Shop local — and regulate ‘Big Food’

The recent, record-breaking outbreak of Cyclospora infec­tions linked to lettuce consump­tion has left Americans wonder­ing what food is safe to eat.

What brands of lettuce are safe and which aren’t are impor­tant questions. But even more important might be why such outbreaks happen in the first place — and how our govern­ment has made them increas­ingly likely.

Nobody wants explosive di­arrhea — and yet the way our federal government has left us unprotected is enough to make one sick.

The chief culprit in the cy­closporiasis debacle is our cen­tralized, monopoly-based food system. The outbreak has been linked to Taylor Fresh Foods, which supplies many restau­rants. Many brands of bagged lettuce and salad are also Taylor products — whether consumers realize it or not.

In fact, according to Farm Action, “Just four companies — Taylor Fresh Foods, Cultrale-Safra, Itochu, and Bonduelle — control 54 percent of the U.S. fresh-cut salad market.” Simi­larly, only a handful of corpora­tions control meat, dairy, grains, and beverages. Another handful controls food distribution.

This means that the industry practices giving rise to contami­nated foods happen on a very large scale — and those foods are then distributed all over the country. That a single outbreak in one company can potentially impact the entire nation is a grave weakness in the food sys­tem.

Monopolies like Taylor Farms use the profits they generate from dominating our food sup­plies to lobby the federal gov­ernment for weaker oversight. According to Wired, the compa­ny has contributed millions of dollars to conservative political committees, including a super PAC called MAGA Inc.

It has also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to directly lobby against food safety regu­lations. News even emerged re­cently of representatives from Taylor Farms calling the White House to try to delay a recall of their lettuce.

The Trump administration has been more than happy to comply with Big Food’s wishes to reap billions in profits with little oversight.

Last year the administration weakened the nation’s already thin food safety monitoring ser­vice, FoodNet, by making it op­tional to track numerous types of infections — including cyclo­sporiasis. “We’re really gutting one of the cornerstones of food safety,” epidemiologist Elaine Scallan Walter warned the New York Times last September.

Mega monopolies aren’t just bad for our gut. They also con­tribute to higher prices and re­duced access to fresh foods.

Their sheer size gives them what Civil Eats called “enor­mous power to make decisions about what food is produced how, where, and by whom, and who gets to eat it.” Big Food companies have repeatedly been found guilty of illegal price fixing. They routinely package the same foods under different labels to give the impression of diversity and competition.

Small farms are one impor­tant solution. Their supply chains are localized, making it easier to track and stop in­fections before they spread on a national scale. Independent farmers are selling out of let­tuce at farmers markets as peo­ple seek out clean greens.

Yet instead of promoting and aiding small farmers — as he promised to do when running for president in 2024 — Presi­dent Trump has cut back sup­port for training new farmers, who might be competitors to companies like Taylor Farms.

His administration also cut a program that matched small producers with food banks — feeding hungry people while financially stabilizing indepen­dent farmers — along with a disaster aid program for minor­ity farmers. The funding losses have left small farmers reeling.

What will help prevent fu­ture outbreaks is restoring and expanding regulatory agencies tracking infectious outbreaks. And breaking up food mo­nopolies while sustaining and strengthening small farms.

The question is: will the fed­eral government have the guts to do what it takes to protect the American people’s guts?

Sonali Kolhatkar is host and ex­ecutive producer of Rising Up With Sonali, an independent, sub­scriber-based syndicated TV and radio show. She’s an award win­ning journalist and author of Talk­ing About Abolition: A Police Free World is Possible, and Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursu­ing Racial Justice. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.