Junior Theme #1

The week before I began to work on Junior Theme a family friend came over. While at dinner she talked about giving up corn,  wheat, and other food in an attempt to improve her health. She claims this diet works. I knew then that I wanted to focus on food and food's impact on health for my Junior Theme. After working with the librarians, I found some books, articles, and the movie Food Inc. for more information on my topic. I was surprised to see the relationship between the government and the food industry, and how corrupt this relationship is. I then posed the question, "Why does the government support the production of one kind of food over another?". In my Junior Theme I hope to further explore this relationship between the government and food industry and how it impacts the consumer. Something I find unique and fascinating about my topic is how little the average person understands what is going on in the food industry. Before I had done research all I thought was that some food is unhealthy. I have now found that there are significant issues in how the food we eat is made. People do not know much about this topic because the food industry does not want people to know about it. The food industry is even trying to create laws to prevent the publishing of photos of any livestock facility. The animals are treated poorly, the workers are treated poorly, the food products are being treated poorly, and us as the consumer are being treated poorly.

A few individual writers and reporters have shown light on the food industry. Because of their work, I have been able to find a fair amount of research for my topic. Most articles I read or find, however, are either bashing the food industry or defending the food industry. I hope to find in my research answers to why people do not know about what is going on in the food industry. People know of E. coli and Salmonella outbreaks (still not enough), but nobody really knows what they are eating. People just accept that the food they eat is unhealthy because the food that is available (especially affordable food) is unhealthy. In my paper I hope to explain the answers to these questions, as well as my main question, and get to the root of why we eat what we eat, and what exactly are we eating.