Investing in quality

Investing in Quality

Comparing prices in America and other countries makes it possible to notice that processed food in here is relatively cheap, while in Brazil, for example, is considerably more expensive. There it is cheaper to buy all ingredients separately and cook them at home than going to Mc Donald's or buying a frozen pre-made dish, while here industrial food is on the top of the list when it comes to cheap food. We can clearly see that if we compare the price of a Big Mac sandwich between both countries. While United States shows up as 12th with a U$ 4.20 cost, Brazil is on the 4th place with a U$5.68 cost. That represents a difference of 35% overvalue (The Economist). America carves for practicality and that is reflected at the low prices of processed and fast food we can find on every corner. What we don't realize most of the time though is that this convenience has a higher price than the one we see on the shelves. By choosing to spend less on what we eat, we are also compromising our health. Spending more money on food means spending less money with health related issues. In comparison to 50 years ago, Americans spend today half of what they used to on food, slightly less than 10%, and a smaller amount of their time preparing it, just thirty minutes on average including the clean up. (Pollan) Today's technological advances allow us to produce more food in a more efficient way, so that the food prices have dropped. The problem is that along with the prices, the quality of the food had dropped as well. To be able to lower the prices of industrial food, is necessary to produce a great amount of it during the shortest frame time and lowest budget possible. With this mentality farmers started substituting cattle food from natural to artificial. Like all other factories, animal factories are constantly searching ways of cutting costs and changing what constitutes animal feed was one of the way farmers found to save money. (Union of Concerned