Schlosser

Eric Schlosser’s interview is interesting in that it answered a lot of questions I had been formulating in my head after reading Omnivore’s Dilemma. For instance, I was always curious as to how Michael Pollan started getting so involved with the food industry. I think I remember him saying in his book that he wanted to know where his food came from, but I feel like there’s more to the story than that. So when Schlosser explained exactly how his attention turned to fast food, I wasn’t all that surprised to read that he had become involved through writing on article on illegal immigrants and their relationship with big companies. I actually had a similar reaction to Schlosser’s when I heard people ranting about illegal immigrants and how they’re crossing the borders to take advantage of our free health care. Like Schlosser, this has always seemed suspiciously reductive to me. I have read a few articles about the hardships of migrant workers but I wasn’t really aware of the abuse of immigrant workers going on in the meat industry, though it certainly does not surprise me. That is one thing I really liked about Food Inc., its focus on the workers. It’s actually a very smart move because I don’t think the general public really cares to hear about immigrant worker abuse. But the way the movie presents it as an issue that affects the audience as well as the worker makes people think about it differently and compels them to be more concerned than they would if it was just the workers who were suffering. As bad as that sounds, it’s true, I think.

One other thing I wanted to comment on was Schlosser’s recommendations for a solution to the food crisis. He claims at the end of his list of things that should be changed that the reformation of the food industry is not a complex problem. But just a paragraph earlier, he says, “There’s no one thing, no simple cure, that is going to transform the American diet or our industrial food system” (17). Needless to say, Schlosser is oversimplifying rather badly with his statement about the complexity of the food industry reformation. Some of the solutions he offers are also somewhat oversimplified. For example, he says we should allow farm workers and restaurant workers to form unions. Now I think the farm workers thing would probably be a good idea but I think it would put a lot of restaurants out of business if restaurant workers were allowed to unionize. Plus, I think restaurants would probably have to reduce their staff and finding jobs would become difficult in the business. Not to mention, waiting tables is a huge employment for single moms. It’s one of the few ways that people can actually make ends meet in an “unskilled” job or whatever you call it. I think Schlosser needs to consider a little more carefully how these changes will affect everyone. I’m not saying his ideas are bad, most are good. But like Salatin says in TOD, you can’t do just one thing.