A Mass Conspiracy to Feed People by David Boarder Giles is a book that explores the ways in which capitalism simultaneously manufactures waste and scarcity. The book, published by Duke University Press, traces the surplus-waste of modern centers of capitalism from city to city. It highlights how communities of marginalized people and discarded things gather and cultivate political possibilities through the work of Food Not Bombs (FNB), a global movement of grassroots soup kitchens that recover wasted grocery surpluses and redistribute them to those in need.
Gilles’s book examines the “entanglements between” the waste and scarcity of global cities, focusing on the work of Food Not Bombs (FNB) and the global movement of grassroots soup kitchens that recover wasted grocery surpluses and redistribute them to those in need. The book also explores the ways in which capitalism simultaneously manufactures waste and scarcity, as seen in the case of the United States.
The book is a comprehensive exploration of the ways in which capitalism simultaneously manufactures waste and scarcity, highlighting the importance of addressing the waste and scarcity issues in our global cities. By examining the biopolitics of Food Not Bombs, Giles provides a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between capitalism, waste, and scarcity in shaping the world we live in.
📹 How Americans Are Tricked Into Buying Fake Food
The food in your kitchen cabinets may not be what it seems. Fraudsters motivated by economic gain secretly infiltrate the global …
📹 The Big Lie – How to Enslave the World
Intro and Outro music composed by Roberto Cipollina – robertocipollina.com.
I’m a 51 year old American and I know that as I’ve gotten older it seems the food has gotten worse. I never had any problems with my gut when I was younger, but now I have gut issues very frequently. And I’m an active healthy person with no illnesses, not overweight, no issues. It’s disgusting what they are allowed to get away with here.
I used to work in a food production factory here in the US, and we were inspected by the FDA annually. There were two things I always found surprising. #1: I feel like the inspection done by the FDA is not thorough enough, meaning that things swept under the rug by management could easily be overlooked. #2: The hourly employees in my plant, especially those with extensive tenure, saw all the bull$hit that management pulled and corners that were cut. Yet when the FDA came in, there were things that got swept under the rug and the FDA inspectors missed things happening right under their noses. In addition, management followed the inspector around the facility everywhere they went, to make sure us hourly employees remained silent. When an FDA inspector did ask an hourly employee questions, management was right there ready to give us a stern look if we were about to say anything that stepped out of line, even if it was the truth. You can bet your @ss that future employment and promotions within the company were automatically off the table if you spoke up. It makes me wonder if this happens in the place I worked at before, then it must be happening all over the country. We really DON’T know what’s going on inside of our food production facilities, and we don’t know exactly how our food is handled, or what exactly is put in it. Bottom line, I will never trust the FDA, and if I can’t trust the FDA then I don’t trust the government either.
This is happening every where. Even in India, recently a food testing lab released a study report saying that 90% of the honey sold in market is actually not honey at all. It’s adulterated with Corn syrup and it’s undetectable unless you are doing testing in really high end labs. Most of well known brands were found to be doing this. There seems to be no limit to greed.
As someone with an anaphylactic food allergy, this is terrifying. Should even a small amount of the subject food be not disclosed, I could be in a life-threatening situation. I’m reminded to check the labels of even “safe” foods, as the manufacturers’ formulae can change over time, and I do call manufacturers at times for clarity. But that is not enough to keep people like me safe according to this report. One more existential threat in my life…. Thanks, FDA! 😡😡😡
My mom almost died from an allergic reaction because of the blending B.S. of spices!! We have always had to be careful due to her allergies. The “Pure cinnamon” she put on her morning toast (as she had for years) was anything BUT pure!!! It caused anaphylaxis and her tongue swelled up so much they had to do an emergency tracheostomy to save her life. The company had ‘changed their formula’… fillers had been added. We had to grind our own after that.
Media: Fast Food is unhealthy. Me: Okay I’ll eat healthy food outside. Media: All outside food is unhealthy. Me: Okay, I’ll cook at home and eat. Media: Food you buy at the store can have unhealthy ingredients. Me: Cool, I’ll cook organic, whole foods at home only. Media: Expensive healthy food bought at the store is fraudulent. Me: I … guess I’ll just grow a farm?
