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Food, Inc.
Book

Food, Inc.

How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer – And What You Can Do About It

Karl Weber
Public Affairs, 2009
First Edition: 2009
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Recommendation

Could the current food production system be any more problematic? Consider corn, America’s largest food crop. While millions of people around the word starve, the United States insists that its farmers divert 40% of their annual corn crops to produce ethanol, an inefficient biofuel that does little to alleviate the energy problem. Consider factory farms – some of which use cramped holding pens for animals, or confine them in tight metal cages or concrete bins; there farmers inject them with dubious hormones and feed them feathers, poultry excrement, cement dust and rotten food. Edited by writer Karl Weber, this collection of 25 expert articles on food production and related issues reveals shocking facts about our food chain. getAbstract recommends this book to those who want to eat more healthfully, and to anyone who wants to know more about what they are eating and where it comes from.

Summary

Dangerous Food

The food supply serves up elements of danger. Some corporations that control the food industry worry more about profits than consumers’ health, the environment, or the safety and well-being of farm workers. Many demonstrate minimal concern regarding the animals they process by the billions annually, condemning most to short lives of pain and mistreatment.

Many consumers – most alarmingly, children – are now obese, a problem that costs around $100 billion annually in the United States alone. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta estimates that one out of three American children born in 2000 will suffer diabetes, due in part to their inadequate diet. Already, diabetes and other illnesses related to diet are rising sharply.

Many farm workers and food processing employees work for substandard pay with no benefits, some living in near slavery conditions. In California, a progressive state that accounts for a notable portion of the fruits and vegetables Americans consume, field laborers have almost no rights. Most farmers in developing nations remain impoverished.

The food industry is secretive. It does not want the public...

About the Author

Karl Weber, a writer and editor, is president of Karl Weber Literary and the co-author of Creating a World Without Poverty.

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