#9-Topics in food quest

    This image/political cartoon above is a great example of criticizing a massive problem within the food industry. Both each image within the cartoon and the caption used help to painfully portray the sorry state of the agricultural and processing part of the food industry. It also demonstrates how far these corporations go to achieve good looking food over organic and natural food.

    The first image shows a machine that appears to be lasering the ground of any other possible plants or weeds that are growing where the crops are being grown. The machine also is emitting tons of smoke from running. This image is supposed to demonstrate the practice of using lasers before growing crops can be harmful and inorganic. The process itself discourages plant diversity which ultimately helps crops to thrive longer as it produces better soil each year. The smoke the machine produces also implies that the process produces pollution that ultimately harms the environment the crops are supposed to be growing in.

    The second image conveys a worker spraying what is likely supposed to be pesticide onto an orange tree. This is done to prevent bugs from entering and spoiling, tainting, or eating the fruit. Pesticide is an unnatural process in food growing that puts chemicals on the plants that ends up killing the bugs. It can be harmful to not only other plants in the area, but harmful for the wildlife that rely on eating the insects that the pesticides kill. These chemicals used for pesticide are also put on the food that will eventually end up being consumed by humans.

    The third image shows the harvested oranges going through a factory and receiving a multitude of chemical treatments and processing to help it achieve a better look. The first treatment is to enhance the colors to make it look healthier and appealing to the human eye. The second process is fungicide to prevent the fruit from receiving fungal diseases that could limit its shelf life. The third treatment is wax, which could be used to help make it look cleaner and to prevent immediate spoiling so it looks better for the customer. This image in specific highlights the issue that food processing goes to insane lengths to help achieve food that looks good. Customers tend to buy food that looks better and stray away from food that is almost spoiled or food that "looks ugly". The tradeoff is that companies put on so many chemicals and unnatural processes that take away from the food being organic in hopes of trying to sell food that all looks aesthetically pleasing.

    The fourth image conveys the end product of the fruit being on the shelves. This displays irony as the fruit on the shelves claims to be farm fresh when the processes that the food went through did not feel like that of a farm. A farm brings the picture of food being organic, fresh, and untainted by chemicals or machinery heavy processes. What is displayed in the earlier images of the cartoon show that the fruit at the end comes from a farm that is far from fresh. 

    This cartoon highlights the lie being sold to consumers that their good looking food is seemingly organic and a good choice to eat. What the companies behind their food, particularly produce in this case, s that there is so many unnatural, man-made processes that get the fruit to where they are grown to the bags of hungry people. This shows that the entire agricultural process has been altered to be in favor of prioritizing production and profits by using harmful and inorganic processes to help make the food look good and prevent losses through weeds, pests, and diseases. I think this image helps make its audience question how organic their food really is, and whether the processes is worth the tradeoff of having the food look a little nicer.