Issues addressed in food, Inc.

Do you believe that issues addressed in food, Inc. are relevant to our study of globalization?

There two main issues that are addressed in Food Inc. are the cheap food that contains a lot of calories and the production of animals on industrial scale for consumption in the consumer market. Both of these issue are related to our study of globalization in my opinion. Food has always been important for humans. For example by 3000 B.C.E, beer was used as a payment for work as wages (Standage, 2009).  Globalization is the process by which businesses try to become influential on an international scale. The two examples that I would like to quote here are the KFC and McDonalds from the food industry. Both of these food chains rely on cheap food and animals, mostly chickens produced on an industrial scale.

Production of animals used to be a part of the family farming industry. But family farming has been replaced by the industrialized agriculture due to an introduction of labor-saving machines in the 20^th century (Kiple, 2007). According to Food, Inc. the chickens that have been produced in the industry are fed chemicals that make them grow rapidly and gain enormous weight in no time. These chickens can barely walk.   During family farming, it took a chicken a few months to grow on its natural speed. In my opinion the zeal to become global has forced industries to demand for more animal products that cannot be delivered to them with a natural production speed. That is why they have to turn into means of making chemical feeds that make these chicken grow within a month. A global presence means increased profits. Profits can only be increased if a high number of international consumers are attracted. When the consumers are attracted, the companies then need to deliver a great amount of food made possible by production of live stocks on an industrial level irrespective of the processes involved in producing them.

The second issue that has been discussed in the Food Inc. is the issue of cheap food. As I mentioned that international consumer market consumes food on an enormous scale, they also demand cheap food. What cheap food like burgers and other food have in common is an abundance of calories. The cheap food may well be causing 33% of the kids born after 200 to have diabetes and 50% of kids to have obesity related issues (according to Food Inc.) but the companies that want to earn a profit on a global scale have to compete in the market. To beat their competitors, these companies rely on cheap food for the majority of consumers which does come with the disadvantages that I just mentioned.