Research Paper

Food and money; these are two means that Americans depend on for security and survival. Unavoidably, the two are interconnected and linked. One is necessary to have the other. In a capitalist nation, a basic value is to get the most out of spending the least. Industrial corn production is the result of an easily transformed species in the hands of monetarily driven, ambitious industries. Linked to this is the general level of dissatisfaction Americans have with the quality of their wellbeing. The relationship between corn and capitalism contributes to the over-all poor wellbeing in America.

First, the concept of wellbeing will be defined as follows. Wellbeing is a measure of an individual’s development of self-actualization—the fulfillment of one’s aptitude and capability. Positive wellbeing is defined as strides towards self-actualization while negative wellbeing is backpedaling away from self-actualization. According to Marx, the goal is “to ‘humanize’ or ‘spiritualize’ the senses, and bodily life in general, as part of the process of self-development and self- realization” (Levin). Developing humanization is part of the process towards self-actualization, towards developing a positive wellbeing. Humanization is characterized by creating a means to complete an action with compassion and benevolence.

Capitalism is a system used to deal with monetary obstacles. According to Capitalism.org, capitalism is “a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. Under capitalism, the state is separated from economics (production and trade), just like the state is separated from religion. Capitalism is the system of laissez faire. It is the system of political freedom” (capitalism.org). This system enables people to create businesses. A business is an organized group of people with a common goal of selling a commodity; the goal is to make money. When a business manufactures raw materials, it becomes an industry. The growth an industry makes is measured by the amount of money it is worth. If an industry makes 25 million a year and it spends 30 million a year, it has a negative value of 5 million dollars. But, if an industry proceeds to increase its total value, it is growing. A way to increase value of an industry is by making the most amount of money by spending the least. Corn is a useful commodity for this tactic.

Michael Pollen is the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. For the research of his book, Pollen went to an Iowa farm to see first hand the process of growing corn. The farm Pollen visits is owned by the Naylor family. Pollen found out that corn is such a commodity that “Naylor’s grandson, raising nothing but corn and soybeans on a fairly typical Iowa farm, is so astoundingly productive that he is, in effect, feeding some 129 Americans” (Pollen). Corn is everywhere. It is in the food Americans eat and the drinks American drink. Mystery ingredients such as modified and unmodified cornstarch, MSG, caramel color, glucose syrup, HFCS, maltodextrin, crystalline fructose, polyols, xanthan gum, asorbic acid, lecithin, dextrose, lactic acid, lysine, corn four, corn syrup, and maltose are all derived from corn. Michael Pollen informs the American grocery shopper that “corn is in the coffee whitener and Cheez Whiz, the frozen yogurt and TV dinner, the canned fruit and ketchup and candies, the soups and snacks and cake mixes, the frosting and gravy and frozen waffles, the syrups and hot sauces, the mayonnaise and mustard, the hot dogs and the bologna, the margarine and shortening, the salad dressings and the relishes and even the vitamins. (Yes, it’s in the Twinkie, too)” (Pollen). Corn is in the animals we eat because they are fed corn. Because corn is everywhere, it has a huge influence on the quality of food in America.

Corn is ingrained in America’s capitalist history. In the 1950s, industries “bought up land and brought efficiency, planning, and mechanization on a grand scale to food production. Corporate agriculture—agribusiness as it’s known—increased crop yields and dramatically lowered the price of food” (“What’s for Dinner?” 26). John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath illustrates this phenomenon. The Joad family is forced off their farm after the Dust Bowl that led into the Great Depression. The efficiency of machines took over the work that men could do for jobs in Oklahoma. Steinbeck says, “this tractor does two things - it turns the land and turns us off the land. There is little difference between this tractor and a tank. The people were driven, intimidated, hurt by both. We must think about this” (Steinbeck 156-157). The industries in America who deal with our food care about efficiency, instead of caring about the quality of our food. Food is a pertinent part of wellbeing because when a person is hungry, he or she cannot concentrate on the work he or she is doing. Hungry people tend to be short of temper until they are fed. When the food industries do not pay careful attention to the quality of America’s food, they are lowering the quality of food that feeds a person who needs to eat to get his or her job done. America’s low quality of food is linked to a lower standard of wellbeing in America.

