I could stand here and tell you facts like most processed foods with vanilla flavouring
actually get their flavour from a beaver's anal gland and wee but we're going to get
more serious right now.
Here are the things you should know, that corporations don't want you to know.
Let's take a look at one of the biggest, most controversial food corporations -- Monsanto.
They're responsible for providing roughly 90% of genetically modified organism seeds
in the world.
Being GMOs means they can produce their own pesticide and survive toxic herbicides.
Toxic herbicides that Monsanto also sell, such as the weed killer RoundUp.
But get this.
President Barack Obama passed the Monsanto Protection Act in 2013 which granted immunity
to GMOs in federal courts meaning that if future research reveals and proves that GMOs
can cause significant health problems, well, nothing can be done to stop the spread, use
or sales.
One last thing you might not know...
Monsanto are responsible for spending 46 million dollars alongside other huge corporations
to kill Proposition 37, which would have made labelling GMO foods in the US compulsory.
This makes the US the only developed country in the world to not tell people whether what
they're eating is GMO or not.
You may be lured in by natural, organic products that promise the grass is greener on the other
side but there are traps in this long grass.
Some of these companies are just subsidiaries of other large corporations, such as our favourite
bad news giver, Monsanto.
Big corporations buy smaller companies and thus increase their market shares and power.
For example, only four companies worldwide are responsible for breeding factory-farmed
chickens.
Here's just a glimpse into some of the companies you might have thought represented the individual,
that actually don't.
Coca Cola owns Vitamin Water, Minute Maid, Honest Tea
General Mills owns Nature Valley
Heinz owns Weightwatchers
Nestle owns Pelligrino and Perrier
PepsiCo owns Tropicana, Quaker and Naked Juice
If you want to see the full list, check that out in the link in the description below.
Millions of antibiotics are fed to animals in factory farms for growth enhancement, a
technique that has long been FDA-approved.
In Germany, one third of antibiotics sold are used in animal production, in China one
half, in the US eight times more antibiotics are used in factory farms than in hospitals.
This is important to us because it increases our resistance to antibiotics and in doing
so increases the risk of incurable infections.
The World Health Organisation says this is one of the most serious threats for human
health.
A new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council gathered FDA documents under the Freedom
of Information Act that revealed that 30 potentially harmful antibiotics remained on the market
in order to feed the animals.
Avinash Kar, an attorney for the NRDC states "The FDA knew the risks, but they still haven't
done anything to revoke the approval of these drugs."
The FDA's response has been to phase out all medically important antimicrobials, but they've
called it 'voluntary' for which they have been criticised.
Millions of farmers and agricultural workers are poisoned by pesticides every year -- an
estimated 40,000 of them fatally - although many go unreported.
These agricultural workers also include 132 million or 70% of all working children worldwide.
With many of these farmers being undocumented immigrants, a survey in New Mexico revealed
that workers were told if they didn't work directly with pesticides they would lose their
jobs.
Occupational and Environmental Health Director of Farmworker Justice Virginia Ruiz has said
even though the workers could take precautions, "the close proximity of agricultural fields
to residential areas and schools makes it nearly impossible for farm workers and their
families to escape exposure because pesticides are in the air they breathe and the food they
eat, and the soil where they work and play."
It's not only pesticides.
Marine life is being wiped out due to over-use of fertiliser.
The 2008 journal "Science Daily" reported that around the globe about 400 coastal regions,
covering an area equal to that of the UK, were dead because of fertiliser causing toxicity
by releasing ammonia into the water.
The typical fast food burger is made from the bits of rubbish meat left over from the
good stuff.
Some of you may know this although you will put it to the back of your mind.
What you might not know is that by smacking these off cuts together, bacteria like e.
Coli can thrive, so they clean it off.
With ammonia.
The USDA lets a company called Beef Products pipe the raw meat and expose it to ammonia
gas.
The ammonia poisoning our marine life, is also used in the food we eat.
"This is not a health issue.
This is not a health issue this is an 'I'm grossed out by this' issue."
Reminds me of a certain beavers anal gland...
A few major global companies dictate what goes in the food chain, whether it's prices,
working conditions, expulsion from land, patents on seeds, and even in some cases government
policies.