipated) "processed" an average of 32,000 cows a day.

This means 32,000 cow parts are touching the same equipment every day. If just one of those cow parts is carrying E. Coli - which many do, especially with the increase of corn fed to cows, which raises the pH of the stomach acid, allowing more resistant E. Coli strains to emerge - than ALL the meat in the processing plant becomes contaminated. This is why meat recalls have increased exponentially. It's also cost more than a few lives, especially of children.

Never mind that the E. Coli bacteria from the cow manure ends up in water runoff that contaminates fruit and vegetables (remember the alfalfa sprout and spinach recalls?). And never mind that these meat processing plants knowingly employ illegal, undocumented workers from Mexico, yet never get prosecuted - while the workers do.

Sorry for the rant, but it seems cheap meat is pretty costly. And though the problem seems overwhelming, it can be easily solved. Not by another book or documentary film, but by voting with the almighty Dollar. Every single time we purchase food, we are sending the food industry a strong message. By not buying meat (including poultry), or buying less, or only buying organic meats we are making a demand... and when there's money involved, you can bet supply will follow.

(While I am not a proponent for consuming meat, some of my readers do, which is why I propose eating organic meat and less meat overall.)

So let's change our dysfunctional food industry and make Upton Sinclair proud.