As someone who cannot eat lots of US American foods because they make me sick…this is just scary. If I eat the wrong thing, I get sharp pains so bad I cannot move, high fevers, and I vomit a lot. It’s not a freaking joke. It’s SO expensive trying to buy food without artificial dyes, chemicals and pesticides, or too many processed ingredients. I literally would be so broke if my family wasn’t there to help me afford food that just…won’t make me ill.
I worked in commercial art making product labels and packaging for a lot of items you find in the grocery stores – whenever I walk into a store, I think to myself “look at all the pretty trash” = by far, that 4+ color label screaming “Buy me!” far outweighs the value of the food contents and that pretty package you throw away in the garbage – is literally 60-85% of the label price. – We even had a wine distributor have us make up new wine labels (no, it wasn’t for a new brand of wine) but a cheap one that wasn’t selling, so they had us make up fancy new labels to put on the SAME product, for 4-5x above its original price. It’s all a scam folks. Always buy generic when you can.
My tip for my American friends when it comes to getting Parmesan cheese: look for the Protected Designation of Origin seal in the package – this is for us Europeans a sign that this is legit Parmesan cheese that comply with a strict set of rules (production process and correct raw ingredients), ensuring that it’s the genuine stuff. Granted, even here in Europe there is a big problem with food fraud, but there are at least ways set by the European Union to deal with these issues. It’s outrageous that U.S. consumers are being blatantly scammed by food companies like this.
Being an elderly person, my life has passed through the 50’s into the many decades that have followed. 50’s – Any, every grocery store contained produce that smelled.. Potatoes, lettuce, beans had aroma that hit you in the face the minute you opened the door . That ‘scent’ is completely gone. Even in open outdoor markets where the items might even have been picked that very day.!! Then, the explosion of ‘products occured. Products and not food. Into the 80’s the Taste started disappearing. Foods that I purchased over and over suddenly lost their flavors.. Now, we know that food manufacturers are being geared into openly admitting their ‘products’ are completely ‘man-factured’ as a ‘Product’, instead of actually being a food for human consumption..
I’m 61 years old and I never took what I ate seriously, till I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes 6 months ago. I am now becoming educated on food content, food labels and the fake (even deadly) additives that are in nearly everything. I recently changed deodorant because of the aluminum and other additives in my once chosen brand. It’s incredibly difficult to eat a healthy low carb, low / no sugar diet. The additives, chemicals and overly processed add ins make eating healthy nearly impossible. No wonder diabetes is on the rise as it is. In my case I’m responsible for my situation, I took what I ate for granted, steered away from exercise and gained weight. I’m now taking control and am on my way to reversing my Type 2 Diabetes.
Welcome to America. No surprises there. I travel a lot and everything tastes differently in other countries. I mean EVERYTHING. People from some places in Europe come here and are disgusted by the food. It used to be weird to me until I really got out there. This place only care about profits and nothing else. We sit here and still accept it even though we know.
This is why I switched to whole bean coffee actually. Apparently a lot of the preground coffees are guilty of adding fillers. Sometimes even literal dirt into into the coffee. Cough*Maxwell House*cough At least with the whole bean I know that the rate of fillers being added is soooooo much less if not none. Its infuriating to hear that some of the things that we’ve been eatting our entire lives aren’t actually what they’re labeled. They keep getting away with adulterating our food in the USA all for the sake of a dollar.
We can’t always avoid buying these products. Might as well use your back yard for gardening (instead of just wasting that space for lawn) and produce your own to avoid dependence on grocery store and worry about fake food and stuff they put on it. It not only serves the purpose of land use – it also saves you money and health in the long run too!
