Food Rationalization

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In today’s society, our food system has become a combination of rationalization and McDonaldization, meaning our food system is being converted by various big name corporations into finding the best ways to make this system efficient and productive. The term McDonalization was coined by George Ritzer as way to describe the social phenomenon of many fast food restaurants spreading throughout American society and the rest of the world at a fast pace. Based on the film Food, Inc. watched in class, it is clear to see how these many factory corporations have put small farmers out of business in order to make our food system efficient and predictable when it comes to mass produced foods. However, a rationalized food system does have its strengths …show more content…
According to the film Food, Inc., when it comes to our food system people want efficiency, quantity of products, and “to know what to expect in all setting and all times. They neither want nor expect surprises.” (Ritzer, 2013, pp. 38). Efficiency is considered to be “the choice of the optimum means to an end and many aspects of the fast-food restaurants and large factory farms illustrate efficiency” (Ritzer, 2013, pp. 35). Since the beginning of our food system, it has turned into a rationalized process in which mass production of foods are given to consumers to lower costs. To do this, the movies explains that our food is engineered through various technologies, such as an assembly lines, chemical treatments, antibiotics in foods, imposing work on consumers in fast-food restaurants, having employees of factories do one job at a fast pace, and finding ways that allow animals and crops to grow at faster rates for faster productions. Therefore, by introducing each of these methods and technologies, then the ideal of efficiency is utilized into our food …show more content…
According to the film, “we are into the how of it but not the why of it,” meaning people only know what they want to know and how we can produce food faster, but they fail to consider the “side effects” or if we should be doing these things like injecting our foods with antibiotics, pesticides, etc. (Food, Inc., 2008). Also, our food system is skewed, healthy foods are too expensive for many families with a low income to buy and commodities of mass production are often cheaper and easy to buy. This in turn leads to more people contracting diabetes and various health
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