Quote:
Originally posted by Sho Nuff
Moving toward mass marketed goods and trading quality to quantity and cost efficency is an epidemic no matter where you do it. Its not just in food production either. Our cars are made out of tin foil and fiberglass. Our tvs now break after a couple years of use. Craftmanship is a thing of the past. Corporate profit is now the bottom line. Everyone is seeking to make their product just good enough that their competitor isnt too far ahead of them and for the least amount of money per unit possible.
The result is a country and a world full of low grade food and products, an environment flooded with production waste, food full of preservatives and hormones having untold effects on our bodies, etc, etc, etc.
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I still do eat meat from time to time, and not organic meat. But I do not buy much meat. We also buy food of good quality: fresh fruits and vegetables in season, often organic, organic or fresh fruit juices, eggs from free-range chickens from a local producer, fresh-baked local whole-grain breads, soy milk and organic yogurt. We buy at the farmer's market when possible, not the supermarket. And my wife looks at the bills from time to time and shakes her her, because we do spend a lot for food. But that is because we eat _good_ food -- fresh, not processed or sugared, high quality. But it's how we eat to stay healthy.
I would scarcely call the processed stuff and fast food that many people live on "food" anymore. But it is cheap and convenient. When two parents work and come home at the end of the day, they can either cook for themselves or the kids or buy a family dinner for $12 from the Colonel, and it is salted and fatty within an inch of its life. The problem is cheap, processed, food, and a lifestyle that now makes it difficult -- moneywise and timewise -- for some people to eat anything else. Education is a good start, but who's paying for that? Nobody with the advertising budget of Kraft Foods, that's for sure.
As for Sho Nuff's original point -- we trade quality for quantity in production of all things -- I'll point you all to a series on Walmart that's up on the latimes.com site and should stay up for a day or two. Walmart sells $250 billion of stuff a year, and mercilessly pushes producers for lower prices first, quality second. Other retailers are following suit to keep up, and buyers are responding. So you've got some poor woman in Southern China sewing on two oor three shirt-sleeves a minute for 14 hours a day -- how good is it all going to be? Meanwhile, Walmart is pushing suppliers to cut prices even more. You think that's all going to be through "increased efficiency?" Gimme a break. Quality will continue to go down, until shoppers wake up to the fact that the cheapest price isn't necessarily the best deal. We seem to have forgotten that.