Thursday, July 4, 2013

Processed and junk food industry is causing food shortages and hunger

If you want a healthy life, you have got to eat healthy food.

Cancer in a Can: The Shocking True Story of how Pringles are Made

I hope you do read the article linked above; but even if you don't, I'd like to make a point : We should not have to even come to that.

If authorities across the world were really worried about food shortages, then the first thing to do is to shut down the entire junk foods / processed foods industry, like chips, kurkure, soft drinks, biscuits etc. Yes, soft drinks as well, all of them. They use loads of SUGAR. Guess which is one of the most water-intensive crops? And guess which planet's limited groundwater reserves are being used for soft drinks??

These multi-billion dollar industries are not feeding any hungry people, and are growing their ingredients on vast amounts of land that would otherwise have been used to grow real food to feed people. In the process, by dealing in bulk, they are causing monocropping over huge lands which makes use of fertilizers, pesticides and excessive water consumption inevitable. The lands they use then lose their fertility over time, ending up into wasteland that won't feed any people even long after these companies have left.



In countries facing massive malnutrition and rising hunger with rising food prices, it is ridiculous to monopolize so much land to make NON-FOOD. Talking about aquaponics and vertical farming? Rainwater harvesting? New nano filters for water purification? Well, why not make it mandatory for the massively profit-making processed foods industries to use only these ways to get the ingredients for their products? Why are we asking for these technologies to be taken up by food growers when you have a gigantic processed foods industry that needs to get off of fertile lands first?

Wouldn't it be simple common sense to make Pepsi and Coke spend a small chunk of their turnovers on the R&D needed to develop new water filtration and rainwater harvesting systems? If they're causing a problem, isn't it only fair to get them, who have the resources needed, to solve it?? We made car manufacturers spend parts of their profits to develop better seatbelts and anti-skid brakes and airbags... we didn't leave that on the shoulders of citizens, NGOs, nonprofits or governments. So what's with this mentality of only non-profit groups and taxpayers being saddled with the responsibility of fixing world hunger, when clearly there are profit-making companies using up precious resources that would have mitigated it?

If there was such a thing as governmental or societal regulation of industry, then I think this is what it would have looked like. I know there isn't, but to people who think there is, this is what it would have looked like. So look again.

And if you want to be lazy and just blame the consumer as most mainstream media is paid to do, let's have a fair deal, shall we? With unhealthy foods being bombarded into people's faces, being hyped about and even lied about by role models, actors, sports stars, with the amount of ad-spend being done on promoting them over healthy natural food, is it too much to ask for an equal footing for healthy food? If you talk about fair play and letting the consumer decide, then how about giving both options equal airtime so the consumer can actually decide? Presently we've tilted the table one way and are expecting the ball to roll the other way.

No comments:

Gift Economy

Would you like to show your appreciation for this work through a small contribution?
Contribute

(PS: there's no ads or revenue sources of any kind on this blog)

Related Posts with Thumbnails