In the course of industrialization, the specialization was applied to almost all facets of food production.. Diversified farms gave way to genetically uniform monocultures, on which only one plant species such as corn, wheat or soy was planted on a very large area at a time.. Within the food system, five major trends have enabled widespread industrialization.. These include the discovery of inorganic chemical inputs, mechanization, specialization, consolidation, and market concentration.
In this chapter, Lieberman discusses the changes due to industrialization and the rapid changes over the last 250 years. The industrial revolution took place when people began using fossil fuels to power technologies.. In just 12 generations, people went from a wide variety of manual tasks to mainly highly specialized office work.. The industrial revolution coincided with an increase in science that expanded knowledge in biology and medicine.
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the beginning, factory work was just as exhausting as farming. But as technology increased and robots took on grueling tasks, office work began to take over.. Lieberman argues that industrialization has greatly reduced the amount of physical exercise that people get.. Our jobs are no more tiring than sitting, and travel costs have been cut by elevators, cars, and airplanes.
Washing machines and dishwashers have reduced the amount of energy used to clean, and air conditioners and heaters have reduced energy consumption for body temperature. In addition, industrialization has fundamentally changed our diet.. Large companies have adopted small-scale agriculture, and food producers can produce cheap, high-calorie food. Most of the food eaten in the USA today is industrially grown, and quantities are high and prices low.
However, Lieberman explains that industrial food production affects the environment and workers’ health.. Although the quantity of food increased due to industrialization, the quality declined, leading to increased obesity among the population.. Lieberman also explains how industrialization increased scientific knowledge and improved urban conditions with knowledge about sanitation and medicine. One of the most important advances was the discovery of bacteria and viruses and the invention of vaccines.
Advances in sanitation and sanitation installations also reduced the disease burden and enabled society to combat disease.. All of these changes have resulted in a society with plenty of food and a lower need for physical activity.. People are expected to live longer but die more slowly from chronic diseases. Lieberman explains that the Industrial Revolution was successful in resolving mismatch diseases from the agricultural revolution, but has spawned a whole new, chronic mismatch disease.
In 19. In the 19th century, new and innovative preservation techniques such as appertisation7 and the development of organic chemistry changed the legal definitions of food quality8, as they were less and less dependent on the senses.. In the 1880s and 1890s, workers in industries such as railroads and mining began to form unions, organizations of workers who fought for safer working conditions and better wages.. Industrialization then led to a significant amount of work in the home kitchen being outsourced and delegated to economic agents who produced and distributed food on a large scale.. The Indians had killed buffalos and used every part of their body to go about their daily lives. They used the meat for food and the skins as clothing and shelter..
Criticism is also directed at the consequences of industrialization for farmers, such as the destruction of small-scale agriculture, the vulnerability of producers who farm on an industrial scale and are exposed to speculation, or the pressure on subsistence agriculture in developing countries.. In addition to the low-fat or fortified products that established the market for healthy foods more than 30 years ago, there are more and more products that state their health properties and base their claims on official dietary recommendations.. This led to the development of the restaurant trade and packaged goods, which helped stabilize food preservation and could be used as a tool to attract consumers. More and more of the questions raised also include objective arguments that stimulate scientific discussions and research relating, for example, to the possible links between highly processed foods and noncommunicable diseases, between intensive agriculture and environmental pollution, or between certain synthetic chemicals and health.. They were often mistreated by the settlers, who had only been in the country a generation longer, primarily due to prejudices and cultural differences, but also because some feared competition for work..
Farmers tended to use natural supplements between the unique components of the farm to establish healthy food production systems.. Food and food production is no exception, as only 2% of Americans are currently farmers and most live in urban areas where they have limited access to food in its natural form.. The populists jumped on the Bryan bandwagon and called on poor and working Americans to vote for Bryan to overthrow the powerful and wealthy industrialists who, according to the populists, controlled the economy and also much of the government.. At that time, the Great Plains, a grassland region that extends east from the Rocky Mountains across the central part of North America, from Canada in the north to Texas in the south, were home to a large number of Indian nations and the center of Plains’ Indian culture..
First, the exceptional ability of the dominant industrialized food system to address these criticisms, 22 and, second, the incredible innovative power of conscious eaters, despite the difficult relationship between consumption and civic responsibility23.
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