If you read labels carefully you can sometimes detect fake foods. For example at a lot of dollar stores still have packages of “Parmesan style cheese” it doesn’t contain any real Parmesan and they say it right in the ingredients less. It’s all in how they word it. For example most cookies and candy labeled “chocolatey” or “fudge”, Likely contain 2% or less actual cocoa or chocolate. I learned that from working on a documentary about the growing harvesting and processing of cacao, the cocoa bean
When I was in Italy, everything was proudly local and made in Italy. In my country, Guatemala, everything (except for big machines and cars) is made and grown in Guatemala. The coffee is right from my grandpa’s land, or if I’m in a other area, from a locals yard. It is phenomenal. Want cheese? Tomatoes? The lady down the street has cows, or if you live in the City, there’s small towns an hour away that grow food. The country is rapidly growing but the food is delicious, local, and seasonal.
My high school Biology teacher taught us to avoid trans fats. Even if the label says 0% trans fat, look out for any type of “hydrogenated oil” in the ingredients. (I’ve been out of high school for nearly a decade, so I don’t remember how that loophole works.) Just thought I’d share my bit of knowledge.
Their job is to make sure food won’t hurt you, but not to police the labels? Those two things go together. If I have a food allergy, for example, or a condition where I have to monitor my diet (like diabetes), I’m trusting the label to know the food within “won’t hurt me.” If the label is lying, then the food very well may hurt me. I get that there are somethings that would hurt anyone, like e. coli or arsenic, but many people CAN be hurt by specific foods, so even if the fakery and fillers are technically ‘edible,’ that does NOT mean they are harmless.
Eat seasonal fruits, veggies, buy local and get information on domestic producers and their products is the first step. In Germany we used to have strict food safety measures, good comsumer protection and strong, informed consumers organizations. Unfortunately now more companies are copying the American way…. Thank you for this article .
This is humongous! I am appalled at the person downplaying food fraud as “there are more important issues than food fraud”… We are literally INGESTING these items and they directly affect our health, and in the long run, our life. How can you dismiss such a critical issue like that?? And can we just realize that not only healthy adults but kids, seniors, immunocompromised and sick people are also ingesting these foods? This needs to be dealt with strictly, and with harsh sentences given for the guilty party.
Comment below is correct: Why didn’t CNBC call out these corporations? As far as olive oil is concerned, I rarely use it (I use flax seed oil, the only oil in which cancer cells don’t grow), but if I do buy olive oil, it carries a stamp provided by the European Union as coming from one location made from the olives from that area. Just stop eating meat and seafood altogether: there are dozens of issues related to each. Looking for produce? Go to local farmer’s markets and local sellers. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, STOP BUYING AND EATING MEAT. I read the novel, The Jungle: That was ugly. Yeah, the organizations are there to “protect” us, but their actual function is to protect industry $$$$$$$. Buy local organic whenever possible. The President of Castle Cheese should have been fined a million dollars and imprisoned at Angola in Louisiana for two years. That would have made him think twice.
It’s interesting how the FDA passes the buck or downplays the difficulty of enforcing its own rules and mandates of protecting the consumers. Seems to me that these companies must be paying high ranking officials under the table to look the other way. This is inexcusable. But given how everything related to our world and economy is a lie, can anyone actually say they are surprised? It’s shameful and pathetic but it just proves that these agencies and corporations only care about one thing: profits at any costs.
A few months ago, bought a jar of honey. Husband opened it and though he has somewhat muted taste and smell senses, he knew straight away that wasn’t honey. I tasted a bit, and it was sugar syrup. No resemblance to honey ‘at all!’ Now we buy raw honey online from beekeepers. I’ve noticed over the months that more fresh produce is creeping into my shopping basket as I find reasons to reject more processed. Now I’m going to be making an effort to eliminate modified starch, which I hadn’t realised was creeping up the ingredient list in various sauces I was using. Looks like we have to be thinking more of making ketchups from the living, kicking tomatoes – rather than relying on trust that manufacturers are doing it for us. That trust has been broken, and I’ll be damned if I happily pay a weekly increase of £10 on my shopping basket costs (which is what it has been for the past month!) for rubbish ingredients that’s nothing but second rate fillers of disputable quality and edibility. I think that wherever we are in the world, we need to show that that trust ‘is’ broken and we should be buying much more fresher food. Brands have to learn the hard way, through our neglect, because these articles made public don’t seem to be stopping them!
