
"Almost one-sixth of the entire US economy is devoted to "marketing,". Advertising is described by analysts and business literature as a process of fabricating wants – a campaign to drive people to the superficial things in life, like fashionable consumption, so that they will remain passive and obedient." -Noam Chomsky
Marketers have told us for years that we are too busy working, carting the kids around or for a multitude of other reasons, that by the time dinner rolls around we are too tired or have no time to prepare a home cooked meal. We are bombarded with commercials that sell us on the idea that we deserve a break, processed foods are mmm' mmm' good, and foods like packaged washed and cut lettuce or so much more convenient and worth the extra expense.
According to Wenonah Hauter just 20 companies produce most of the food eaten by Americans, including organic brands and only four companies own 80% of the beef market. These companies have the economic and political power to dictate food policy in many ways. They lobby for everything including laws on advertising junk food to children to manipulating nutrition standards, as well as, weakening federal pesticide regulations and blocking the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Company mergers mean these companies will get bigger leaving us with less choice in who we purchase our food from.