Agribusiness and your Diet

The nature of agribusiness

Agriculture is a primary activity. This means that it is an activity that involves extracting raw materials or harvesting raw materials from the earth.

Agribusiness is the commercialization of agriculture. Agriculture becomes a business. Farms are owned by corporations. Crops are sold not meant to be eaten by locals.

Combined with an extensive transportation network, this makes for an extensive network of production and exchange.

Agribusiness and Preservatives

Farming has become more of a business. The nature of food production has reflected this change.

Businesses do everything they can to get their products to sell and try increasingly to sell more and more. Business advertise and indoctrinate people into their product and businesses look primarily at their bottom line.

This helps to explain how and why some ingredients have made their way into our foods.

Trans Fats

Trans fatty acids (commonly termed trans fats) are a type of unsaturated fat (and may be monounsaturated or polyunsaturated).

Unlike other fats, trans fats are neither required nor beneficial for health.[1] Eating trans fat increases the risk of coronary heart disease.[2] For these reasons, health authorities worldwide recommend that consumption of trans fat be reduced to trace amounts.

Too much trans fats in my food.

Because of these facts and concerns, the NAS has concluded there is no safe level of trans fat consumption. There is no adequate level, recommended daily amount or tolerable upper limit for trans fats. This is because any incremental increase in trans fat intake increases the risk of coronary heart disease

Obesity: Research indicates that trans fat may increase weight gain and abdominal fat, despite a similar caloric intake.[31] A 6-year experiment revealed that monkeys fed a trans-fat diet gained 7.2% of their body weight, as compared to 1.8% for monkeys on a mono-unsaturated fat diet.

Researchers at Harvard University found that the trans fat created by the hydrogenation process clogged the arteries of people who consumed foods made with the product. The researchers estimated that 30,000 Americans die each year because of the fats. Recent research suggests trans fat may also contribute to Type II diabetes.

McDonald's Part of the reason, companies like trans fats is

because they give foods a longer shelf life. There are all sorts of preservatives that get used in foods that help extend the lifetime of a food so that the businesses can ensure themselves of a sale.

But now many businesses are realizing that people are not happy with these ingredients.

After testing 18 varieties of oil in more than 50 blends during the last seven years, McDonald's told the Tribune last week that it finally struck gold. It found a suitable trans-fat-free oil that won't change the taste or texture of its top-selling menu item: french fries.

McDonald's decision to jettison trans fats represents a late but significant move. As obesity rates have risen, the fast-food industry has come under pressure from health and nutrition advocates, consumers and governments to change its menu offerings. McDonald's being the largest and best-known purveyor of burgers and fries, it has taken the most heat.

Despite the changes

Despite these changes, the food industry is still a business and dominated by the interests of businesses. They want their products to sell and are not so concerned about health risks.

The nation's No. 2 fast-food chain is snubbing nutritionists with the launch of a 730-calorie breakfast sandwich.

Burger King's Enormous Omelet Sandwich, the two-egg-sausage-cheese-and-bacon combo packs a gut-wrenching 47 grams of fat -- five more than the chain's signature burger, the Whopper.

"Americans are telling us that this is what they want," said Denny Marie Post, chief concept officer at the Miami-based chain.

Although dietitians and dieters alike cheered these healthier selections, some restaurateurs rebelled, beefing up offerings -- literally. It's a move that's paid off.

Fast Food World

Food production has become more of a business. As a result, as a country develops it takes on the benefits and problems of agribusiness and the fast food businesses.

Witness China: May Chen is slender and healthy, a lively little girl whose parents left their rural Chinese village just a decade ago in search of a better life. But at age 9, still in pigtails, she is already coming face to face with the forces that many say are making America fat and diabetic.

Asians, especially those from Far Eastern nations like China, Korea and Japan, are acutely susceptible to Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease and the subject of this series. They develop it at far lower weights than people of other races, studies show; at any weight, they are 60 percent more likely to get the disease than whites.

