Food Corporations Have A Choke Hold On Our Food Options
Trying to live a healthy lifestyle and eating healthy can be quite difficult for most. However, what if I told you that the food choices we make every day are not really our own? Making hearty choices has never been more difficult even if we are presented with more variations of food than ever before. Raj Patel takes on the issue of food corporations in Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle of the World Food System. He discusses how global hunger and obesity can both be attributed to the systematic limitations placed on our food choices by large food corporations. When we think about the issue of obesity, we don’t usually attribute it to the issue of poverty as we do with hunger but in reality these two issues are very much related.
The global issue with hunger has little to do with food shortages as many would think, similarly to how the issue of obesity has little to do with eating too richly. Both of these issues are concerns of poverty. In the United States, being one of the most wealthier nations on the planet, many individuals struggle with the issue of obesity. However, the largest cases of obesity are in poverty stricken communities around the United States. For example, South Bronx is one of the lowest income communities in the US but is considered a central capital for obesity. This paradox is not a cause of poor food choices but of limited food availability and low incomes. In most low income communities, the food which is most widely available comes from fast food industries. In such communities, people don’t necessarily have the luxury to go to supermarkets to find healthier choices or have time to spare to prepare healthier meals for their families or themselves, so they fall back on fast food industries to provide them with quick meals even if they are not the healthiest choices. This is a loop in which most poverty stricken individuals find themselves stuck in and a phenomenon which food corporations are taking advantage of to make profits. It is not an issue of insufficient food, it’s an issue of the lack of nutritious food options. You may be thinking, of course obesity is an issue in the wealthier nations like the Unites States, but this is a similar issue that can be seen in developing nations as well, much like in Latin America. According to a data analysis of world diet choices presented in an article by The Guardian, world food choices show that the number of obese individuals in developing nations is double that of those in developed nations. This can be attributed to the infiltration of large food corporations into our food choices. Not only are our food choices being constricted but they are unhealthy and damaging to many people who don’t have any other choices than to eat the food they are presented with.
While income is a large factor on the food crisis dealing with obesity, so is geography. Over many years, nutritious foods have become increasingly expensive which forces low income families to depend on cheaper and unhealthy food choices. This factor makes the food crisis an issue of geography. For example, in Latin America, it has been commonly noted that as communities reach closer to the US border, they suffer from higher levels of obesity than those further away. Large food corporations based in the United States have begun dripping down onto other poorer nations as cheaper food alternatives. However, it is only causing these communities to become dependent on these cheaper options for nourishment, which is not very healthy for them to begin with. These heavily processed foods provide corporations with the profits they seek while these communities are heavily disadvantaged with nutrition and availability of healthier food choices.
Food corporations have got our food choices on a choke hold. Not only are our food choices narrowly focused on profit but they are also highly unhealthy. For example, the food choices presented to us at the supermarket are not as diverse as you would think. Most of the items that are in our supermarkets are there because they are the most profitable for large food corporations. Patel uses the example of apples to illustrate this issue. He explains how there are various strains of apple which we as consumers have never heard about because they are not as profitable to food corporations as those sitting in our supermarkets for sale. The ones that are available to us are there because they hold up better to pesticides, wax coverings, and even because they are the most attractive. Additionally, food corporations have larger incentives to provide us with processes and unhealthy foods because of profit. The power food corporations have over what we are able to eat is unsettling and it is directly feeding into the global food crisis. We have enough food in production to provide everyone in our planet with healthy food choices but why is there still hunger and unhealthy food options? Profit.
