Writing the words food and feces in the same sentence is gross. My apologies. They are, however, two words I believe we should be discussing given the state of our food system.
I knew the processing of meat in the U.S. was a highly industrialized process involving chemicals and gross amounts of fossil fuels, antibiotics, pesticides, growth hormones and herbicides. It's why my family and I modified our diet a few years ago so that we now eat mostly locally raised and processed meat from ranchers and farmers we know and trust. We also eat less of it but that's another topic.
Until a few months ago, when I watched the film "Food, Inc." I didn't understand the full extent of how chemicals are used in industrialized meat processing. I was reminded of all this in the article below, which includes an interview with Joel Salatin, an American farmer who is changing the farming paradigm, and features "Food, Inc.," a film full of info I believe most people don't know. For instance, the food industry's answer to the inevitable fecal contamination of meat that occurs in the highly industrialized slaughtering and butchering process is to dump the meat in ammonia and then tell us, the eating public, to make sure we cook the meat at a high enough temperature to kill the contamination. Yes ... really.
This, and many other reasons, is why I'm an advocate for changing our food system. 
Highlights from the interview in The Observer with Joel Salatin and from Food, Inc., which is premiering in the U.K., and premiered in the U.S. last year, are below. "Food, Inc.," is now available on Netflix DVD and Instant View. Hat tip to Peak Oil Hausfrau for sending the article my way.
Interview: Joel Salatin
Gaby wood
The Observer, Sun. 31 Jan 2010
Joel Salatin is America's most celebrated pioneer of chemical-free farming – but if you want to taste his beef or chicken you'll have to move to Virginia. He talks to Gaby Wood about why local is best and his role in the documentary “Food, Inc” which attacks the giants of industrialised food production.
Some highlights from a discussion of the film:
· In the 1970s, the top five beef packers controlled 25% of the market; now the top four control more than 80% – meaning that if ever meat is tainted by bacteria or chemicals it has the potential to reach vast numbers of people.
· 1972, 50,000 food safety inspections were conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration, and three decades later that number had gone down to 9,164.
· 70% of all processed foods have some genetically modified ingredient.
· In 2007, E coli from food affected 73,000 Americans – something the film correlates directly with the increase in consumption of processed foods and the scale and cleanliness of the country's huge industrial slaughterhouses
From the interview with Salatin:
"What happens is all these things we're seeing – campylobacter, E coli, mad cow, listeria, salmonella, that weren't even in the lexicon 30 years ago – that is the industrial paradigm exceeding its efficiency. So these Latin squiggly words that we're learning to say – bovine spongiform encephalopathy – are nature's language screaming to us: ENOUGH! And the question then is: what will it take for us to listen? And my contention is that Wall Street is still wearing conquistador mentality and uniforms, and nobody is listening to the pleadings of nature saying: 'Enough.'" – Joel Salatin
Films like Food, Inc, Salatin suggests, are finally "exposing the kind of corruption and evil that is the shortcut. What happens when you don't ask: how do we make pigs happy? Well, you view the pig as just a pile of protoplasmic structure to be manipulated however cleverly human hubris can imagine to manipulate it. And when you view life from that kind of mechanistic, arrogant, disrespectful standpoint, you very soon begin to view all of life from a very disrespectful, arrogant, manipulative standpoint. And the fact is, we aren't machines."
"Can I feed the world? That's a wonderful question, one of my favourites," Salatin smiles, having more or less asked the question himself. "Not only can we feed the world, this is the only system that really can feed the world."
From Erich Schlosser, author of “Fast Food Nation,” and co-producer of the film, and the director of the film, Robert Kenner:
"We showed the film to the head of the US Department of Agriculture and he seemed very sympathetic to it, but his argument was: 'Make us do it.' There is so much resistance to change that you really need a movement. Of all the sorts of reforms, the one that will be easiest to do in the US is food safety, because there's not a big popular lobby for 'shit in the meat' – Republicans, Democrats, if you ask them: 'Do you want faecal material in your hamburger?', most people say no. – Eric Schlosser
"It was amazing making this film. I had no idea food was such a litigious subject. Kevin's mother is asked how his death changed her eating habits, but she can't answer on film because she fears she could be sued by the food industry. I was dumbfounded. She mentioned Oprah [who was sued by Texas beef producers for saying on her show that she would never eat another burger after a segment on BSE in 1996] and I knew about that, but when you connect the dots it becomes a lot more insidious – and in context it made me really scared! We were certainly attacked on a regular basis – several websites were set up to attack the film. We had every word verified three times. We had to negotiate everything. I spent more on legal fees on Food, Inc than I did on my past 15 films, times three.” – Robert Kenner
Complete article here.
