Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Dear Society

I was discussing the whole Pink slime scandal with a relative, and I feel it warrants a frank discussion.

Dear Society

What did you expect?

Seriously, you make demands of the food industry to keep prices low while inflation demands otherwise. You want the price of that Big Mac to stay right where it is, and you want the taste to stay the same. Sure, nobody wants to pay more for something they were able to get for a cheaper price in the past, but let's be reasonable here.

Let's talk about a few side effects of the demands that YOU have made of your food industry:

Migrant workers and your food. You want low prices right? Well why not get a bunch of nameless migrants to go harvest the food? We hardly have to pay them anything, AND we get their children to work with them in the fields! That we we don't even have to see them while we cruise around in our nice cars stuffing our faces full. In restaurants, much of the work done in the back is done by low-wage immigrants, many of whom are here illegally. You don't get to see most of them, because heaven forbid you feel guilty for seeing what your expectations have led to in the back of the house.

So now that we've covered how we keep our labor wages in the industry criminally low, what about the food itself? Have you looked at Hershey's kisses lately? Those aren't even legally chocolate anymore! But what do you care? They're cheap! And then you act SO surprised when things like pink slime come along.

The point I'm trying to make here, is when you are blaming the industry for what's in your food, don't forget who demanded the circumstances for it to be there in the first place. You.

I'm sorry this post had less humor in it. Hopefully posts like this will be few and far between.

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