The corn industry is getting creative with its uses of corn. When an American goes to the grocery store, the “cucumber gets its shiny gleam from a sprayed on vegetable wax made from corn” (“What’s for Dinner?” 27). That sounds tasty. A form of corn that more and more Americans are becoming aware of is high fructose corn syrup. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is a corporation who “controls about 35% of the high fructose market” (“What’s for Dinner?” 28). In the 1980s ADM paid for lobbying to limit the imports of sugar. This forced the price of sugar to rise. Sugar then became more expensive than high fructose corn syrup, “causing a whole-sale switch to the ADM product” (“What’s for Dinner?” 29). 42% of corn is used to make high fructose corn syrup. 600 million tons of corn are produced annually worldwide. Corn’s production value is 25 billion dollars. Almost half of the corn produced worldwide is grown in America. This excess of corn makes it extremely cheap—exactly what the industry wants.

Cheap corn contributes to poor worker conditions, the lack of unions, and death. Tyson is a pork and beef company that feeds its pigs and cattle corn. Tyson has contributed to much unhappiness in the U.S. Tyson “was found guilty of pumping untreated wastewater from a poultry plant into a tributary that empties into the Lamine River in Missouri” in 2003 (“What’s for Dinner?” 30). They have also been questioned for hiring illegal immigrants from Mexico. When three workers got arrested, they pled guilty. Tyson fired them. In 1999, seven of Tyson’s workers died in less than seven months. The industries that make America’s food are selfish—the care about money. The wellbeing of the Tyson workers is degraded. When Americans eat food prepared by industries that abuse their workers, Americans are supporting the abuse of these workers and a lower quality of wellbeing.

American meat chickens “are killed within six to seven weeks of hatching. They are kept in tiny cages and are fed a diet of concentrated nutrients laced with antibiotics and other drugs. The animals fatten up so fast that sometimes their legs can’t support them; some become crippled under their own weight and die within inches of water and food” (“What’s for Dinner?” 29). Chickens should be able to walk around and live. An average chicken’s lifespan, a healthy free-range chicken, is seven years. By eating chickens that have low quality lives, this lowers the bar of quality in humans. “You are what you eat” and it is up to you whether or not to eat fat, blind chickens that cannot walk. Self-actualization is readily approachable by being humane. Tyson and other food industries are not humane, since they do not care about their workers or the quality of the food they make. These food industries are only concerned with quantity, they give no contribution to self-actualization, and they are detrimental to positive wellbeing in the lives of Americans. Americans deserve good quality food. They deserve to eat meat if they so choose because it is an arrant source of protein and has been a part of the human diet for centuries. But, this meat should be fed grass and see the light of day before its life is given up for food.

What Americans need is a food revolution. Americans need to take a step back and seriously question where their food comes from, and demand answers. Americans need to realize that they can demand change. Capitalism is not all bad because it is up to consumers to tell the industry what they want. A business or industry will listen to its consumers. Eric Schlosser explains this similarly with the example of the fast food industry. He explains, “The first step toward meaningful change is by far the easiest: stop buying it. The executives who run the fast food industry are not bad men. They are businessmen. They will sell free-range, organic, grass-fed hamburgers if you demand it. They will sell will sell whatever sells at profit” (Schlosser). It is the consumer’s responsibility to turn an industry’s negative effect on Americans’ wellbeing around. It is impertinent to take the situation into the consumer’s own hands.

Works Cited

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Capitalism.org. Capitalism Magazine, 2004. Web. 6 Dec. 2010.

Levin, David Michael. THE BODY POLITIC: POLITICAL ECONOMY AND

THE HUMAN BODY. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1985. Print.

Pollen, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma. New York: Penguin Press, 2006. Print.

Schlosser, Eric. “Fast Food Nation”. The Conscious Reader, Brief Edition. Ed. Caroline

Shrodes, Michael Shugrue, Marc Dipaolo, Christian J. Matuschek. New York:

Pearson Educatio, 2008. 176-184. Print.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin

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