Drivers of Social Change
Today, industrialism seems to be infiltrated in nearly all facets of the food industry. When we piece apart the social aspects, it includes the labor (used by assemblers, manufactures, wholesalers, retailers, and eating places), the advertising of foods, social factors that drive convenience and processed foods, food safety, and the actors involved in the food system.
In Tansey and Worsley’s, The Food System, they note that Cargill uses the strategy of establishing relationships by “link [ing] suppliers and producers through its skills, knowledge and international expertise in commodity trading, processing, handling, transportation; food and ingredient processing; and risk management” (p. 107). Cargill has the ability to mass market their products, provide employment stability to its 66,000 workers, and afford complex food safety mechanisms.
In The University of Michigan’s Life Cycle-Based Sustainability Indicators, authors Heller and Keoleian note, “labor is the dominant cost of food marketing” totaling about 13.8 million workers in 1998. It too mentions food safety, noting that in 1996 the USDA initiated the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point Systems (HACCP) to reduce meat and poultry bacteria.
Processing foods to meet the needs of consumer preferences is another key social motivator. Heller and Keoleian point out consumer demand is high for white refined grains, so the manufacturer takes the whole wheat grain, removes the germ and bran, and what remains is the endosperm. They then grind it and re-enrich it with added nutrients they removed in the first place. This is an example of a manufactured ingredient. Whole foods are those that are left in their natural state without any preservatives or additives. Manufactured foods are those whose natural state has changed, and the manufacture uses it in conjunction with other ingredients to form a new product. It is then packaged to be sold to consumers.
Industrialization inevitably has changed the way food is processed. The influence of consumer demand has led to more hyper palatable flavor combinations with ingredients that fall far from natural. It is interesting to note that even those with the best intentions, we all can succumb to mouthwatering chemicals found in our foods.
Heller, M. C., & Keoleian, G. A. (2000, December 6). Life Cycle-Based Sustainability Indicators for Assessment of the U.S. Food System [Scholarly project].
Ikerd, J. (n.d.). Rethinking Sustainability; Food as a Metaphor [Scholarly project]. In Www.missouri.edu. Retrieved October 12, 2016, from http://web.missouri.edu/ikerdj/papers/MichiganCMURethinkingSustainability.pdf
Tansey, G., & Worsley, A. (1995). The Food System. New York, NY: Earthscan.