FoodTech show on the History Channel - have you seen it?

[housewolf]

I recently discovered a show called FoodTech on the History channel. Has anybody seen this show? It's quite interesting - the host takes a hands-on farm-to-packaging tour of various food items.

Todnight I sawg an episode about breafast food - pancakes, bacon, sausage and orange juice. What the host does is break down the meal into ingredients and then goes out to the food industry sites to find out how it gets to the home cook.

For instance, this show sourced baking soda and buttermilk for the pancakes, the bacon & sausage, and the oranges.

For the baking soda, the host went down into a mine that mines the mineral (trona) that grinds up real fine into baking soda - from solid rock wall into bags of white baking soda.

Then he went to a dairy and milked a cow by hand, attached a milking machine, and took part in the process of adding culture and salt to make the buttermilk.

For the bacon and sausage, he went from pig conception through packaging. He visited with a hog farmer who showed him around and talked about breeding and the life-cycle and growth of pigs - what they eat, how much they eat, how long it takes for them to mature, etc. Following the hog farm, he visited a pork processing plant where he watched and talked to employees who process bacon and sausage - those who cut and prepare the big pork belly slabs and trim out the loin, the trimmers, the smoking houses, showed us the machine that cuts and slices the bacon for packaging and talked with the folks who arrange the bacon slices on the cardboard packaging prior to it being wrapped in plastic. Many of the processes, he actually does along with one of the employees.

After the bacon, he went to the sausage-making section where he looked at the scrap meatthat gets turned into sausage. He shows us the meat in the mixer, added the spices, and then he went to where the link sausages are being made, Here he ran one of the machines producing long ropes of sausage that would get cut into links.

After that, he went to Vermont to see how maple syrup is produced, and then to a plant where a corn syrup-based pancake syrup is produced where he showed us the syrup-making process and all the ingredients that go into the maple-flavored syrup.

Finally, he takes us to an orange grove where he showed us the entire orange juice-making process from harvvesting the oranges through sorting, juice extraction and what happens with the peels.

Very interesting and informative. I learned quite a bit that I hadn't know before. I think I'll keep my eyes open for future episodes.

[hippywife]

1. It's a really good concept

but from all the reading and research I've done, from your description, it seems a little disingenuous. This concept is the whole purpose of Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma." He buys one calf to follow it through the process from farm to table, with a few side trips thrown in.

Nothing against you, B., but it sounds like this program is aimed at making consumers feel good and confident about what they put on their tables, and divert their attention from the growing voices against corporate ag practices.

It would be interesting to see who is backing this program that appears to give a very sanitized version of food production and the effects on the workers who do it.

:hi:

[housewolf]

4. I agree with your points

Oh HW, I could never take your criticism of a show about industrial food production as personal! But let me explain a little...

About the concept of "making consumers feel good and confident about what they put on their tables". I think you are right about that, and I had the same thoughts while I watched the program last night. It is most definitely NOT an expose' of the vile practices of the food industry, many of which are harmful to our populus.

I greatly applaud the growing local/sustainable/organic food movement and hope that it continues to grow and take hold over the upcoming years, while I am sympathetic to the divergent views and priorities of our very large population. While each individual would be better off eating higher quaility food, some part of me still resonates with the large numbers who still seek cheaper food to feed their families. So many are not educated, and even sorrier - don't have the interest or incentive to become educated about food issues.

What I'm trying to say is that industrial bacon and sausage-making are going to be with us for a long time to come, as is mass manufacturing of orange juice, baking soda mining and the rest - for the simple reason that our population is so large and there are divergent opinions/beliefs. Without putting a judgement on whether that's a good or bad thing, I found it interesting and valuable to see how those small pieces of our food-processing worked. And that's why I liked the show.

It IS one sided, but sometimes... it seems to me... any education can open doors to further education in either the short term or the long term.

There are many points on which you and I agree, HW, and I have enormous respect for the healthy, sustainable changes you've been able to incorporate into your life. You anre your dear hubby are pioneers in the process of moving our culture in a better way. I, myself, have adopted some of those better-habits but, I must admit, not 100% of them or even the extent that you hvee, I'm sorry to say (and, admittedly, a little embarassed as well) for reasons of my own. What I'm trying to say is that while I can hold one as a higher value, I still the other interesting and worthwile viewing.


:loveya:

[hippywife]

5. Yeah, I know.

And when it all gets to the point of the process you were watching, it probably is a lot cleaner and all. And I can see where it would be interesting to see how things are made. I'm really curious about how so many things are made, not just food. LOL

But the feed lots and the rendering plants are still horrors and the people who work there treated so poorly by the greedy meat processors. Not only are they violating all kinds of food safety laws, but they are also committing all kinds of human rights violations. I feel so awful for the people who are actively recruited throughout Latin America to come work in those places with all these shining promises, only to find themselves working in horrid conditions at a pace that causes many injuries, and then being coerced to not file workers comp for their injuries, the companies keeping double injury logs to impress the inspectors. All this while their pay checks are being so heavily hit for items like their housing which amounts to being pretty much packed together in some of the most squalid living conditions. What they go through would give a person nightmares.

That's only one of the reasons I buy meat from a local processor whose animals go from the farm to the small local processing facility rather than through a grungy manure laden feed lot and fed a diet it was never meant to eat, with the processors knowing this WILL make them sick and keeping plenty of antibiotics on hand because they really do have to use them. I think I read that 75% of all antibiotics in this country are used in corporate ag. And the toll these feed lots take on the environment.

Some really scary shit going down in our food production. And I realize not everyone can afford to avoid the offerings of big and cheap ol' Perdue chickens in the grocery, but I spend the extra in the hopes that one day that level of quality, cleanliness and environmental sustainability will be the standard rather than the exception, and everyone will be able to afford it. That's the goal, anyway.

:loveya: back, sweets. :*

[grasswire]

2. yes, and I meant to post about it

I liked the two episodes that I saw. It's on pretty late here -- and I forget to watch it! Thanks for the reminder.

[Warpy]

3. When I was a bored shitless high school kid

who was desperate to get away from the parents, I joined high school business club tours of local factories. I still treasure those experiences, although I've been allergic to the concept of "business" all my life.

One was a snack factory where I was first exposed to the concept of how to use yeast, how it smells, what it does to the final product. I am now an enthusiastic bread baker. Another was a cotton mill which took the process from bales to finished cloth. I am now an enthusiastic spinner/weaver. Beer was also demystified and I was once a home brewer. I'd say I've used everything I saw in one way or another.

It's great this stuff is now being shown on TV so that kids (and some grownups) who didn't do this stuff can be educated in what it takes to get stuff on the store shelves.

I enjoy watching the things I missed like injection molding plastics and robotic assembly of circuit boards because they weren't around back in the dark ages.

So yeah, these shows are great and I'll give them a double thumbs up.