One Thing to Do About Food: A Forum

One Thing to Do About Food: A Forum: "This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060911/forum
One Thing to Do About Food: A Forum

by ERIC SCHLOSSER, MARION NESTLE, MICHAEL POLLAN, WENDELL BERRY, TROY DUSTER, ELIZABETH RANSOM, WINONA LADUKE, PETER SINGER, DR. VANDANA SHIVA, CARLO PETRINI, ELIOT COLEMAN & JIM HIGHTOWER

[from the September 11, 2006 issue]

Eric Schlosser

Every year the fast-food chains, soda companies and processed-food manufacturers spend billions marketing their products. You see their ads all the time. They tend to feature a lot of attractive, happy, skinny people having fun. But you rarely see what's most important about the food: where it comes from, how it's made and what it contains. Tyson ads don't show chickens crammed together at the company's factory farms, and Oscar Mayer ads don't reveal what really goes into those wieners. There's a good reason for this. Once you learn how our modern industrial food system has transformed what most Americans eat, you become highly motivated to eat something else.

The National Uniformity for Food Act of 2005, passed by the House and now before the Senate, is a fine example of how food companies and their allies work hard to keep consumers in the dark. Backed by the American Beverage Association, the American Frozen Food Association, the Coca-Cola"