Half Windsor Full Throttle: Unending Food Cycle

Saturday, February 1, 2020

Unending Food Cycle

As the new year commenced, Lewis and I saw a historical documentary about America's corrupt food manufactures and suppliers. Americans experience food recalls, chemical additives, contaminations, disease, unhealthy ingredients, toxicity, pesticides, misleading labeling, subliminal advertising, inaccurate ingredient lists, and ineffective government to enforce it. Apparently, that is nothing new. False claims were commonplace in America, from elixirs, post-Civil War carpetbaggers, to the Gold Rush.

Putting harmful things in food started in the 1830s, so companies could dilute their products (like milk), or hide inferior quality/rotting meat. America's capitalistic environment allowed it for 190 years, regardless of the illnesses or deaths that such greedy tactics caused.

Dr. Harvey Wiley was the forerunner whistleblower about Big Business harming American consumers--who paid for the crappy food and then paid doctors to get healthy again. Their tax-paid politicians did everything to AVOID fixing the problem, otherwise corporate profits might be harmed.

Meanwhile, European countries started making such additives and misrepresentation illegal in the 1860s. That's why there are still many barriers in Europe against American foods.

Improvements were denied, as conglomerates falsely claimed that changes would destroy their industry. Then, an author named Upton Sinclair went undercover in a meatpacking facility and published a whistleblower book, The Jungle. It also revealed the truth about unstopped slumlords, crappy apartment housing, how votes were coerced by bribed unions, police corruption, and politically-sanctioned corporate greed.

American soldiers reported getting rancid/rotten food, which was supposed to be fresh! Army generals didn't care; they paid the food industry with tax-dollars and got kickbacks for the contracts. After the public outcry and furor, a meager law was created in 1906, barely enforced. The corporate lobbyists pressured the American president(s) to fire Dr. Wiley.

The corrupt industry used both World Wars to exercise more pressure over the government to release controls, if it wanted food for its soldiers. That was incredibly cruel, but America was built by robber-barons who only cared about their profits.

American companies grow larger and get richer, yet their disgusting practices fail to be stopped; they could easily afford to do a better job, but nobody makes them. America is decades behind other civilized nations. Another huge industry--pharmaceuticals--aids the food industry... instead of just being more organic.

Despite their resources, corporations allow their factories to breed disease, which proves how futile it is to have tax-paid health inspectors or a tax-paid FDA that allows nearly everything.

Hence, the cartoon below!

We learned of the epidemic that trucking companies try to save money by turning off the refrigeration in their trucks. That explained why so much fruit/veggie produce that we paid for was rotten so fast.

Despite enormous corporate profits (low wages/healthcare for workers) and modern technology, foods in America get recalled for a variety of outbreaks... regularly!