The Dissident Dad – What the F*** Happened to Our Food?

Screen Shot 2015-01-16 at 10.15.31 AMI’m no nutritionist. In fact, as I write this I am probably about 50 pounds overweight, which I guess depending on how you look at it could indeed make me a food expert. But for the most part, I’ve learned as an adult that I have horrible eating habits. I was raised like many other millennials. McDonald’s was a greatly anticipated treat at least once a week, and at home my mother made us tacos, meatloaf, cheese burgers, spaghetti, fried chicken and pork chops. Lots of potatoes, corn and 2% milk in the mornings with my Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Basically, my mom raised us on a diet of death. She didn’t know, of course, that the food industry was controlled by a few large corporations, or that the FDA was completely controlled by the same interests. I remember doing a micro-documentary a few years ago connecting all the power players in D.C. who were in charge of SNAP (food stamps), to Pepsi-Frito Lay, Coke, Nestle and 7-Eleven. My mom, who raised me in the 80s and early 90s, didn’t have the Internet, endless amount of food documentaries, or even the organic boom that has given us healthier options in our grocery stores.

As a parent today, I do have those tools. I have seen those documentaries, and as a father, having this information has transformed teaching my children about food into another responsibility.

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Hot Pockets Recalls 8 Million Pounds of Meat Due to “Diseased and Unsound Animals”

Last year saw a great number of widely publicized instances of food fraud and general nastiness when it came to the various items many of us regularly put in our bodies. From “fake tuna,” to rat meat in the streets of Shanghai, to alcohol in New Jersey diluted with “river water,” the list was seemingly endless. While 2014 has … Read more