Factory Farms: Backbone of The Junk Food System

There is more and more information coming out that highlights the true environmental and health costs of factory farmed foods. The idea that human population can only be fed by massive industrial farms is a myth and it is destroying our world. The following is from some of the articles that have been coming out recently about this industry.

THE SLOW INSIDIOUS DISPLACEMENT of home cooked and communally shared family meals by the industrial food system has fattened our nation and weakened our family ties. In 1900, 2 percent of meals were eaten outside the home. In 2010, 50 percent were eaten away from home and one in five breakfasts is from MacDonald’s. Most family meals happen about three times a week, last less than 20 minutes and are spent watching television or texting while each family member eats a different microwaved “food.” More meals are eaten in the minivan than the kitchen. From the article Eating at Home can Save your Life.

There is no more potent symbol of the almost absolute control wielded by the international agri-food system (from landgrabbing to retailing), than the factory farm. These industrial complexes cause extensive pollution and disease in entire regions and emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases, all in order to produce food destined for the poor: “cheap” meat of dubious quality, whose true costs are never measured. This system is imposed on us, on humanity, and represent in one crisis the sum of multiple crises. In the almost endless list of calamities caused by factory farms, the genetically modified soy bean monoculture – farmed with pesticides and then used to feed imprisoned animals – means that everything returns to the same pockets at a harsh cost to the planet.

from - http://www.helladelicious.com/blog/stories-and-news/2011/02/factory-farms-backbone-of-the-junk-food-system/