And that peril is compounded by the recent and sudden collision with American culture. Many of them left places where factory and field work was strenuous, televisions were rare and advertising was limited. They may speak little English and have poor access to medical care.

in China, the number of obese people has tripled since 1992 to 90 million, as Western food has become popular and prosperity has made it possible to eat more. The World Health Organization has warned that Asia faces a "tsunami" of diabetes in the coming decade, and health officials have assailed the Chinese government for its tepid response to the crisis.

The Difference Between Small and Large Farms. Why some people

insist on buying from small family farms

They're doing so because the food is fresher, less processed and generally tastes better than what you'd find in a supermarket. But there are also political and social considerations: supporting small farmers, these shoppers believe, will preserve farmland, reduce the number of industrial farms and help us move away from an agricultural economy that encourages the production of commodities like corn, soy and sugar at the expense of just about everything else.

Fewer and fewer family farms

What's wrong with big farms

For the most part, these are the farms that grow a single crop or raise large numbers of animals in close confinement. To sustain their unnatural existence, these megafarms, whether they're raising crops or animals, require enormous quantities of pesticides, fertilizers and antibiotics simply to survive. The result? Pollution, erosion and diseases that spread easily among factory-raised, immune-deficient animals.

Sadly, these farms aren't going away. In a perverse logic that defies nature, a farm needs to get ever larger and more specialized to survive. The number of farms with annual sales of more than $500,000 has increased 23 percent from 1997 to 2002. American farm policy, with a dazzling menu of subsidies, will keep us on this path for the foreseeable future.

Why should we care? Because our ways of farming are intimately linked to the destructive ways we're eating. Think about your local supermarket. There's fresh produce on the perimeter; but venture into the middle aisles and you're surrounded by processed, canned, preserved and frozen foods.

It may appear to be a world of variety, but look closer. The cookies, granola bars, crackers, chips, salad dressings and baby food all have one thing in common: they are made from derivations of corn, soy and sugar. About 70 percent of our agricultural land in the Midwest is devoted to producing these crops.

The farms that produce these single commodities average about 14,000 acres, roughly the size of Manhattan. And the future? Thomas Dorr, under secretary of agriculture for rural affairs, has predicted that 250,000-acre behemoths will dominate agriculture. If they do, the number of farms in Mr. Dorr's home state, Iowa, would drop to about 120 from 89,000.

"Get big or get out" has been what farmers have been told for decades. And big farms have come with one big benefit: inexpensive food. Americans spend a smaller percentage of their disposable income for food than anyone else in the developed world.

Obesity Epidemic Hits Child Safety Seat

Many young children are too heavy for standard car-safety seats, and manufacturers are starting to make heftier models to accommodate them, according to research on the obesity epidemic's widening impact

More than a quarter of a million U.S. children ages 1 to 6 are heavier than the weight limits for standard car seats, and most are 3-year-olds who weigh more than 40 pounds, the study found

Weight and Gas Mileage Want to spend less at the pump? Lose some

weight. That's the implication of a new study that says Americans are burning nearly 1 billion more gallons of gasoline each year than they did in 1960 because of their expanding waistlines. Simply put, more weight in the car means lower gas mileage.

The obesity rate among U.S. adults doubled from 1987 to 2003, from about 15 percent to more than 30 percent. Also, the average weight for American men was 191 pounds in 2002 and 164 pounds for women, about 25 pounds heavier than in 1960, government figures show.

The amount of extra fuel consumption blamed on weight gain since 1960 — 938 million gallons — would fill almost 2 million cars with gas for an entire year. However, that is only 0.7 percent of the total amount of fuel consumed by U.S. passenger vehicles each year, Jacobson said.

