Food, INC

Ok, so get ready to get depressed. I watched Food, INC tonight. Though it was basically what I was expecting and have heard a lot of the same points in the past it still managed to leave me very discouraged and angry. And because I am a caring person and only want to give, I thought I would share some of the points I found most disturbing so as people reading this can share in my feelings of fear and disgust.

• The average American eats 200lbs of meat per year.
• In 1970 the 4 largest meat companies purchased 25% of the beef, now they purchase 90%.
• In 1972 there were 50,000 food inspections conducted by the FDA. In 2006 there were just 9,164.
• 1 in 3 Americans born after 2000 will contract early onset diabetes.
  
• 1.5 million Mexican farmers were put out of business when America flooded the Mexican market with cheap American corn. These farmers were then bused into the US to work for very low wages in slaughter houses and as day laborers.
  
• Smithfields (the worlds largest slaughter house) allows 15 of the illegal immigrants it employees to be arrested each day so that the immigration and border control offices will allow them to continue to employee illegal Mexican immigrants. And since they employee so any people their business is unaffected by the loss of 15 employees.
• And lastly Kashi is now owned by Kellogg's and Tom's of Maine was purchased by Colgate...

If only people (including myself) could effectively channel that depression and anger into something productive we might actually be able to do something about those statistics.