Simple new law. Whoever sells it in your country, is responsible. They are the ones overseeing the purchase. Manditory 5 years in prison, with minimum(not maximum) fine of 10,000,000. This goes to the president of the company automatically, and then to whomever after. Guarantee you see a big decrease with the issue. 12:54
Been happening for decades. Theres things like all natural fruit juice when it is anything but, all fresh content advertised straight from freezers, and even canned food that noted natural or no chemical preservatives. All you have to do to dispute most of these fake food advertising is look closely in the fine print under “ingredients.” The fact they false advertise, yet leave the truth hidden in tiny print is the main reason why companies aren’t in real trouble getting away with this crap.
If most of the products we bought were not imported, then this would be easier to regulate. Also, we need more serious fines than $5,000 and community service. If the fine were more like a three strikes rule whereby the company gets liquidated by the government and/or sold to another company (and the top brass had to do 10 years in prison), then these people would take it more seriously.
this article revisited my memory of a documentary where they were putting SAWDUST to literal foods. They added sawdust to rice crispies, and the scary thing was it was unnoticeable even in a relatively large amounts present in that food per serving. scary how they were filling it with non-food for us general consumers yet they get to have personal chefs who prepares their foods in a pure, safe and healthy way. the greed does not indeed stop for these companies edit: sorry, it was not really a documentary, but an experimental article on how much sawdust can you put in a rice crispy to the point it is still unnoticeable. source: m.youtube.com/watch?v=AKDal51f5LU
I own restaurants. Report is more or less right on. But when it comes to fish, there is a reason why there is so much fraud in the US. Americans don’t like the taste of fish. Ever hear Americans complain something tastes fishy? America does indeed import 85% of its fish. But it’s a slightly misleading figure. We export A LOT of fish because Americans won’t eat it. A rule of thumb is “America exports tasteful fish to Asia like sardines anchovies herring mackerel (the most healthy by the way) and America imports from Asia the tasteless fish like tilapia catfish and shrimp (all farmed & chemical-laden by the way)”. So how can an American consumer detect fraud by taste when you can’t taste it?!?!? Another HUGE omission in the report is ORGANIC food! Organic food wasn’t mentioned even one time (my guess is it’s because that topic alone is a future report all in itself). I would bet my house that 98% of food labeled as organic from China is not even close and perhaps even 25-50% of organic from the US is adulterated in some way. All in all, great reporting, but I would say CNBC used kid gloves when it comes to exposing olive oil, fish, and cheese. It’s way more rampant and harmful than the report says it is.
The US law was changed during 2020 to allow companies to change their recipes to substitute certain ingredients without having to change the labels. The excuse was do that if the supply chain was interrupted, the companies could continue making their product if they could get a substitute ingredient (the exception being top 8 allergens). As a person with allergies that are not top 8, this scared me a lot. Since then I’ve noticed prepared foods making me sick when, according to the label, there shouldn’t be anything I’m allergic to. For example, Organic Simple Truth Chocolate chips make me so sick it feels like I’m dying from food poisoning. Other brands with the exact same list of ingredients I can eat by the bag full with no harm done. I’m also having problems finding a mayonnaise brand that doesn’t make me sick even though I’m not allergic to anything in mayonnaise. I grow my own herbs and I try to buy whole spices and grind them myself. It’s harder to be tricked when you are looking at the whole original food.
Is heartbreaking seeing people in front of me at the grocery store taking all the instant noodles from the shelves; no meat. Kids asking for a chocolate bar and the parent scolding the child for asking, its evident the system has failed us and does intensify the essence of investing, the market is just so rough
There are a lot of stories of people coming to the US from other countries that eat fresh and get really sick from the quality of our food. My wife is from the Philippines, and they eat fresh from the local market only. When i go there, i never gain weight, my skin clears up, and i feel better. Uts sad how bad our food market is, especially when we have a government agency that is meant to regulate the quality of our food and protect our health. I guess the FDA is a great example of the failure and corruption of our government.
I drove 50 miles for an ice cream cone once. It was supposed to be a huckleberry ice cream but when I read the ingredients it didn’t have huckleberry but had blue berries. I asked if they knew this and the employee said she knew and it was a total scam she wasn’t comfortable with but she just worked there so had no control over it. That day was the day I found out were lied to all the time.
