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Summary Of What Does Pollan Mean By The Industrial Food Chain

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What does Pollan mean by the "industrial food chain?" In Omnivore’s Demma, Pollan states corn is the very basic essential component in the industrial food chain. Corn can be eaten by human being, feed livestock and also can be turned into many other food products. For example, most of the soft drinks contain high-fructose corn syrup as a sweeter; Corn oil is the most common cooking oil on in the market; corn flour is used to bake breads and cornstarch is used to glues meat. Famers in the modern days abandon grass feed and shift to use corn to feed chickens and cattle, and then these livestock are slaughter for human to eat. That is said, corn is the essential of our food chain and even becomes part of our body. Especially, American rely more on the corn and Pollan called American public as “Processed corn, walking.” …show more content…

However, in the modern days, when the natural corn turns to be more about the concepts of commodities and profit-gaining tool rather than the purely definition of food, the food chain start to change significantly. Under the innovation of agricultural technology, corn is being grossly overproduced today. Pollan got a chance to meet with George Naylor, a corn famer from Iowa. Naylor said to him his corn farm’s productivity is twice as much corn per acre as his father could (Pollan, 2006). Many people feel good for the famers because they are now able to produce more corn. However, the reality is the opposite. The increased productivity only benefits corporations and gain exporters to receive more economical benefits from the consumers in the market place. Corn famers, on the other side, are struggling to make ends meet since corns are overproduced and the sale price has to be

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