Do you know what you are eating?

Quote of the day:

Hundreds of  millions of people buy fast food every day without giving it much thought, unaware of the subtle and not so subtle ramifications of their purchases.  They rarely consider where this food came from, how it was made, what it is doing to the community around them.  They just grab their tray off the counter, find a table, take a seat, unwrap the paper, and dig in.  The whole experience is transitory and soon forgotten.  I've written this book out of a belief that people should know what lies behind the shiny, happy surface of every fast food transaction.  They should know what really lurks between those sesame seed buns.  As the old saying goes: You are what you eat."
 from the Introduction in Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

This applies not only to fast food, but any food purchased at any store, market, restaurant, or stand.  Do you know how the animals were treated that are providing themselves for you?  Do you know what they were fed?  How they were raised?  The conditions in which they lived?  Were the vegetables created with genetically modified means to produce new varieties that store and transport better but are lacking in taste and treated with pesticides and/or harvested by people who work hard for very little pay?  What is added to your food to make it taste or look better? 

I never bought into the organic movement much.  I thought it was all about treating YOUR body better (and sometimes at a great cost to the wallet).  Since a lot of the latest research (however true it may be) showed that the long lasting effects to each person consuming the organics is not much different than that of more mass produced foods, I wasn't willing to sacrifice the cost.  But, I never really considered what else our current food industry might be causing.  Safe work conditions?  Healthier food?  Better taste?  You do the research and decide.  For me, the answer suddenly became quite clear.