That was great. Now do one on the incredible shrinking packages. The other day I thought I was buying a half gallon of milk, but on close inspection it turned out to be 50oz not the expected 64oz. That’s occurring with virtually every product on the shelf. The traditional 8oz multiples have all but disappeared. Although the container size is still deceptively the same. All the recipe books go out the window. I knew about fake food from years ago, but had relaxed my paranoia once labeling became a mandate. Thing is, I have a bottle of store brand olive oil in my cupboards right now. I’ve also been suspicious of some of the flakes that float around in the water when I sprinkle in salt.
Same thing is happening in India. Indians are trying to emulate whatever is done in the west and businesses are just using that to cheat customers. For example, it’s impossible to find a pure olive oil in India. 99% of the oilve oil brands have Italian/Spanish names but are packaged locally with unknown source of origin. Same goes for special cheeses, but it’s not as bad as the oilve oil industry.
Kellogg’s Raisin Bran gives me all over hives, but I’m not allergic to wheat or raisins. When I contacted Kellogg’s about it, gave them the packaging info, and where I bought it from and the date, they said that their investigation did not find anything relating to the cause of my hives, and confined to say, that it’s possible that I am allergic to raisins or wheat. My reply was, I can eat raisins and wheat without a reaction, I can also eat Raisin Bran from other companies, but not Kellogg’s. They never replied. I found out later that the same thing happens to others, they get hives from Raisin Bran. There is nothing in the ingredients list that I am allergic to.
Lucky Singapore, Australia and New Zealand have one of the strictest food and beverage safety standards/laws in the world in terms of food labelling, procurement, production and manufacturing. America should look at how Singapore, Australia and New Zealand regulate the food and beverage industry and integrate and implement some of its standards and laws.
I just bought raw cashews from Krogers that tasted like moth balls. Turns out suppliers in other countries use moth balls to control pests, but distributors have received complaints from the US about the off taste. So I reached out to the company that distributes the nuts (Torn & Glasser), which didn’t even have a customer service dept, and they shrugged it off with “no one has ever complained about this”. Kroger’s said they couldn’t do anything since it wasn’t their brand. And the FDA is woefully under-funded and under-staffed.
Here in France we have good traditions and habits to avoid this kind of things. 1 Only buy raw ingredients, fruits and vegetables. Don’t trust anyone to cook your food. 2 If you can’t grow all your ingredients, buy only to local producers that you can visit. OK this is limiting the variety of what you can eat, but at the end of the day your health and fitness is vastly improved.
As a Canadian in Europe I laugh at the maple syrup. It’s so obvious it’s watered down or corn syrup is added. It’s only because I have purchases directly from the sugar shacks that I know how it really should taste and look. A friend from Croatia told me it is the same with olive oil. He brought me some olive oil from his uncles olive orchard. It was unbelievable how different it was from anything store purchased. Just like maple syrup they both get cheap fillers somewhere. Maple syrup most likely gets corn syrup added and olive oil gets canola oil added. Who’s gonna know??
I think it was a good thing when France passed an international labeling rule, that sparkling white wine made outside of the champagne region of France cannot be called “champagne”. I wish they would do that with more things. Just the other day I was in the spice and herb section in a supermarket. There were eight different brands of “herbs de Provence”, yet all of them said they were grown or packaged in places like New Jersey, California, and Texas. If the herbs are not actually from the Provence region of France, how can they be called that?
In more rural areas and small towns, one can find, and support, local food producers. It benefits everyone to go to the source. You know who produced the food, where it comes from, and your money supports the people who do the work. Unfortunately, in large population centers, this is difficult to do.
for European the number of cases of food poisoning is like huge, ive got it prolly once in my whole life( almost half a century by now) and its hard to imagine that like 1/ 6 of US population experiences it every year. we in EU often joke and complain about the place of origin and naming and labelling and all the other EU bureaucratic rules but in general we dont think at all about safety of the food we consume, the opposite is so rare and unheard of that its difficult even just contemplate how different the American attitude towards it is, and while im sure food frauds happening here as well, corporations are all the same everywhere and profit is profit, you can be sure if dunno 1/ 6 of French got sick from their baguettes and cheese on regular basis there would be riots in the streets.
