CNN Documentary About the Food Industry

In the featured documentary that you can watch by clicking on the provided link, CNN Money reporter Cristina Alesci goes behind the scenes to investigate the food industry. She examines how our food system has changed in recent decades and how it has impacted food safety and human health.

The Topics Covered Are:

What’s Really in Your Kid’s Breakfast Cereal?

Today’s processed cereals contain all of the colors of the rainbow. They are not the best choice for breakfast. In recent years, sales have started slipping as parents are getting savvier about the hazards of added sugars and artificial ingredients.

Fresh Produce Accounts for About Half of All Food Borne Disease:

Americans eat five times more leafy greens today compared to a couple of decades ago. While this is a good thing, the way this fresh produce is grown can harbor food borne illnesses.

The Fishy Reality Behind Most Seafood:

The U.S. imports 90% of its seafood, about 50 million pounds a day. Inspecting all this seafood is an impossible task. Of the billions of pounds of seafood entering the country each year, only about 4% is sampled for inspection. Much of the seafood sold in the U.S. comes from China. Need I say more?

Factory Farmed Meats, A Major Source of Ill Health:

Americans eat about 126 pounds of poultry, beef and pork per capita each year. Growing 1 pound of meat may require anywhere from 2 to 6 pounds of feed. Alesci visits a hog finishing farm in Iowa. In a matter of five to six months, the hogs grow from 13 pounds to 270 pounds. To fatten them up that fast, the animals are fed an unnatural diet consisting largely of corn and a secret formula of a dozen or so ingredients, including proteins (often sourced from animal byproducts) and even fat from other hogs.

The Secret to Better Health: Eat Real Food:

The solution to improving your health is often as simple as swapping processed foods for real food. Humans thrived on organically grown fruits and vegetables, grass-fed meats, pastured chicken eggs and other whole foods for centuries, while industrialized, chemical-dependent agriculture and processed foods were only recently invented.

As for finding high-quality ingredients, your best bet is to connect with a local farmer that raises crops and animals according to organic standards.

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