my name is mwd

Recently Laura and I went to see Fast Food Nation, a film that dramatises the factual book of the same title (which alas I’ve not yet read). Fast Food Nation deals with the US fast food industry, and interestingly the film focuses on the tales of the people in the industry rather than food itself. The film examines the trials of a group of Mexicans smuggling themselves into the US to get work and ending up at the meat production factory, the teenagers working in the fast food restaurants, the plight of the farmers, and the double standards of the management. All in all, it’s a very bleak and depressing film, which I’m sure is an appropriate picture to depict, particularly with respect to the Mexican workers lives which just decline constantly throughout the film.

Of course, I don’t eat in places like McDonalds, though I have to confess that’s more to do with the fact I don’t like the food than any moral thing. But as a consumer I try where possible to make “good” choices, but even that’s a hard thing to do, as Quentin has recently noted. The best I can do is try and follow what labelling is there and trust that the producers play nice. For example, when getting bananas I’ll try getting fair trade bananas.

Thus it was a depressing parallel with Fast Food Nation this morning when the Radio 4 Today Programme carried a report into the processing of fair trade bananas by the manufacturer that supplies people like Waitrose where I shop occasionally (no link alas, I couldn’t find anything on either the Today web site or the BBC news web site). The report told of migrant workers being forced to work in harsh conditions, long hours, and their lives at the whim of their line manager. When watching Fast Food Nation it’s easy to think that it’s a remote problem, but here it is happening in Luton, not half an hour away. I’m sure that this sort of thing is a exception rather than the rule with respect to UK food processing, but that it happens at all is a sad thought.

I’m not really sure what to make of it. Like most people with a hecticish life I’m at the whim of the supermarkets to do The Right Thing™. And I know that they’re motivated by profit rather than world well being, so I have to hope that public pressure and rising awareness of food production values means that the Right Thing™ is done. But things like this just go to highlight how hard it is as a consumer to know that I guess.

Update: You can hear the Today story here.