I had planned on moving to the next step in the whole atom/molecule/chemistry saga I’m building, but I decided to put that off for a week. Instead, I want to address a few of the topics presented in Food, Inc. I just finished watching it for the first time, even though it’s nearly one year old now. As with most documentaries I watch, I had an internet browser open next to me the whole time so I could fact check anything that sounded off. It took a surprising amount of effort to find many of the facts I was looking for, so I thought it would be a good idea to post two of my most interesting findings and sources. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, this post should address some food-based issues you’ve heard about.
First of all, I want to say the movie had one good point that was not emphasized nearly enough. Whether it’s conventionally grown or organic, buying local is better in almost all cases. The main problem I see with the food industry is the huge environmental cost of the gas, packaging, and energy associated with shipping products long distances. Local growers aren’t necessarily more energy efficient, but it is likely that buying locally lessens the impact.
I am aware that I have no scientific evidence to back up buying locally, but it should make physical sense to you. I’m more concerned with providing facts when my statements are more controversial, but if you don’t believe me — go fact checking!
The sappy, heart wrenching part of the movie was a story about a woman who had lost her son due to a strain of bacteria called E. coli O157:H7. As you might already know, there are other strains of E. coli that live in our intestines and are completely harmless. They are, in fact, beneficial because they can prevent germs from growing where they live. However, E. coli O157:H7 is one of the harmful strains and has been known to cause food poisoning. If you look at the wikipedia article, the introductory paragraph makes it sound like a nasty little beast. If you read further, wikipedia notes that most people recover in about a week, but can cause a complication in about 5% of those who get an infection. Of those 5%, about 4% actually die of the complication. That right there says to me that E. coli O157:H7 infection is not some rampaging death virus killing anyone who eats conventially grown vegetables and caged chickens. However, wikipedia is a nice starting point, not a place to find hard scientific facts. I moved on to the CDC and (feeling a bit like I was playing Pandemic) found a report published in their “Emerging Infectious Diseases” journal (Volume 5, Number 5, if you’re interested). The report was exactly what I was looking for; it had statistics on various foodborne illnesses, including our friend E. coli O157:H7. The CDC lists the infection with a hospitilization rate of 0.295, so not quite 3 people out of 1000 go to the hospital when they contract the beastie. The infection has a fatality of 0.0083, so less than one person in 1000 die from the complications of E. coli O157:H7 infection. Of the over 73,000 people who were infected, only 609 of them died (for reference, the U.S. has a population of over 300,000,000). The woman has a sad story with her son, but there would be far more scientifically valid and accurate ways to present the issue of meat processing and contaminants than citing E. coli O157:H7 infection. 609 people is a significant amount of people, but Food, Inc. uses emotion and tears to blow it out of proportion. The actual figure for deaths from E. coli O157:H7, put into perspective, never enters the movie.
The issue of pesticides is a far more important topic. I can’t express to you how upsetting the pesticide misconceptions are, but I will try to clear some of them up. The USDA regulates organic labelling and requires certain conditions to be met if a food has an organic sticker on it. One of those conditions is a restriction on pesticide use, so organic farmers use other techniques to kill pests. Therefore, it is certainly true that conventionally grown crops have more pesticides than organic ones. Conveniently, the FDA publishes reports on pesticides, including whether or not the tested foods meet the EPA standards for pesticide content. To quote the report, “Results in this and earlier reports continue to demonstrate that levels of pesticide residues in the U.S. food supply are overwhelmingly in compliance with EPA’s permitted pesticide uses and tolerances.” The entire purpose of organizations like the EPA and FDA are to make sure that our food is safe, and they publish scientific reports constantly to update us on how they’re doing. Pesticides are not some horrible “chemical” (remember: the air we breathe, the clothes we wear, the water we bathe in–those are all chemicals, too) that will kill you. You shouldn’t go licking every apple in the fruit section of the grocery store, but you also don’t need to buy into the hype and only buy organic because you think you will die from pesticide use otherwise.
A note: When you are doing your own fact checking outside of a film, you still have to be wary. I always looked for peer-reviewed scientific papers and reports published by agencies like the FDA, CDC, and USDA. If an article is saying things like “Scientists say…” or “It has been proven…” or “A study by so-and-so says…” you need to find more information. Good articles should cite their sources. When they give a name with Ph.D. at the end of it, don’t automatically assume that person knows what (s)he’s talking about. Look up their history and affiliations, even if it’s just on Wikipedia.
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