There’s a lot you don’t know about what you’re eating.
Here are some of the most important things we learned while reporting CNNMoney’s Raw Ingredients series.
- The food industry is vast
The U.S. spends a lot of money on food. We’re talking $1.5 trillion a year, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
- Corn is the foundation
The U.S. produced almost 800 billion pounds of corn in 2014.
It’s the basis of much of our food: It goes into animal feed, high-fructose corn syrup, cereal, starch and some alcohol. So if you’re eating meat and cereal or drinking soda, there’s a good chance it all started with corn.
- The industry has a fat wallet and lots of influence
When it comes to new regulations, food companies and their lobbying groups will throw their weight around.
Beginning in 2001, the USDA’s Microbiological Data Program shouldered about 80% of all public testing for pathogens in produce and regularly called for recalls. The produce industry lobbied against it, claiming that the agency within the USDA that ran it didn’t have the authority to test produce.
When the FDA moved to prohibit the use of poultry litter (that is, chicken poop) in cattle feed to prevent Mad Cow Disease in 2004, the industry argued that science didn’t justify the ban. Four years later, the FDA decided the regulation wasn’t necessary, saying it addressed the issue in other ways.
- Critics say there should be more food testing
Mansour Samadpour runs IEH Laboratories, one of the largest private food testing facilities in the nation. Companies hire him to test their food and make sure it’s safe for the consumer.
He believes much of the current testing is too infrequent and small in scale. “We call that faith-based food safety,” he says.
Why do companies resist more testing? If more was done at the retail level, it would “always result in recalls,” Samadpour says, because they find pathogens in the food so often.
But he also insists that some companies “are doing everything that they can” with regard to food safety.
- The environment is not the main priority
The aim of the food industry is having food at our fingertips — available anytime, anywhere. But we use a lot of resources to make that happen.
- Neither is your health
Americans are spending less money on food than ever before, but they are spending more on health care (as a percentage of overall spending).
- Companies adapt to consumer demands
Food companies really want to give consumers what they want. Fewer artificial ingredients, meatier fish, prewashed salads … producers are constantly evolving their products in response to customer feedback.