The Food Industry as Dr. Evil

[dennisrwood]

my karma ran over your dogma?

[Nathan]

Nathan, ever considered that the way in which your food is treated passes some affect onto you? (And I'm not even talking about the hormones, supplements etc. Just the sort of "karmic" influence?

what goes around comes around? What happens to the animals I eat is likely to happen to me because I eat them?

I'm not sure whether you're joking or not when you suggest this. I don't think karma has anything to do with anything.

[ur-bane]

I am the one person in the poll who eats fast food several times a week.
Like Cail stated earlier, I don't often think about how my food is treated while it is alive. Reading through the Think Tank has caused me to change habits before, (or at least take a closer look at an issue than I would have in the past) , so perhaps it is time for me to address more than just the convenience of a MickeyD's or a BK, KFC, LJS's on every corner.


Unfortunately, I don't see anything short of a complete boycott by the consumer stopping the fast food machine. The likelihood of that, as we all know, is slim to none.

We have been bred on convenience, speed, and disposability. That in turn has bred laziness. Why clean your toilet brush when you can simply flush it? Why wash your cloth napkin when you can simply toss your paper napkin into the trash?
It's a sad but true fact of life. We have let ourselves become enablers. Corporate Machines such as the fast food industry are an inevitable result of our own attitudes.

I am shamed to say that I am a huge offender. I use paper napkins. I throw away rotten food from the fridge. I eat fast food several times a week. How can I possibly effect a change on others that I have not levied on myself?
These corporate Monsters feed on people like me. Because people like me enable them to exist in the first place. Because people like me lack the discipline and overflow with the laziness that we as a society have bred.

[Plissken]

It's all in your attitude, Ur Bane: I used to love fast food, 'till I spent a month making my own meals. After that, "Having it My Way" meant one hell of alot more than whether or not to put a slice of chemically colored and flavored cucumber by-product between the lump of beef-based by-product and slices of bleached, nutritionally valueless, flavorless wheatish susbstance.

[ur-bane]

Don't get me wrong..I like to cook dinner with the best of them. Give me a kitchen and somebody else to clean the pots, and I'm in it for the duration. Or better yet, a BBQ grill. And fast food can in no way compare to the flavor of a real meal cooked at home.

My offender status, and also my laziness, is evidenced at lunch time. If I am too lazy to make a lunch before work, or didn't pack the leftovers from the night before in a convenient plastic product, I stop at a BK or Wendy's or Checkers.

I also think that if I had to kill and butcher my own meat, I would be a vegetarian.

[drew]

I was just as bad Ur-b when I was drving for a living..always fast food, or diners, the idea of eating a warm sandwich, while parked on the side of the road, was just unappealing.

Now that I work in a shop, I started taking my lunch EVERYDAY. It's been about 4 months, and I've only gone out about 3 times, and it was for coffee.

If you don't like sandwiches, take those left-overs you were foing to throw away to work.

If you don't have any, and you want a quick and easy lunch try breakfast...that's right...bring a couple packs of instant oatmeal, or a container of cereal, and a container of milk...or what I do is eggs. Hardley any prparation in the moring, just crack 3 eggs into a plastic container, put some salesa and cheese in another, at luch time mix them together, and microwave for a few minutes--you'll be the envy of the lunchroom!!!

[dennisrwood]

salads are quick and easy to make. can put just about anything in them. hundreds to choose from. also tomato and cheese sandwiches are good.

[Avatar]

We have been bred on convenience, speed, and disposability.

Well said.

--A

[drew]

We have been bred on convenience, speed, and disposability.

Well said.

--A

And don't forget the contributing factor:
Greed

[Plissken]

In this case, the "contributing factors" could be negated by teaching the population the joys of living well, instead of just conveniently.

[dennisrwood]

I'll sign up for that lecture Plissken, dang, not right now, Fear Factor is running a marathon.

[Plissken]

Do the contestants find the maggoty bull testes to be both "delicious" and "convenient"?

[dennisrwood]

I wonder if that's in the paperwork they sign?

you know what does upset me? these contests where the folks gorge themselves on food (hotdogs, eggs, testes, etc) what a damn waste. as my mom would say..."there are kids starving in China."

[Alynna Lis Eachann]

It's a consumer culture... you're not socially acceptable unless you buy/own/drive/eat the latest, the most popular thing. Like Jeep Camp - you only get to go if you have a jeep... how odd. Everything is about buying, and if you're making/cooking/building/sewing, etc. instead of buying, there's something wrong with you. What, are you too poor to buy it? Don't you know that this is in fashion? Can't keep up with the Joneses? Are you some kind of liberal-tree-hugging-animal-loving-ecoterrorist-hippie freak?

Consumer culture... and most people don't even realize they're living in it.

[dennisrwood]

Alynna asks:
Are you some kind of liberal-tree-hugging-animal-loving-ecoterrorist-hippie freak?

yes, guilty as charged.

