30 Taking Stock
fruits and vegetables are the most important part of our diet. Loaded
with fiber and antioxidants, they constitute the one food group no
one needs to limit. Yet despite such benefits, they make up less than
percent of total calories consumed.
The produce section has some of the highest margins and revenue
per square foot of retail space. Yet compared with the rest of the store,
the space allocated is small.^ Why? Could it be the lack of variety,
flavor, and taste? Or maybe consumers are resigned to accepting what
the food system offers up?
The remainder of the supermarket doubles as a laboratory where
companies conceive and test new ways to move greater volumes of food.
One result, the chronic oversupply of food, has altered the way people
perceive of calories. Prior to the grand food bargain, calories were a
good thing. Eating more calories meant more energy to accomplish
more work, particularly farm work. No longer. Nowadays, calories are to
be shunned, hidden from view as much as possible. Awash in calories,
food providers resort to more nuanced ways to peddle food.
Meat is one example. Loaded with calories, terrestrial meat—beef,
poultry, pork, and lamb—is consumed in greater quantities in America
than in any other country. Compared with Mexico, more than two
pounds more per person per week. Compared with Canada, almost
one pound more per week.
The meat industry follows a simple strategy—high volume from
largely three kinds of meat controlled through a handful of multina-
tional companies that own or take control of most meat animals.^
To increase profitability, low-wage workers now slaughter and fabri-
cate the meat; feed is subsidized via government agricultural policies;
environmental regulations meet strong resistance; and opposing food
safety regulations is a routine part of doing business.
Often decried as the poster child of “industrial food” gone awry,
the meat sector has kept up its end of the grand food bargain by con-
sistently finding ways to move more volume. At one time, ground beef
came from the day’s production of low-valued cuts of meat and fat
trimmings. Today, ground beef comes from bovine animals nation-
wide and various parts of the world. Separate two-thousand-pound