Fast Food the whole industrial food system began with fast food in the 1930s, a new form of restaurant arose—the drive-in the McDonald brothers had a very successful drive-in, but decided to cut costs and simplify they had a revolutionary idea- bring the factory system to the restaurant kitchen they trained each worker to only do one thing again and again (this way, they could pay them a low wage and easily find someone to replace them)
McDonald’s fast food was a HUGE success new mentality of uniformity, conformity, and cheapness when McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of ground beef in the US, and they want all of their beef around the world to taste the EXACT same, they change how ground beef is produced the McDonald’s corporation is also the largest purchaser of potatoes, and one of the largest purchasers of pork, chicken, tomatoes, lettuce, and even apples now, there are essentially a handful of companies controlling our food system in the 1970’s the top 5 beef packers controlled only about 25% of the market, today the top 4 control more than 80% of the market… the same with pork (VIDEO-1:26) even if you don’t eat at a fast food restaurant, you’re eating meat that’s being produced by the system it’s really only 3 or 4 companies controlling all of the meat in stores (not farmers, as the labeling implies)
Chicken
Tyson is the biggest meat-packing company in the entire world the industry changed the entire way that chicken are raised (VIDEO- 1:25)
“we’re not producing chickens, we’re producing food… it’s all highly mechanized… all of the birds coming off of those farms have to be almost exactly the same size” –Richard Lobb (National Chicken Council) the goal is to produce a lot of food on a small amount of land at little price after the decline of tobacco, many farmers in the South turned to chicken farming the chicken industry has helped poor communities the farmers have contracts with Tyson the chickens never see sunlight a farmer had offered Food