[Alynna Lis Eachann]

LOL! Actually, I'm one, too... I just try to look like a practical one.

[Plissken]

It's a consumer culture... you're not socially acceptable unless you buy/own/drive/eat the latest, the most popular thing. Like Jeep Camp - you only get to go if you have a jeep... how odd. Everything is about buying, and if you're making/cooking/building/sewing, etc. instead of buying, there's something wrong with you. What, are you too poor to buy it? Don't you know that this is in fashion? Can't keep up with the Joneses? Are you some kind of liberal-tree-hugging-animal-loving-ecoterrorist-hippie freak?

Consumer culture... and most people don't even realize they're living in it.

Believe me, you can fully engage in the consumer culture by cooking your own food! There are many wonderful toys involved, to say nothing of the specialty meats, vegetables, spices, books, websites, cooking shows...

Plus, you get to eat really, really well!

[Iryssa]

Yes, we can paint the fast food industry as the evil entity, but our wasteful food habits as consumers (I'm not any different) serve to encourage the "run-away freight train." If we want to change the food industry's attitude, we need to change our own first.

I know this was a bit back there...but Matrixman...you rock *grin* Totally agree with everything you said in that post. Even the part about A&W (you'd think I would've been sick of it after I worked there for a few months). Though I prefer Tim Horton's to anything. Wonder if the food they serve could actually be classified as fast food...I mean, it's fast, sure...but they don't serve fries or anything.... *ponders*

...truthfully, though, I was having fast food several times a week until I moved into a tiny town that had only one fast-food place, and I only had enough money to "splurge" on that kind of thing once in a blue moon.

[drew]

IS Tims Fast Food?

You mean Crack-in-a-cup?
These Starbucks Drinkin' Americans don't know anything about Coffee addiction like WE do!!

Go to Any Tim's drive through, look in the Garbage next to it, what do you see?
Tons of Tim Hortens Coffee Cups!! It's like people just finish one and think, "Hmmm I could really go for a cup of Hortons right now!!"

But anyway, the only way to cure all of the Worlds food problems, and most of the other sociall problems, is for just about everyone to stop being so damned greedy.
Greed, and laziness go hand in hand.
Greed and sloth go hand in hand.
Greed and envy go hand in hand
Greed and lust go hand in hand....do I need to go on?

It's only been the last century or so, that we (as Humans) stopped caring for Mother Earth.
We don't really care how much damage we're doing, as long as we're comfortable for our short little stay.

It's so sad

[Iryssa]

IS Tims Fast Food?

You mean Crack-in-a-cup?
These Starbucks Drinkin' Americans don't know anything about Coffee addiction like WE do!!

Go to Any Tim's drive through, look in the Garbage next to it, what do you see?
Tons of Tim Hortens Coffee Cups!! It's like people just finish one and think, "Hmmm I could really go for a cup of Hortons right now!!"
...

It's only been the last century or so, that we (as Humans) stopped caring for Mother Earth.
We don't really care how much damage we're doing, as long as we're comfortable for our short little stay.

It's so sad

It really is sad...and I've been so amazed lately at how easy it actually is to reduce waste...just using a thermos instead of a disposable cup saves me up to three of those cups a day, plus those little cardboard sleeves that keep your hands from getting too warm...not to mention, I know a lot of my local coffee shops give discounts for using your own mug (does Tim's? It's been a while since I've ordered anything to-go from there...). Anyway, whether or not someone cares about the environment doesn't even have to be a factor (though it should be); just from a budgeting perspective it makes sense to be careful about what we buy from fast food places and the like. I've managed to reduce my coffee spendings to only about $1.50 a day (not including what beans cost to buy for my home coffee maker...I can never remember how much that is).

I'm feeling the need to make this a detailed example, so feel free to zone out for the rest of this. *grin*
Anyway, here are the before and afters of my four-day (on average; my schedule changed from week to week) school week.

Average spending per week on food & coffee before:
Meals: 4 lunches per week (4 soup containers and lids, 8 packages from crackers, 4 disposable spoons, 4 sheets of plastic wrap from buns), 8 snacks per week (4 cookies, 4 banana bread, plastic wrap on all) - About $16
Drinks: 12 cups of coffee per week (12 cups, 12 lids, 12 sleeves) - About $18
Average weekly spending on food/drinks at school BEFORE: $34

...After:
Meals: bring to school sandwiches - homemade bread (yay for bread machine ) and sandwich fillings: about $4
Drinks: 12 cups of coffee per week - 2 from home each day, 1 from school: about $6
Average weekly spending...AFTER: $10

Anyway, this isn't a very accurate example, I suppose, since I haven't taken into account say, what the initial cost of the flour I used to make the bread was, and I'm not sure about all my prices (I got as close as my memory would allow)...but you get the idea. Maybe that $24/week doesn't seem like a lot to many people...but trust me; as a student, it makes a huge difference