Fast Food and Food Justice

In my opinion, fast food doesn't really help the cause of food justice. Although it provides cheap food at an affordable price, I don't believe that it counts as real food. It's not a sufficient sort of food for people to eat. In fact, it causes many illnesses such as obesity and diabetes. To me, that means that food that can potentially kill you does not count as food that is sufficient for people to live off of. One burger alone contains up to 1100 calories and about 80 grams of fat. (www.jackinthebox.com). These are good numbers for someone who hasn't eaten in a few days. But for a normal person, this is something that is extremely unhealthy. This is not a way for people to eat. It hinders food justice because people think that there are sufficient supplies of food being serviced from such establishments such as Jack in the Box, when really its false and unhealthy products that are hurting people more than helping them. That is why and how I feel fast doesn't contribute to helping food justice at all.

-Morgan Galusha

In my previous blog I researched what food justice actually was. So, as a follow up, I decided to research the restaraunt Pita Pit. I wanted to see if Pita Pit contributed to our country's lack of food justice or if they helped to aid our country in the food justice crisis. After visiting www.pitapit.com, I found that, in my opinion, they aid our country in the food justice crisis. First of all, they have big portions of food for a very cheap price. They average about six dollars per pita, but each pita contains about three to four hundred calories. In addition, they serve food from about nine in the morning until about four in the morning. This allows people to get food at almost any hour. Plus, they deliver in order to reach more people. They don't charge for delivery either so it makes it more accessible to more people. Their delivery goes for the entire time they are open. All of these things increase the amount of food justice in our world. The low prices, easy access, and big portions help to feed many people. Especially starving college students. So far, they have fed me an immense amount of times. That is how I feel Pita Pit contributes to food justice in our society.

-Morgan Galusha

What is food justice?

So, before our group began this blog, I thought the defintion of food justice was the right of people to have food that is prepared in a natural and more nutritional way, as compared to the processed food that everyone is used to eating today. However, I figured that this was not the proper definition. So, I went to google and looked up food justice. The first defintion that i found stated that food justice is the concept that everyone should have sufficient food. It is hard for food justice to exist in this world. This is because many people live in poverty and many crops fail around the world. Not to mention, the fact that many people lose their jobs and the costs of food continue to rise. So, in other words, food justice would exist if everyone had enough food to go around. This knowledge will help me to be more aware of the lack of food justice going on in our society today.

McDonald's

In my last blog I did a little research on fast food industries including McDonald's, so I have decided to go further in depth on the whole process of McDonald's food. Do we really know what we are eating every time we step foot into a McDonald's restaurant? The answer to that question is no. I think that people are very oblivious to many of the facts that go behind the scenes at McDonald's.

Not only is there a form of animal cruelty, because of over-feeding them to make them larger (and less healthy to consume), but there is what is called Economic Imperialism. McDonald's is a very anthropocentric food chain and everything that they do is to benefit themselves and not the environment. They use poorer countries for America's benefit which ends up "keep[ing] most black people poor and hungry while many whites grow fat" (The truth). Countless rainforests are going down every year to keep up with the growing demands for the food at McDonald's.

People are regularly fooled by McDonald's happy slogans and people are constantly being exposed to food that is not good for them or the environment. There is absolutely no justice in being exposed to food that is unhealthy and that most people are completely oblivious to it. They are more fooled to the prices involved with buying the food than the process of making the food. Chewing food is essential for a healthy diet and sends nutrients into the blood. The food served at McDonald's is completely lacking in bulk and makes chewing it very easy. This promotes more over-eating and a craving for the unhealthy food that McDonald's offers. McDonald's is promoting food for people who can't afford to eat at healthy, non-fast food, restaurants. They are first of all not letting people know about the healthiness of their food, but they are also promoting it to the poorer people. This makes it so the poorer people think that the food is delicious and great for the dollar. But really, they are getting the short end of the stick because McDonald's food is incredibly bad for the human body and the continuous promoting of it is completely unjust towards people and animals of the world.

--Amanda Lai

Today I enjoyed a huge delicious Chipotle burrito, and as I was reading one of the cups with the little tidbits about Chipotle's view on food justice, I thought...why not research and write about it?

