The food business exists because obviously we need to eat and therefore here is a business opportunity to make money. For some businesses, it doesn’t matter what chemicals are added or what goes on during food production, as long as it is within the law. I say that with personal experience regarding hygiene rules in meat production areas. Evidence is being discovered all the time regarding food additives and the links with poor health involving cancer and whatever. For example, it has been found that the “E” additives added to foods increase the chances of cancer, and the large quantities of salt present in foods such as tinned soup, crisps, etc. do not do the health much good either. Casting a curious glance over my shoulder back through history, it seems that cancer rates have increased dramatically over the last twenty years. There’s evidence to suggest it has something to do with what is being slipped into our food when we’re not looking. We must also give a nod in acknowledgement of the fact that human knowledge of chemicals has got better along with technology, which means they’ve found cheaper ways to make our food taste better and preserve longer. I’m a strong believer in the saying “you get what you pay for”, and so if some businesses get what they want out of using unhealthy food preparation methods, then surely we must suffer? The first law of physics says that for every reaction there is an opposite and equal reaction. Our health takes the backlash without us knowing (or caring, or both!), but the taste of the food makes up for this for some.
 Chemicals that are added to foods are mostly for preserving and flavouring the food they’re added to. Preserving the food means it will last longer and therefore is a great business initiative because then the products can be exported or imported, and of course it also increases the time for which they can be sold. Preservatives aren’t poisonous to human beings but to microscopic bacteria that can spoil the food.
 From a business perspective, flavourings make the food taste better, which means more people will probably buy the product. Flavourings can indeed be very useful, especially when the product doesn’t taste that good on its own.
 I used to work in a beef factory, from 7am-3.30pm Monday-Friday if I was lucky: most of the time I finished at 4.30pm. I found no humour in getting up at 5.45am, during those times it was me that woke the sun up, and made sure he wasn’t late for work either. I dressed in clothes that didn’t matter that much to me, and I’d sleepily walk downstairs feeling threatened by the cold in the air. Then I would get breakfast and a taxi would arrive at 6.20am, and take me to work.
 The factory was freezing cold (I’d guess around 4˚C but that’s not a fact) and I felt every last bit of it. I was frozen to the spot like a snowman whenever I first came in every morning. My job was to stand beside a conveyor belt with a big clear plastic bag in my hand, and scoop a pile of meat of about fifteen pounds into this and throw it over onto the next conveyor belt running alongside that one. It might have been alright but hardly any of the people around me could speak fluent English, most of them were polish. Don’t get me wrong we all got along well, they were nice people (and I’ll never forget the beauty of a polish woman!). but the trouble was our conversations didn’t last long, so I was effectively by myself the whole day.
 If  one of my co-workers or me ran out of bags, the others would have to work harder to compensate while the other got more or else all the meat would end up on the floor.
 The main contract this factory had was the one from McDonald’s, and their meat was the meat my section dealt with. Whenever I first laid eyes on it, it confirmed to me why their burgers are so cheap. One of the main reasons why burgers exist is because it is a great way to make profit from meat that can’t be sold at its current face value e.g. in the form that it comes out of the cow. Why sell sirloin steak as a burger if you can sell it as sirloin steak? These burgers consist of all the meat that is left after all the sirloin, rump and whatever types of good beef that exist are removed. The most fattiest meat is used, mixed in with trimmings (I think trimmings come from the skin layers but I’m not sure but they consist of pure fat). Whenever I wasn’t too busy (which was rare!) I used to get so bored I sometimes used to throw small pieces of fat high above me onto the ceiling to see how long it would stick there for. I think my record is about five or six seconds.
 It’s pretty rational ideology really: grind the so-called meat so it’s a little more discreet about its contents (especially if it’s served in a bap) then add flavouring to make it taste good and to make up for that lack of meat taste due to the high fat content. A lot of money is made from this. But I don’t hold it against the guys closer to the bottom of the business pyramid who make some money off this because they’ve got bills and probably children to feed. It’s the people at the top who make millions off it. But I suppose they don’t force it down anybody’s throat, it’s down to the people who buy it. It is that little grind and mix as well as the taste bud stimulators that make all the difference. Some people know this, but don’t care. But it’s their body so it should be ok. However, I get the feeling that not as many people know as what would be expected. I don’t know why, I imagine the guys at the top are smart enough to know ways to sidestep this issue. I guess it could be also to do with the fact that no employee of the meat factory is allowed to have a camera or camera phone in the working areas of the factory. We were directly made aware of this before we even started our jobs. It was disguised as a health and safety issue but reader, think about how somebody could die or get hurt in a meat factory for possessing a camera and please get in contact with me as soon as possible about your ideas.
 My friend Matt used to work in McDonald’s. He discovered that to get from frozen to cooked for the burgers, it took forty-five frying seconds. That doesn’t seem too healthy. It seems that fat cooks quicker than meat.
 I don’t eat McDonald’s, I haven’t eaten out of there for years. I also don’t approve of them supplying such poor meat to the public. But at the same time, the reason why they supply it is because people are always going to eat it. People can eat what they want because apparently what an individual eats doesn’t affect others whatsoever. There are those who do healthy things e.g. those who go to the gym, and those who do both. But because this purchase of poor meat goes on, it must contribute in some way to rising obesity rates. Some will say that they can’t afford to eat well, but I say get a price check on a portion of broccoli and a bag of carrots and then see what the difference is between that and eating out. These poor eating habits absolutely have to negatively contribute to society, especially if our children are eating fast food regularly from an early age. This in turn means more money from the public sector is being spent on those obese people who take it to the extreme. They say their weight gain happened so quickly, but a rise in a few stone of weight? Hardly likely or else self-neglect. These people have inflicted illness on themselves, and some of the tax payer’s money has to sweep this off the floor and keep it all in working order. This money could have been spent on the sick who didn’t inflict it on themselves like a slow cut to the wrist. This raises a moral issue regarding those who eat too much and end up hospitalized because of it. It would be fine if the hospitalized obese could afford (and do) go private and therefore pay their way for their poor self-inflicted health. But unfortunately some can’t. Over the last ten years, the hospital money lost on obesity must have cost at least some lives of those who couldn’t have prevented their sickness due to a lack of money spent on proper healthcare or staff. There would have been more free hospital beds so maybe the waiting lists today would have been a bit shorter if not for the obese.
 The business market will always thrive in a good economy. If a food product is cheaper than another (even if it’s unhealthy) then it will thrive as long as it tastes good. The strong business ensures that politicians won’t do as much as they can to tackle the growing problem. At times we see that they don’t care as much as they should about these problems: we still see fast food being advertised between children programs, whereas I feel it shouldn’t be advertised at all giving the composition of the food. Some obese will argue that governments could spend more, but the reality is they won’t. They will always fall below expectations, and so we (the public) have to protect ourselves. I eat burgers and takeaways sometimes, but not all the time! We as individuals can eat what we want (and I wouldn’t want it any other way!). but for those who eat poor food to the extreme in combinations with mountains of it per year, think of those who lose out on healthcare because of it and show a little more respect for yourself!