Fast Food Nation: Growing Older, But Still Apt

I just finished reading Eric Schlosser's incredible book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Originally published in 2001, I find it a little ridiculous that I have only now added it to my repertoire of food- and farming-related literature.

Fast Food Nation is just as relevant today as it was over a decade ago. Just about everything Schlosser relates - apart from certain statistics, which are obviously now a little out of date - still rings true.

In his introduction, Schlosser describes the illusory cheapness of fast food, laying out the spine of his argument:

But the value meals, two-for-one deals, and free refills of soda give a distorted sense of how much fast food actually costs. The real price never appears on the menu.

The discussion of what cheap food actually costs is one upon which I have dwelt in the past. (Heck, the topic came up in my last blog post.)

Schlosser delves into detail, exploring every nuance of the hidden costs of fast food in this fine example of investigative journalism. He journeys from meat packing plants in Iowa to ranches in Colorado, speaks with food scientists and illegal aliens, discusses nutrition and economics and history with folks who represent every link of the vast chain that is the fast food industry. And he goes to great lengths to explain, in excruciating detail, what - and who - those hidden costs are.

Suffice to say, these costs are extensive, not to mention pervasive. From public health to worker safety, from environmental costs to animal treatment, from government corruption to international policy, the costs of fast food extend into our daily lives. But all we can see is the dollar menu.

I wish, more than ten years after the appearance of Fast Food Nation, that the circumstances surrounding its conception and publication were different. I wish our country's food and worker safety policies were improved. I wish that meat packing plants were required to pay for the air pollution and resulting medical expenses. But this book is as applicable today as it was in 2001, which is a real shame.

To close, a few passages from the epilogue, which I found especially astute.

During the past two decades, rhetoric about the "free market" has cloaked changes in the nation's economy that bear little relation to real competition or freedom of choice. From the airline industry to the publishing business, from the railroads to telecommunications, American corporations have worked hard to avoid the rigors of the market by eliminating and absorbing their rivals...

The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power. The great challenge now facing countries throughout the world is how to find a proper balance between the efficiency and the amorality of the market. Over the past twenty years the United States has swung too far in one direction, weakening the regulations that safeguard workers, consumers, and the environment. An economic system promising freedom has too often become a means of denying it, as the narrow dictates of the market gain precedence over more important democratic values.

Today's fast food industry is the culmination of those larger social and economic trends. The low price of a fast food hamburger does not reflect its real cost - and should. The profits of the fast food chains have been made possible by losses imposed on the rest of society. 

Comparing Apples and Egg Yolks: Why Organic Food Costs More

As some of you may recall, a few weeks ago I attended the American Public Health Association (APHA) conference in Washington, DC. I attended sections in Food and Nutrition with names like "Farm To School Implementation," "Principles for a Healthy, Sustainable Food System," and "Farmers Markets & Fresh Produce in Urban, Underserved Communities".

Something I realized over the course of the conference was that the word "organic" was scarcely being used.* This surprised me. Given the many public health issues associated with problems like pesticide use and antibiotic resistance, I'd thought that conversation about organic agriculture would definitely be on the table.

I started to get a clue why this was the case when I talked to a woman from The Food Trust, a nonprofit in Philadelphia that works to increase fresh produce availability by creating farmers markets throughout the city. She told me that the farmers are conventional, because organic food would cost too much.

The idea that organic food is prohibitively expensive is a common one. Yes, it does cost more. And no doubt there are farmers out there who over-charge because they have customers in big cities they know will pay those prices. But overall, there are good reasons that organic food is a little more costly.

First of all, quality is an enormous factor. Organic and conventional foods are completely different products in that respect. An organic apple and a conventional apple are not the same, nor is a conventional chicken at all similar to a pastured, free-range chicken. There are fundamental nutritional differences - pastured animals have higher levels of nutrients such as omega 3 fatty acids and beta-carotene. Just compare the yolks of a grocery store egg and an organic, pastured egg - the color difference is astonishing. In his book In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan points out that by selecting produce for larger, higher producing, and more shelf stable specimens, the amount of nutrients in the produce has decreased dramatically. He says, for example, that an apple from the 1940s had three times the amount of iron as a conventionally grown apple today.

The costs of growing organically are also higher than conventional agriculture - it takes more time and more labor to be organic. (Anyone who has spent four hours hand-weeding can tell you that much.) An organic farmer who charged conventional prices would be out of work in short order. Additionally, organic certification is an expensive undertaking - farmers have to pay fees that can add up to thousands of dollars to organic certification agencies, not to mention the time they must spend organizing and filling out paperwork.

There are deeper reasons I think we're unwilling to pay extra for food in this country. Americans only spent on average 10% of their income on food in 2009, compared with 22% in 1949.We have a skewed idea of food cost due to our food production system, which externalizes costs to taxpayers in the forms of health care, workers' rights, and environmental sustainability.

When you break down the costs of organic foods to serving size amounts, it may surprise you. Check out this economic breakdown of a $100 turkey, for example - she estimates a $1.25 serving size cost when all is said and done. A $4 bunch of beets is also about $1.25 per serving. A half pound bag of lettuce mix at $6 a bag? For eight people, that's less than a dollar per serving. A soda, on the other hand, costs $1.50. A Big Mac is $4. Frankly, I call shenanigans on anyone who regularly spends $5 on a latte at Starbucks but says they can't afford fresh, local, organic produce.

Buying local/organic food does not have to cost that much. It can and should be affordable. And the best way to make it affordable is to purchase your food directly from the farmer, either through a CSA or at a farmers market.




*Of course, there are all kinds of issues about the use of the word "organic". Not all organic food is created equal - compare "industrial organic" farms in California to small, local family operations in your area. A lot of farms aren't certified organic because of the expense and the bureaucracy it involves, but if you take the time to talk to your farmers, you will often find that they do grow everything organically.