Rethinking
WHAT IS JUNK FOOD?
JUNK FOOD
Junk food is a slang term for food that is of little nutritional value and often high in fat, sugar, salt, and calories with little protein, vitamins or minerals.
In July 1991 a financial crisis triggered India to open up its economy, remove subsidies and import duty on several items and invite foreign competition. In the decade that followed, liberalization and globalization proceeded unchallenged and consumer food industry grew post liberalization. The growing presence of fast food chains has altered the prior common pattern of food consumption. The profits of the fast food chains have been made possible by losses imposed on the rest of society.
Practically all processed foods contain high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Corn is a common genetically modified crop which has been shown to cause tumours in rodents in a recent study. CHIPS
FAST FOOD
STORE BROUGHT COOKIES AND BISCUITS
FORTIFIED MILK
INSTANT NOODLES
SAUCES AND DRESSINGS
BREAKFAST CEREALS
Monosodium glutamate the most prolific food flavour enhancer or MSG can cause headaches, chest pains, obesity and chronic illnesses. Foods labeled “No MSG added” have other ingredients which have the same makeup as MSG.
AERATED DRINKS
PROCESSED JUICES
Juices, and Fruit Jams companies all advertise that they contain real fruit juice, when in reality, they only contain about 5% of juice or less.
Soda is the most powerful acid producing substance and cancer cells thrive in an acidic environment. An acidic body is also much more susceptible to viral and bacterial attacks.
DO OUR FOOD CHOICES MATTER? Most of us are not aware of what cost ecologically we pay for our choices. We are feeding ourselves by destroying the world’s capacity to produce. Although aimed at increasing wealth and living standards in practice foreign investment has often involved the devastation of local economies, and social and environmental collapse.
CONSUMERS EMPTY CALORIES Researchers warn a dietary pattern devoid of balanced diets is responsible for the incidence of micronutrient deficiencies and related problems such as iodine deficiency disorders, anaemia and growth disorders and low IQ in children. THEORY OF HEALTHY RELATIVITY Advertising spin continues to promote alarmingly unhealthy foods as being wholesome to those who are sincerely trying to improve their eating habits. The Subway restaurant chain is a classic example. The alarmingly high sodium content of the processed meats from an animal killed five or six months ago, then pumped with preservatives is being considered fresh.
YOU ARE ADDICTED Fast food corporations aim to create foods our biology drives us to consume which blend sugar, fat and salt in a single meal. Food scientists add colour additives and adjust crunchiness and, density by using a range of fats, gums, starches, emulsifiers, and stabilisers to make it taste right. When children eat those foods it strengthens their neuro-circuitry to eat that food again and thus become addicted for life.
MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS
FLAVOR CHEMISTS
ADVERTISING
BIOTECHNOLOGISTS
EMPLOYEES HIGH TURNOVER RATES Fast food Franchisees are constantly pressurised by the company to keep wages at a minimum low. Investment on training is minimal. As such the employees don’t develop any special skills which results in high turnover rates.
FLAVOUR AND NUTRITION IS MANUFACTURED Juice companies hire flavour and fragrance companies to engineer flavour packs to add back to the processed juice to make it taste fresh. Flavour packs are derived from orange essence but they resemble nothing found in nature. Breakfast cereals and sodas use fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as a sweetener. Corn is a common genetically modified crop.
There are no ground-rules for becoming an ethical consumer. Every consumer is faced with numerous choices these days which makes shopping a confusing prospect. For a consumer who wants to make a difference with the choices they make, this becomes even more complicated because there is loads of contradictory information out there. Every decision you take should be an educated choice.
GOVERNMENT
ANIMALS
FARMERS
GLOBALIZATION PAVES THE WAY FOR GLOBAL CAPITALISM. Corporations can operate anywhere in the world often seek places with the lowest environmental standards and weakest labour laws. Thus, governments often compete to entice investors with ever weakening standards. Consequently, Globalization strips governments of their sovereign powers.
CORPORATE ABUSE OF OUR FOOD Corporations often import entire systems of agriculture and production. The growing number of foreign fast food chains like KFC would deplete India’s livestock which would adversely affect its agriculture and environment. Indian farmers would shift from production of basic crops to more lucrative varieties like animal feed and meat, leaving poorer sections of the society with no food.
REPATRIATION OF PROFITS When a multinational company enters any country, the government hope that it will increase the employment rate and result in economic growth. However the host country experiences these benefits for a short time period. Because of the capital intensive nature of MNC’s. whatever they earn they repatriate that profit back to their home country.
CORPORATE CONTROL OF SEEDS Monsanto (an American multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation) is desperately to delink the epidemic of farmers suicides in India from its growing control over the cotton seed supply. Seed is the first link in the food chain. When a corporation controls seed, it controls life including the life of our farmers. Monsanto now controls more than 90% of the cotton cultivated area of India and has wiped out local cotton varieties.
ENVIRONMENT
ANIMALS REDUCED TO INDUSTRIAL COMMODITIES Some of these chains have started developing a new breed of chicken with unusually large breasts that could not stand properly because of their excessive weight further reducing their activity. We are eating animals whose life has been spent crammed, against thousands of other animals in a dark, dank, faeces-filled building known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.
BURDEN ON ENVIRONMENT Animal waste from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations is also a major source of pollution since intensive factory farming of cattle leads to concentration of organic waste from livestock which in the case of small farms with decentralised livestock economies is integrated with agriculture. THE ECOLOGICAL COST Fast food chains with their demand for a uniform product have created long supply chain which means extensive systems that chiefly depend on cheap transportation. Paper plates and napkins, plastic cups and tableware, drinking cartons or PET bottles and other items used by fast food and processed food companies are tossed in the garbage instead of being recycled. Environmental friendly products are much more expensive and as such do not meet the companies economic
HOW TO BECOME AN ETHICAL CONSUMER?
BUY LOCAL
READ LABELS
GROW ORGANIC
ECONOMICALLY WEAK DISPLACEMENT OF THE POOR Small farmers, including fisherfolk, pastoralists and indigenous people, who make up almost half of India’s population, are capable of producing food for their communities and feeding the world in a sustainable and healthy way. The fast food companies brought jobs only for a handful of educated people and displaced the poor majority. Entry of Western fast food chains in India threatens the livelihood of more than 70 per cent Indian population which depends on agriculture.
FAST FOOD AND PROCESSED FOODS KILL DIVERSITY
RAISE AWARENESS
AVOID PROCESSD FOODS AND FAST FOOD
JOIN A GLOBAL CAMPAIGN
RASOI (our Hindi word for “kitchen”) literally means that special sacred place in the home where the juices flow naturally and organically. Fast-food restaurants with their emphasis on food as something to be consumed as quickly, efficiently, and inexpensively as possible, alters the way people eat and, thereby poses a profound threat to the entire cultural complex of many societies including our own.