While googling the phrase "Chipotle Mexican Grill Food Justice" the first thing that came up was an article about a protest that occurred May of this year. (http://indymedia.us/en/2008/06/31733.shtml)This protest was protesting for better working conditions of farm-workers that provide Chipotle with some of their ingredients, in this case tomatoes. They only ask that the company pays a penny more per pound of tomatoes that they buy, which according to the CIW(Coalition of Immokalee Workers), come from Immokalee, Florida. The thing is that McDonald's, as well as Burger King and Subway have followed through with the "one penny more".

One fact about Chipotle that I hear all the time is that they are affiliated with McDonald's. As of today that is not true because McDonald's "completed a tax-free swap of class B common stock in Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG), for its own common stock."(Wiki)

This protest was protesting for better working conditions of farm-workers that provide Chipotle with some of their ingredients, in this case tomatoes. They only ask that the company pays a penny more per pound of tomatoes that they buy, which according to the CIW(Coalition of Immokalee Workers), come from Immokalee, Florida. The thing is that McDonald's, as well as Burger King and Subway have followed through with the "one penny more".

Just one penny more per pound!!

Did do "one penny more":

Did NOT do "one penny more":

One fact about Chipotle that I hear all the time is that they are affiliated with McDonald's. As of today that is not true because McDonald's "completed a tax-free swap of class B common stock in Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG), for its own common stock." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipotle_Mexican_Grill) So because of that, McDonald's doesn't have any affiliation with Chipotle anymore, even though McDonald's is a company who followed suit with the "one penny more" while Chipotle doesn't comment on it.

The truth is that this is a blemish in Chipotle's philosophy of "Food with Integrity". They themselves are being hypocrites and have even been outdone by fast food companies like McDonald's and Burger King in this subject of tomatoes. The justice of how the food gets from being grown to our plate has been compromised in the name of Chipotle and I believe this post may shed some light on the true ethics Chipotle has.

Organice Food Justice

"Organic" means food grown without most conventional pesticides or fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's website. To carry the "organic" seal, a product must be certified as having been produced according to federal regulations. It has been perceived to be healthier than food grown with conventional pesticides and fertilizers. According to the Organic Trade Association, annual sales of organic food and beverages grew from $1 billion in 1990 to well over $20 billion in 2007.

However, according to an LA Times article posted today, this perception may not be true. The healthiness of organically grown food has not been proved scientifically. A 2002 study in the journal Food Additives and Contaminants showed that there were more pesticide residues on conventional foods, than there were on organic foods. This is the case even after thorough washing and cleaning of the food. So the question is, whether or not people want to pay up to 40% more than conventional food, for organic food, when there is no clear evidence that organic food is any healthier than conventionally grown foods. To me it makes sense that organic would be healthier than conventional food, because of how carefully it's grown, and how naturally it is kept. But I'm not a scientist, so who am I to say. I personally don't prefer organic over conventional, but that's just me. We'll just have to see what more information comes out in the future.
-Joseph Park

Fast Food

Looking on what my fellow bloggers have been saying, I now think that food justice is everyone's right to have healthy and nutritional food. All of the food industries such as mass production and fast food are really ruining the education of children's minds. I truly believe that everyone should have a right to the types of food that is healthy, even if they do not necessarily have enough money to purchase it. It is their given right to have decent food and have the ability to either raise it on their own or obtain it in some way.

"Education is perhaps the first line of offense in the long fight to change eating patterns and food distribution in any given neighborhood" (Food System Alternatives). I completely agree with this quote. If children are taught and raised a certain way, their eating habits will reflect that of their upbringing. For instance, if parents only eat fast food, then the children will most likely pick up those eating habits. Fast food is limiting the people who do not have enough money to buy fresh food. Fresh food these days are very easily accessed by the people that have enough money to go and buy them. The food rights to the people without enough money are really limited, which is why many of them resort to fast food because they will be getting more food to their dollar.

The cartoon posted with this basically shows that in a fast food restaurant there is no type of border or limit to how much (or what) people are allowed to buy. It also shows that there is no control over the diet of the food that goes into fast food chains. The chickens could really eat anything and still be sold to a fast food chain and consumed by consumers that really do not know what they are consuming.

--Amanda Lai