Recently, due to some health concerns, I’ve become more interested in our food system. I was already somewhat aware, but I’ve started getting even more educated on the topic. Trying to eat only good food, rather than the shit you find in the normal grocery store.
I say “shit” because, after watching the documentary King Corn and realizing the film just scratches the surface of our food issues, I really just wanted to vomit for a couple of days. I’ve made a commitment to purchase only grass feed beef, free range eggs/poultry, etc. I won’t go into all the details of the food issues here. It’s just too much to get into.
During this same period of time there was this horrible event in Bangladesh, in which a clothing factory collapsed, killing hundreds of people. It made clothing that shows up in many of our stores, including stores where I typically shop. I’ve heard the figure that for 10 cents extra per shirt, such conditions could be eliminated. I think every American would gladly pay that, or 10 times that, if it would solve such problems.
And on and on and on.
Once you start down this line of thought, food systems and economics, for instance, it becomes quickly obvious that all of these problems are connected. The problem is this – how is it all connected? Why is everything so fucked up? We are good people. How did we allow our food system to be killing us and our economic systems to be killing the planet and other people?
These systems are big. They are overwhelming to think about. You can see people grasping at possible answers, sometimes going in reasonable directions, sometime venturing into crazy conspiracy theories, sometimes blaming the rich or the poor.
As far as I can see, the common driving force of these problems is — greedy capitalism. Bean counters making the decisions, to drive stock prices, while they poison us with antibiotic-laced meat, horrible food, and kill the rain forests.
That’s my rant for the day.