next up previous author@ourfood.comOurFood DownloadOurFood search OurFood Index

Introduction

OurFood is a database containing information concerning food, related physiology, technology, analytical methods, bacteriology and topics of general interest.

The author

Karl H. Wilm diplome biochemist, graduated in the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Belém do Pará, Brazil.

Image author

As member of the Council of Pharmacy of Porto Alegre the author became director of the section of bacteriology of the Biochemical Laboratory Dr. Friedel in Sao Leopoldo, Rio Grande do Sul Brazil, later chief chemist of the laboratory of food industry in Germany.

Disclaimer

OurFood was compiled with great care. However the author does not take any guarantee and denies any responsibility upon failures or damages caused by errors or misunderstanding of the contents.

General information Why a database on food ?

Health No physician denies the truth that the most frequent causes of illness are based on wrong behaviour related to food. More information about food is necessary to avoid unhealthy life-style and to cut cost of resulting medical care. You cannot avoid contaminants and other dangers of modern food, but you can reduce exposition maintaining good dietary habits.
Industrialization OurFood is being increasingly industrialized. The organic food and alternative food are being commercialized.
Due to a wide distribution the shelf life must be kept long. Vitamins and proteins lose their value.

Evolving food systems are dominated by financial interests

[1] Impacts of conventional food systems Conventional food systems aim to maximize efficiency in order to reduce costs and increase overall production. The industrial agriculture and its infrastructure coincides with the start of the industrial revolution. It enabled the conventional food systems to increase the availability of food for an ever growing global population. It is base on the use of chemical fertilisers and heavy industrial agriculture, however, turned it possible to utilise large areas of virgin forests. The climate the biodiversity and the ecology of large areas are endangered. Conventional food systems impoverish affected rural population.

Organic food systems Organic food systems Organic farming was introduced by Lord Northbourne, base on theories of Rudolf Steiner It depends on reduced input of chemical pesticides and fertilisers, livestock is reared without antibiotics or growth hormones. Great supermarket chains took over the business with organic food, perverting the original meaning of organic farming to mass production and monocultures. It is now far from being a holistic, ecologically-balanced approach to farming.

Biodynamic agriculture [1] The agricultural system of Rudolf Steiner now known as Biodynamic agriculture, contains the concept of "the farm as organism". Farms following the holistic idea of Steiner should keep distance to organic food made for supermarkets. They should label their products as "biodinamic food", building a strong separation with industrialised organic food.

Globalization of trade and industry

Globalization of multinational companies destroys the ecological isolated markets introducing the global business. Dumping prices from abroad destroy smaller industries killing jobs.

The self-sufficient demographic groups as seen in the Amazon rain forest will be destroyed by global thinking. Traditions and real target of life will be gone in a world which is being controlled by a hand full of mighty global players. Economic and ecological isolated units like the habitation in the Amazon jungle as self feeding unit will be a picture of the past.

Image urwald

Company	Home based	Turnover food
		USmm
Nestlé	Switzerland	50
Phillip Morris	USA	31
ConAgra	USA	23
Unilever	Netherlands	23
PepsiCo	USA	22
Cargill	USA	21
Coca-Cola	USA	18
Diageo		18
Archer Daniels Midland	USA	16
Danone		14

The recent opening of the European Common Market adds further power to giant industries. Concentration on the retail sector has destroyed in Germany 60 000 full-time jobs. Mergers and acquisitions are the prime culprit. When a smaller company is being taken over, a number of duplicated functions are concentrated and jobs destroyed. [2]
The retail sector is also getting global. Carrefour, a retail group with head in France reports the opening of 10 new business fields in Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Spain and Taiwan. The total number of stores of Carrefour come up to 345 in 20 different countries. [3]

The concentration of the market proceeds and even increases in speed, seen at the European activity of the US giant Wal-Mart [4] buying at the end of 1998 the Interspar-SB warehouses. Wal-Mart is interested to buy the Carrefour group. Wal-Mart has already reached a turnover in 1997 of 200 billion Mark. It has a giant data-processing system which is only surpassed by the system of US Ministry of Defence in the Pentagon.

Wal-Mart controls the behaviour of its clients utilizing data from the buying checks client charts and interviews of its employees. In this way Wal-Marts gets a picture of the behaviour of the client, the speed of turnover of the ware and regional different reactions of the market. Wal-Mart has an enormous knowledge concerning its customers.

