An Environmental Ethical Dilemma That Costs a Dollar.

In the communities that surround Temple’s campus there are very few healthy food choice options. The healthiest option for most of the working class people that live in this part of North Philadelphia probably would be contained in Cousin’s Market at 233 W. Lehigh. Ideally the best foods to buy would be a wide array of fresh produce, lean meat, and whole-grain products. Considering the soaring prices of produce around the country it can by implied that fresh vegetables and fruits are out of reach to many North Philadelphians on a budget. Also lean cuts of beef and pork as well as chicken breast are the healthiest as well as the most expensive meats available. I know as a college student I usually can not afford to eat as healthy as I would like to. I imagine the struggle to buy healthy foods is even harder for those trying to shop with a very limited budget and maybe harder for those with more than one mouth to feed. While shopping healthy at Cousin’s market (a store that in many cases is very far away for a person without a car) would probably be tough for most working class people and families in North Philadelphia, finding cheap food at fast food restaurants is not. Along North Broad Street there seems to be a fast food restaurant every 3 or 4 blocks. From McDonald’s to Checkers to Popeye’s to Wendy’s to KFC almost every major fast food chain has property on North Broad Street. McDonald’s has two restaurants only a few miles apart from each other; one near Temple and one closer to Girard. Doctors Debra Franko and Hortensia Amaro have made connections between limited access to healthy options in working class urban areas, fast food and obesity.

Franko and Amaro state,

“Historically, poor people used to be the leanest, by virtue of malnutrition. The modern rise in obesity in poor and ethnic minority groups is due primary to changes in the social landscape. Obesity results from an imbalance between caloric intake and energy expenditure, both of which disproportionately affect urban poor. Quality fruits, vegetables and whole-grain products are more expensive and less accessible than cheap high-fat foods. Advertising dollars also have an impact. McDonald’s alone spent $1.1 billion on advertising in 2001; the government’s budget for a pro-fruit and vegetable campaign was $1.1 million. A recent study found that people in the poorest urban areas have 2 ½ times more exposure to fast-food outlets than people in the wealthiest category.”1

Franko and Amaro make perfectly clear that there are not many healthy options for working class people living in Urban America. I believe one point that Franko and Amaro do not emphasize enough is the lure of cheap food. A Recent New York Times article discussed the significance of McDonald’s “Dollar Menu,”

“The enormous success of the Dollar Menu, where all items cost a dollar, has helped stimulate 36 consecutive months of sales growth at stores open at least a year. In three years, revenue has increased 33 percent and its shares have rocketed 170 percent, a remarkable turnaround for a company that only seemed to be going nowhere 4 years ago.”2

A photograph of McDonald’s dollar menu can be seen to the right. The two token healthy options on the dollar menu are “Apple Dippers” (pictured) and a bottle of Dasani Water. Certainly no one would be satisfied with this as their meal. Despite the obvious health concerns that arise from over consumption of fast food, there is also an environmental ethical dilemma attached to eating at McDonald’s. In order to make food cheaper McDonalds had to make a spending cut somewhere. One of these spending cuts, which could be related to the low prices of the Dollar Menu, came from the Amazon rain forests of Brazil and Argentina in the form of cheap soy chicken feed.

A December 11, 2004 front page article from the Lexington Herald News states,

“A soybean boom is sweeping South America like a gold rush. Farmers with soy fever are plowing by moonlight, speculating in jungles and dreaming of digging new canals to carry their soybeans from the continent’s vast and fertile interior to Atlantic and Pacific ports.”3

In 2001, Cargill the world’s largest private company, announced plans to build two grain silos, a $20 m terminal and its own port on heavily forested land near Santarem, Brazil. This event was the precipitant for the “gold rush” described above. 4 A recent article in London’s The Guardian reports on a Greenpeace study that links Cargill’s initial activities in the Amazon to McDonald’s restaurants in Europe.

During the present “soybean boom” ambitious potential farmers seize public and indigenous lands, then using bulldozers and even slave labor these people plowed “virgin forests” for the purpose of planting soybeans. 5 Cargill provides farmers with seeds and agrochemicals to grow hundreds of thousands of tons of soybeans a year. 6 Much of this soy is trucked to Cargill’s silos in Santarem where it is transformed into chicken feed. This feed is then shipped to Sun Valley (a Cargill subsidiary) which provides chickens to all Mcdonald’s franchises throughout Europe.

The effects of Cargill’s and McDonald’s actions are having disastrous effects on the fragile environment of the Amazon rainforest. Greenpeace states, “The scale of deforestation due to soya expansion driven in part by demand from UK and other European firms is unprecedented… About 14,000 hectares in the Santarem/Belterra areas now produces 34,000 tons of soya a year.”7 Large scale deforestation in a rich ecosystem such as the “virgin forests” of the Amazon Rainforest could spell disaster for the millions of plants and animals. Trees also play an important role in the hydrologic cycle. Such mass deforestation of trees that have existed for thousands of years could lead to all sorts of meteorological and environmental disasters. Many scientists believe deforestation is one of the leading causes of desertification and global warming. Some believe global warming to be one of the factors behind Hurricane Katrina. There are many environmental consequences to a dollar McChicken sandwich.

At the beginning of this essay Franko and Amaro stated that only $1.1 million dollars was allotted to the national “Pro-fruit and vegetable campaign.” The Cargill soybean boom could have prevented money from going to this cause and other non-profit causes which fight to keep kids off fast food by getting more healthy options into schools and working class neighborhoods. The following Lexington Herald-Leader quote reports the effect of the South American soybean boom on American farmers, “Because soybeans have fallen below [the US federal farm support program price], this year [2004] U.S. soy farmers will receive an estimated $1.6 billion in subsidized income support. That could rise to $2.5 billion or more next year [2005] if expected record South American crops drive prices still lower.” 8 America’s soybean farmers will be paid $1.6 billion dollars for doing nothing. Working class people in America’s cities will be forced to eat off the Dollar Menu because there is not enough federal funding to get affordable healthy food to their neighborhoods. In order to keep items on the Dollar menu at a dollar in America, McDonald’s Europe will have to continue to buy cheap chicken from Cargill’s Sun Valley who feed all their chickens with soy feed that is destroying the Amazon rainforest. What are the ways that working class Americans can resist this vicious cycle of multi national corporate globalization?

1. Franko, D., and H. Amaro. "OP-ED- AS YOU WERE SAYING...Obesity's Shadow Looms Large Over Poverty-Stricken Youths." Boston Herald 11 Jan. 2004. NewsBank. Newsbank. Temple University, Philadelphia. 16 Apr. 2006.
2. Warner, Melanie. "Salads or No, Cheap Burgers Revive McDonald's." New York Times 19 Apr. 2006. 21 Apr. 2006 .
Hill, Kevin. "Soy Moves South --- Brazil Overtakes U.S. Production." Lexington Herald-Leader 11 Dec. 2004. NewsBank. NewsBank. Temple University, Philadelphia. 16 Apr. 2006.
3. Vidal, John. "Globalisation: the 7,000 Km Journey That Links Amazon Destruction to Fast Food." The Guardian 6 Apr. 2006. NewsBank. NewsBank. Temple University, Philadelphia. 15 Apr. 2006.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid
8. Soy Moves South: 3.

Picture Credits:

Top Picture of Giant Ronald Balloon: netmeme.org/.../ronald-mcdonald-thanksgiving.jpg

Dollar Menu: Mike Mergen nytimes.com

Deforesation in the Amazon as a Result of Soybean Farming: www.greenpeace.org