The Cost of Business

So I had lunch with Tucker today at Mooyah (side note: if you've never been to Mooyah, you owe yourself to try it - it's delicious), and we had a nice little discussion about food and big business. It either started or ended with Tucker looking at one of Mooyah's "posters" that indicated that it uses no additives or preservatives in its burgers.

And in my head, I'm thinking "Of course you don't use preservatives or additives" - you cook your food fresh right in front of me. I'm also thinking that they put that on their poster for three reasons:

1. It's good not to have preservatives and additives
2. People want no preservatives and additives
3. Most other places use preservatives and additives. So by not using them, Mooyah is unique.

And so then I started thinking, "why would anyone use them, then?"

And, of course, the answer is money. Right? Places like McDonalds and Wendy's and Burger King are so big that they have to use all of these preservatives. And like Tucker said, that makes the food tasteless...so they have to use chemicals to put the "beef" flavor back into beef.

That's right, they use chemicals to take the taste out of beef. Then they use chemicals to make the beef taste like beef again. Instead of, you know, just doing nothing because the beef wants to taste like beef.

(And now I've said "beef" so many times that the word lacks meaning).

Tucker also mentioned that these huge farms that provide food for these big companies are slowly-but-surely destroying the land because of all the fertilizers and pesticides. And, in turn, they're destroying the rivers and eventually the Gulf of Mexico. So you can't swim in Galveston because of McDonalds.

So it has to be money because these companies don't want to ruin the Earth. The bad guy from Captain Planet isn't sitting in his office at Hamburger University thinking of ways to ruin the Earth. If there was a cleaner way to grow crops, they'd be using it, right?

Not according to Tucker. He says that there's a farmer in North Carolina, quoted in a book he's reading, that makes better-tasting and healthier crops, and the way he does it is better for the land.

It all ties in with the healthiness. Does McDonalds really gain anything by their food being unhealthy? As long as they're making the same kind of money, I don't think it matters if their food turns people into Hurley (from LOST) or not.

Now what they can control is the chemicals they add to fast food. And one chemical is put into food that makes you believe you're hungrier than you are. So you could eat a double bacon cheeseburger, a bucket of fries, and a gallon of coke - your stomach could be filled to capacity - and you're still going to want to make room for dessert. Because McDonalds is using science to make your body think it still needs food.

And while this is genius (it's hidden and makes them money), there's also the risk of using such a chemical. If that was made public knowledge to every American, I bet a lot of people wouldn't want to eat such a food - because we eat so that we don't feel hungry. We don't want to eat things that make us feel hungrier.

But I'm sure there's a 200-page book at the McDonalds corporate office that weighs the risk/reward of using such a chemical.

Here's the thing - if that farmer in North Carolina can make food that's better for everyone (better for his wallet, better for you, and better for the Earth), why doesn't everyone? If Mooyah can make hamburgers without additives or preservatives, why can't everyone?

And I have to believe that it has something to do with the size of their corporation. There are only 12 Mooyah locations in the whole world - all of them in Texas. And that farmer in North Carolina is only dealing with a small percentage of customers.

Remember that all these big corporations started out small. McDonalds started off as a small restaurant in California. Wal-Mart started as a "five and dime" store in Arkansas. And, eventually, both stores exploded world-wide.

Let's use Mooyah as an example - let's say that a friend of mine comes in from California. I take her to Mooyah. She loves it, and when she gets home, she realizes that they're only in Texas. She raves and raves about it until her wealthy uncle decides that he could profit from bringing one to California. Someone from Washington comes into the California Mooyah and has the same experience. Before you know it, Mooyah has spread all over the country.

And, at some point, I think you'd start to see some of Mooyah's "corporate principles" break down. Instead of using 10 smaller family-owned farms, they'd agree to use one really big one in Iowa. And they'd realize that, to ship their meat from New Mexico to Maine, they'd need to use preservatives. They find a really expensive, relatively health-conscious, preservative at first, but then they end up lowering costs again...forcing them to use the generic preservative. Which makes them need to use the additive.

Before long, they're McDonalds.

And I think it happens one decision at a time. You make one anti-health or anti-environment decision at a time until you're the big corporation that you spent all that time separating yourselves from.

So, in the end, it has to come down to money. The big super-corporations use those preservatives because it's the most cost-efficient way of doing business. They use super-farms for the same reason.

And I don't think there's a solution. Tucker said that he wished we could go back to a "small-world" type organization. Where a local farmer grows the food for a town. Maybe there's one hamburger place run by one family and one chicken place run by another.

And I think that'd work to a point. Eventually, we'd go through the same process. Because Guy 1 might visit Guy 2 in Town 2. He goes to Town 2's hamburger place, and he realizes that it's better than Town 1's hamburger place. He tells all his friends in Town 1, and they all visit Town 2's hamburger place.

Before long, Town 1's hamburger place is getting no business and Town 2's hamburger place needs to expand. They rationally expand to Town 1. And then to town 3. And 4. And 5 and 6 and 7.

And the bigger you get, the more costs you have. And the more costs you have, the more you have to cut back on certain things that you used to think were important.

It's a cycle that I think we're always going to fall into. And even though we all want to break it (no one wants to destroy the environment and no one wants to be unhealthy), I don't think anyone will step up and stop it.

Because, as Tucker said, he could fix the whole problem in one year. The problem is that that one year would be full of chaos, and no matter how good it would be on the other side of that year, it wouldn't matter.

Because people would lose their jobs in that year. People would be hurt in that year. And politicians would have to get re-elected in that year. And no one's willing to have one crappy year, no matter how great the future would be afterwards.

We're far happier with an okay present, no matter how dark those storm clouds on the horizon are getting. Because we just flip on our TVs and check out the weather, and the fat old weatherman is predicting sunny days in the near future. So we just sit back, relax, and wait for the sun to come back out.