Phosphoric Acid

It is also used to acidify foods and beverages such as various colas, but not without controversy as to its health effects. It provides a tangy taste, and being a mass produced chemical, is available cheaply and in large quantities. The low cost and bulk availability is unlike more expensive natural seasonings that give comparable flavors, such as ginger for tangyness, or citric acid for sourness

Traditionally, the bone deficiency disease osteoporosis (literally "porous bones") has been seen mostly in post-menopausal women, particularly those who did not build high bone density in youth, typically due to insufficient calcium intake. Researchers have observed a positive correlation between soft-drink consumption and increased risk of osteoporosis in young women, which is now also seen in increasing prevalence in men of late middle age.

Corn Syrup

Many scientific articles and news reports have noted that since 1980, obesity rates have climbed at a rate remarkably similar to that of high-fructose corn syrup consumption.

Studies have shown that the human body metabolizes fructose, the sweetest of the natural sugars, in a way that may promote weight gain. Specifically, fructose does not prompt the production of certain hormones that help regulate appetite and fat storage

Among natural-foods enthusiasts and many nutritionists, there is a belief that the foods humans have been consuming for hundreds or even thousands of years are better handled by our bodies than many of the modern and chemically derived concoctions introduced into the food supply in the last 60 or so years.

Produced in large manufacturing facilities scattered mostly across the flat, golden expanse of the American corn belt, high-fructose corn syrup is not a product that anyone could cook up at home using a few ears of corn.

Starting in 1980, around the time that manufacturers started replacing sugar in sodas with a more cheaply produced sweetener — high-fructose corn syrup — there was a sharp increase in male and female obesity in the United States. From 1980 to 2000, the incidence of obesity doubled, after having remained relatively flat for the preceding 20 years, the data showed. Could high-fructose corn syrup be making us fat, Professor Bray wondered? After all, according to his analysis of government consumption data, per capita intake of the syrup had increased by more than 1,000 percent from 1970 to 1990, exceeding the changes in the intake of any other food group tracked by the Department of Agriculture.

"Fat Land" by Greg Critser, generated more awareness of high-fructose corn syrup. Mr. Critser proposed that the syrup made consumers fat because it was so cheap, and thus food makers could afford to offer more products with it and more copious portions.

Manufacturers had always been able to buy the sweetener at prices 20 percent to 70 percent less than those of sugar.

Mr. Critser argued that the cost savings allowed soft-drink companies to create larger sizes that were only marginally more expensive, thus propelling people to drink more soda. It also freed up extra marketing money, he said. "High-fructose corn syrup really allowed companies to transform their brands and to become some of the biggest brands in the world,"

Barney: I don't know where you magic pixies came from but I like

your pixie drink.

Also in the 1980's, supersizing began in earnest. In 1983, for example, 7-Eleven rolled out its 44-ounce soda and, in 1988, the huge 64-ounce. And McDonald's began supersizing its drinks in the late 80's. But whether all of this would have happened anyway, even if sodas still were sweetened with pricier sugar, is hard to say, according to analysts.

"I think that the higher consumption of soft drinks today is more about the increased prevalence of product," he said. "It's the growth of fast-food restaurants, much more availability in supermarkets, the growth of convenience stores with coolers in them and a huge build-out of new vending machines in the 1990's. I don't think it has anything to do with high-fructose corn syrup."

For example, consumption of glucose kicks off a cascade of biochemical reactions. It increases production of insulin by the pancreas, which enables sugar in the blood to be transported into cells, where it can be used for energy. It increases production of leptin, a hormone that helps regulate appetite and fat storage, and it suppresses production of another hormone made by the stomach, ghrelin, that helps regulate food intake. It has been theorized that when ghrelin levels drop, as they do after eating carbohydrates composed of glucose, hunger declines.

Fructose is a different story. It "appears to behave more like fat with respect to the hormones involved in body weight regulation," explains Peter Havel, associate professor of nutrition at the University of California, Davis. "Fructose doesn't stimulate insulin secretion. It doesn't increase leptin production or suppress production of ghrelin. That suggests that consuming a lot of fructose, like consuming too much fat, could contribute to weight gain." Whether it actually does do this is not known "because the studies have not been conducted," said Havel.