An employee at an olive oil factory said that they bottle the exact same oil that got pressed by one machine into different shaped bottles with different labels and brands that say anything from cold pressed EVOO to plain olive oil. After hearing that, I stopped consuming a lot of olive oil. I could have been eating vegetable oil by the spoonfuls thinking it’s good for me.
The best way to describe the present economy is 08′ 2.0. Yes stocks are at a discount and things will eventually get better but my monthly living expense is up $3750 from $1600 and I’m left wondering what retirement have in store for me 5years down the line, I’m ill-prepared tbh, my 401k gains are zero-nothing and my stock portfolio?…OH WELL!
A great option is to eat more of your own home-grown food, especially vegetables and fruit. Support local businesses and home businesses in your community where you can build a trusting relationship and ensure a higher degree of quality. Know your oils and their supply chains. Prepare, as much as possible, your own meals.
In this article she conflates “best if used by” with an expiration date. “Best if used by” does NOT represent an expiration date. It represents the ‘peak’ of the foods ‘quality’: (taste, texture, etc) as determined by the company producing and selling the food product itself, NOT the safety to consume. Foods with “best if used by labels” do not have an expiration date, therefore it was false for her to say only one of the sampled olive oils has an expiration date. Neither of them did… A label that says “Use by August 2024” however, IS an expiration date, about safety. In short, “Best if used by” does NOT equal “Use by” in terms of food law
Grocery stores are culprits too, they do not want coffee roasters printing a roast date on coffee bean packages, instead they allow a “best buy” date. Coffee ages quickly with air, sunlight and age of the beans determining quality and taste. When buying coffee beans it is best to buy from a local roaster that imprints the roast date on the package. The same with olive oil, forget about the “best buy” date, instead look for olive oil labeled with a harvest date. Anything over a year old is just that — OLD.
I was once tod that American Honey was sent over to China and it was stored in lead containers. Then it was shipped to Canada and the label reflected it was produce of that country. I also heard that alot of people who are allergic to peanuts are not really reacting to the peanut itself. They are grown underground in dark damp soil. Many times there may be mold around or in the shells. This will cause the allergic reaction.
Spanish here. The darker the green color of the olive oil is, the more quality it has (at least at the EU, it is compulsory to indicate whether the olive oil comes from a mixture of various oils or if it doesn’t). An extra virgin olive oil, at least in Spain, NEVER comes from different oils, even less from different countries!!
Living in Greece it always amuses me how people from U.S., U.K. or Canada react to our food when visiting. There is a lot of cheap high quality fresh vegetables etc. in open markets, and chefs taste and buy the ingredients themselves before serving them to customers. McDonald’s, KFC or Starbucks couldn’t do well in a country with good food culture.
A bar tender I know told me her boss used to keep expensive whisky bottles, washed them sterilized them then refilled with cheaper booze. They never told people that the whisky was the one on the label just that it was whiskey and most were to drunk to tell the difference with coke.I guess those things are way more common than you want to know.
Started perusal this, then went to the “Chuck and Don’s” pet food store. One of the bags of frozen cat food said it expired in 2021, and I had informed the store about this on my last visit, but the same bag was still there. The clerk told me “We decided that was a misprint, because we didn’t even start selling that brand until after 2021.” SMH.
My grandmother always talks about how the flavor and quality of food has changed from the 1900s to now. For example she always says the flour she’s used since the 50s to make tortillas is not the same anymore. It doesn’t taste the same the texture is different as well. She also sees the difference in chicken, eggs, milk, and many things. Boomers are the last generation to probably reach very old age. Food is very altered now.
Since I am one of those “sensitive” individuals and must read every labels and inquire where animal products are sourced and storage protocol for freshness. This is very heartbreaking. One greedy mislabeled item means a trip to the emergency room for me and continued reliance on more pharmaceutical steroids and antinflammatory medications. Suger and carbonated hydration and pills are where our country enslaved us.