Dear Dad,
If you’ve been paying attention over the last week the fast-food chain McDonald’s has been in the news. Hiding behind the stories of which of our Presidential candidates is more loyal to the chain (not sure what makes that qualifying…) was the story of the alarming E. coli outbreak linked to double quarter pounders.
Since the E. coli story broke the CDC rushed to identify and eliminate the illness causing culprit from the food chain. Early reports narrowed in on the double quarter beef patties. Further investigation now point instead at the onions on the beef patties. McDonald’s onion supplier in the mid-west region near the outbreaks is Taylor Farms. Since 2009, Taylor Farms has been recognized as the world’s largest salad and fresh cut vegetable processor, and in 2022, Wal-Mart recognized Taylor Farms as its supplier of the year. As of Friday, 75 people across 13 states have been infected by the E. coli outbreak and one person has died, according to the CDC.1
There’s no gotcha element to this story, at least not yet. I’m sure Taylor Farms was not acting in bad faith and followed all standard procedure to guard against a tiny microbe contaminating its harvest. But what do we expect when one farm provides onions to all of McDonald’s stores in Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming and parts of other states in the region?2 Or even, when only two beef suppliers service over 900 McDonalds locations in a dozen states.3 The result is that the conglomeration of our food supply sacrifices convenience for health, nutrients, and taste.
On average the food we eat travels 1,500 miles before it gets on our plate. “The term food miles refers to the distance food travels from the location where it is grown to the location where it is consumed, or in other words, the distance food travels from farm to plate.” The miles accumulate from the farm to the processing plant, off to the packaging plant, then the supermarket where an apple supplied from a far off land becomes cheaper than one from the orchard down the road. Finally, after logging thousands of miles out food ends up on our plate.
That’s the real issue when it comes to food borne illnesses as I see it, today, not only tropical foods like sugar, coffee, chocolate, and bananas are shipped all over the world, but also locally available fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy. Once grown locally, in household gardens or cultivated on small family farms, are now grown and processed in far away lands coated in chemicals to support the journey from the factory farm to our plates. Meat is slaughtered, butchered, and mixed in terrible conditions ripe for pathogenic contamination and the close quarters of factory farms serve as disease super-spreaders (Remember, some ground beef patties have meat deposits from over 100 cows).
Whether the McDonald’s E. coli outbreak originated from the double quarter pounder beef patties or the mass grown onions its a story repeated many times before. The health and safety of our foods are sacrificed for conveniences and profits earned by mega farms and slaughter houses. But, is it more profitable?
[McDonald’s] stock took a 7% wallop last week after the E. coli news came out, and McDonald’s executives have been on a media blitz, assuring customers that any contaminated products have been pulled from the kitchen and the rest of the menu is safe.4
It will be interesting how McDonald’s board meeting goes when they report their Q3 earnings today!
Regardless, McDonald’s is not a beacon of health, served with or without E. coli. So other than skipping meals at McDonald’s how can you eat more safely and avoid the unpleasant experience of “food poisoning?”
Understand where your food comes from. Meat and vegetables alike. The closer you are to the source of the food the more you can glean about the process used to produce the foods which will allow you to make safer choices. What chemicals were sprayed on this crop? What was the animal fed? What were the living conditions of the animal before slaughter? How was the item packed? How long did it travel and how many workers likely touched it before you eat it?
In short, start with your own garden and work outwards. Farm stands, farmer’s market’s, and locally sourced restaurants. It’s ok to supplement your diet with the novelties of other regions around the world, but there’s no reason to make a crop from New Zealand the centerpiece of your dish, especially when you could have grown the same thing in your back yard.
With Love,
JSR.
