America is considered an exemplary nation in the global economy. The United States has long been promoted as the “land of opportunity,” thanks largely to an economic system that promotes entrepreneurship and a political regime that protects the free market. Our perceptions of our political, economic, and healthcare systems reproduce rampant American exceptionalism.
Despite this outlook, there is no denying the major health disparity between Americans and people in other countries with similar standards of living. 49.8% of Americans suffer from at least one chronic condition, and there is a 50% probability that if you suffer from one chronic condition, you will suffer from multiple. Chronic illnesses are now six of the top ten leading causes of death. Chronic conditions perpetuate themselves because they are initiated and exacerbated by the food we consistently put into our bodies. Our decadent lifestyles have made America the fattest industrialized nation in the world.
American citizens have also been increasingly affected by foodborne illnesses. One in six people are infected with a foodborne illness each year. That is more than four times the frequency of other developed nations like the United Kingdom. Salmonella, Listeria, E. Coli, and Hepatitis A are commonly found in our meat and produce. Contaminants are likely to affect meat and produce through the usage of polluted irrigation water, unsanitary meat processing plants, or improper transportation conditions–all of which can result in pathogen growth. In its current state, the food production chain creates many avenues for contamination of our food before we even get the chance to purchase it.
Cutting down on risk factors like smoking, poor nutrition, excessive alcohol consumption, and lack of exercise will help adults manage their chronic conditions. Although these solutions have proven successful at the individual level, lifestyle changes only address the problem from one side. An epidemic of chronic and foodborne illnesses present across distinctions like sex, age, income level, and geographic location implies that the problem runs deeper than mere lifestyle choices. These demographics have little in common with each other aside from the fact that they routinely shop at the same grocery stores.
Chain supermarkets have an extensive history of selling products that cause foodborne illness outbreaks and chronic conditions. Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Albertsons are the most frequently visited grocery stores in the nation, comprising a whopping 69% of the grocery industry. What seems like healthy market competition devolves into an oligopoly when we account for the fact that these supermarkets are heavily influenced by the same 3 companies. Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street, the big 3 of investment banking, own the most shares of Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Albertsons. Which effectively shifts market power away from consumer interests.
These grocery stores establish company-wide programs that make compensation expectations contingent on employees’ ability to cut costs. It is not just the top executives who are affected by such programs, but most employees who have the power to make cost-effective decisions. Monetary incentives upwards of 200% of an employee’s salary are given if that employee sufficiently takes advantage of sales-driving and cost-saving opportunities. This only encourages employees to sacrifice wages, sanitation, and quality of suppliers in favor of cheaper bills. Behaviors like these only increase the likelihood of food contamination and unethical processing habits.
If any entity has market control to the degree major supermarkets currently do, it is imperative that they use this control ethically. 90% of Americans shop for their groceries at supermarkets. Without an internal initiative to protect the interests of their customers, or stricter federal regulation on what can go into our food supply, the market will continue to devolve into a profit-over-people mentality.
The most malicious actions taken by grocery companies with oligopolistic control is their habit of divesting and avoiding Black communities. This resulted in the creation of food deserts throughout the country. Food deserts are neighborhoods that suffer the effects of historic systemic discrimination, which results in Black communities being denied access to healthy food. Supermarket conglomerates took a page from the government’s book and repurposed redlining, to justify their avoidance or divestment from Black communities.
Zoning ordinances are less likely to permit the establishment of small-scale grocery stores and make it more difficult for Black families to find viable alternatives to fast food and convenience stores. Yet, these corporate entities have established a pattern of closing down the few stores present in Black areas. Currently, 17.4% of the population lives in a community with minimal grocery stores, and often see supermarkets as inaccessible due to a lack of vehicle access. The very people who suffer from this discrimination are also the ones who are most intensely affected by chronic diseases.
This disgusting practice hits close to home because the West End of Louisville, an area with the densest Black population in the state, is a food desert. The area only has two grocery stores to serve its 60,000 people, with one of them being located in the only white neighborhood in the area. More affluent areas, like the east end, have seven grocery stores for 90,000 people. This scarcity is worsened by the fact that people in the West End have the least access to transportation in the city. Making it even more difficult for Black people to get to one of the only grocery stores close to them. Without grocery stores, struggling communities are thrust into food vacuums that are inevitably filled by fast food, liquor stores, and Dollar General stores. It is proven that frequent fast food intake results in an increased probability of chronic disease. Unsurprisingly, the highest rate of adults in Louisville who’ve had a stroke, chronic pulmonary disease, kidney disease, diabetes, or asthma live in the West End. The West End of Louisville is a prime example of how a lack of access to supermarkets can result in major health issues on a mass scale.
Allowing anyone to withhold something as essential for survival as food from entire communities is inhumane. Depriving entire populations of Black people of healthy food is not the extent of the evil done by the Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Albertsons supermajority. These companies have so much control that they are even able to poison those who do have access to their stores.
It is no surprise that eating highly processed foods has adverse health effects, including cancers and chronic illnesses. Processed foods containing unnecessarily high levels of sugar and sodium cause and intensify chronic diseases. The devastating part is sugar and sodium are hardly the only things consumers have to worry about in their food. These supermarkets face many major class action lawsuits about the levels of heavy metals in their food. High levels of lead, arsenic, and cadmium present within their namesake brands pose a major health concern to children and adults. Not even baby food is safe from heavy metal contamination. This type of contamination paired with increased sodium and sugar levels only intensifies the magnitude of harm caused by processed food in supermarkets.
When it’s not heavy metals and excessive sugars, processed foods are pumped full of cancer-causing additives. Nitrates, known to cause many different types of gastrointestinal cancer, are commonly found in bacon, ham, smoked fish, and corned beef. MSG, whose corrosive atrophy is activated in even the lowest dosages, is one of the most widely used food additives in the country. Despite being known to cause brain lesions and colorectal cancer, especially in children, MSG is still the most heavily used additive in canned foods, salad dressings, processed meats, and frozen dinners.
Dangerous substances in store brand products may stem from each company’s dedication to expanding their private labels. Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Albertsons want their private brand to be successful in their stores. To accomplish this they attempt to expand the products offered by their private label while also maintaining the value price. Consolidation of their store’s private brand production and attempts to maintain low prices may incentivize production methods that breed contamination; especially when any cost-saving practices are heavily rewarded . In addition, these supermarkets take advantage of cheap suppliers that have similar control over the food processing market. The most used processing plants leave meat and dairy unrefrigerated for hours, have no sanitation standards, and use child labor.
Skeptics might argue that if you want to avoid diet-induced illnesses, cut out processed foods. Issues with this argument start with the fact that many people can’t afford healthy food and are supplemented by “healthy options” like meat and produce, which are still hazardous. Thousands of pounds of ground beef sold at Kroger, Albertsons, and Walmart across the country have been found to contain. 31% of ground chicken in all major grocery stores was found to be contaminated with antibiotic-resistant salmonella. On top of this leafy greens in grocery stores have been linked to listeria outbreaks.
Healthy products like leafy greens, ground beef, onions, turkey, chicken, papayas, peaches, cantaloupe, and flour are the most recalled foods in your grocery store due to bacterial contamination. Company policy set by executives paired with weak retroactive regulatory policy allows these grocery stores to supply our food in a practically unregulated environment. Most of the millions of cases of foodborne illness do not result in any legal action against grocery stores, even though company supply chains are partially at fault for these contaminants. There is truly no escape from the negative effects of the grocery oligopoly.
In order to protect ourselves from the profit-driven behaviors of major corporations we must first establish some competition in the market. Black communities that have become food deserts must take the initiative to fill the food vacuum themselves. No one in this country is going to take care of Black families like Black people will. Establishing a local Black-owned grocery store with the simple mission of providing healthy, affordable food to their community will be instrumental in the struggle to eliminate Black ghettos. Top-down solutions like incentivizing supermarket investment in struggling communities will only act to increase the market power of these major corporations who have already demonstrated the intensity of harm they will do with that power.
We must immediately start trying to provide food for our communities. If not, we will continue to slip further into the black hole of cheap, fast, convenient food with no nutritional value. To help with this initiative, state or local governments should provide grants to community members who want to build a grocery store. Local governments should also reform zoning regulations to incentivize small business investment. The Healthy Food Financing Initiative sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture is a program that offers such grants. The biggest issue is getting the government to support these small businesses and protect them from anti-competitive activity.
If the government gave as much aid and protection to small businesses as it does to large corporations, our economy would be much stronger. Increased fiscal and legislative support for small businesses in transitionary market positions would dramatically increase the number of people who enter the market as producers. If we truly hope to see competition within the grocery market we need more people starting businesses and more support for those who do. Especially, in the communities whose food supply has been directly affected by the monopolistic tendencies of Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Albertsons. State or federal government subsidies, or tax breaks for local small businesses, would be an instrumental first step to freeing our nation from the grocery oligopoly.
Another way to decrease the influence these companies have on our nation’s health and nutrition is to significantly increase regulations on what can go into food. There are countless restrictions placed on what pesticides, additives, and preservatives companies can use in their processed foods. However, the extent of these restrictions cannot combat incentives placed by corporate executives to cut costs by any means necessary. This country still allows farmers to use 85 pesticides that have long been banned in other developed countries due to adverse health effects. EPA regulations of pesticides leave much to be desired.
The FDA has the real power to monitor what goes into processed foods. The Food Safety and Modernization Act was a huge step toward the prevention of foodborne illness, but its effects are not enough to protect consumers. First, it depends on corporations to report the dangers of the contaminants and additives in their products. Second, the FDA only completes inspections, even on producers with high risk of foodborne illnesses, every 3-6 years. Third, it doesn’t depend on independent research to help them decide which additives threaten human safety. Finally, its effects are retroactive. The agency uses fines to punish violations instead of being preventively active in the chain of production. This act needs major innovation to keep up with powerful corporations.
The best thing the FDA could do to prevent the over-manipulation of our food would be to catalog and investigate the sanitary conditions, additives, preservatives, and production methods currently used in food production. The administration would need to base its regulation on independent research that provides a comprehensive analysis of the damage current food production methods have on human health. Without an objective understanding of the effects of ultra-processing, the FDA can not adequately regulate food production on a national scale. We cannot continue to allow these corporations to produce our food with little to no oversight.
The truth of the matter is, regardless of what diet choices we want to make, most Americans do not have access to truly nutritious food that does not result in physical illness. If we only look at this growing problem from the perspective of the individual consumer, we prevent ourselves from reaching a comprehensive solution. In order to protect the health and well-being of our nation we must increase competition within the grocery market and exert stricter control over food production within this industry.
Louisville Political Review 