Retailer	Home based	Total	Branch in
		turnover
		bn US Dollar
Wal-Mart	USA	156	Canada, Mexico, Brazil,
			Argentina, China, South Corea
			and Germany

Metro	Germany,Zwitzerland	46	West and East Europe, China,
The Kroger Co	USA	45
Carrefour	France	40
Alberton's	USA
Edeka	Germany	37

Rewe	Germany	36	Austria, Cherchenien, Slowakia,
			Poland, Hungary, Italy,
			and France

Royal Aholda	Netherlands	35
Intermarché	France	34
Tesco	GB	32

The former head of the board of directors of the Daimler-Chrysler automobile group, Jürgen Schrempp expects a wide dissolution of nations as a result of growing international fusion of enterprises.
To the magazine "Forbes" Schrempp stated: "We are going to come to a transatlantic union and then we should get ahead and finally build a world union without borders between countries [5].

As head of DASA(the aerospace division of Daimer-Benz), now EADS, Schremp acquired the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Focker in 1992 subsidizing the company with billions of Deutsche Mark. Only four years later, in 1996 Daimler-Benz decided to stop putting more money into Fokker that subsequently went bankrupt. Under the leadership of Schremp, Daimler-Benz made the disastrous acquisition of the Chrysler Corporation to become DaimlerChrysler. In May, 2007, facing tremendous losses, Daimler got rid of Chrysler and Schremp. This is an example how the visions of powerful leaders may score own goals.

In 1971 Gudrun Tempel wrote that the world was becomming a small village governed by the head of global companies which have more power than a president or a minister of finance [6].

Unfortunately the great global companies do not bring wealth or better life to the country where they operate.
Oranges are being marketed in Brazil mainly by four companies: The Brazilian Cutrale and Citrosuco,the French Coimbra and the US American Cargill producing 40% of world orange juice. Price of fruits and pay for workers are kept at extreme low levels without benefits to the workers of this giant industry. Globalization does not bring a better live to the world. It destroys the basis of social organization. [7]

As former Foreign Minister of Germany, Hans-Dieter Genscher[8] considers 1989, the year of the opening of the Wall of Berlin as a beam of the industrial as well as social globalization. According to his words it is now time to get together and fight the common threats of globalization which are:

Mass poverty
Ignorance and
No access to education

At the end of the cold war when the scare which was paralyzing humanity had been lifted, better transport and information flow was able to drive on development of technology and business.
According to Mr. Genscher, globalization has to be carried by the spirit of tolerance to avoid collision of cultures. Intolerance is often the product of ignorance.

It is therefore important to furnish information about other cultures in our schools.
As the availability of food resources depend on the political leadership of the countries where basic foods grow the political configuration of the world in the 21.century is for food trade and industry of crucial importance. Mr. Genscher says:

"Russia will remain a part of the power of the world. China and India will play growing roles.
Japan will remain strong. Brazil, despite its economical troubles will gain weight.
Regional unions like MERCOSUR in Latin America. The Gulf Cooperation Council ASEAN in Southeast Asia and the European Union in Europe will built new economic blocks.The European Union is already of equal rank to USA."

Sustainability of the resources of our planet

Globalization concentrates the power of global companies which develop enormous agricultural activities creating monocultures of biofuel crops. Jobs are lost and prices of staple foods rise.

The only way to save the climate and the sustainability of the resources of our planet is to get back to economic, ecological and cultural isolated systems. The regions must produce for their own market which must become self supporting. This social revolution can take place like the fall of the Berlin Wall 1989 as a great part of the population of the DDR recognized the dusk of the communist system. The legion of the unemployed persons will recognize that global business destroys our society and will make a ban of global products.

The Arab unrest splashes over to Europe, escalating in riots on the streets, of Greece, Spain , Italy and others. This will speed the process of change of the global society. Strong potentates will tumble like the Roman Empire and economic, ecological and cultural isolated systems will get free of the international speculative financial system."

You cannot avoid globalization. You cannot turn back time, but you can inform yourself through databases like OurFood. Free databases like OurFood provide information on how to avoid the menace of daily poisoning. That is why databases on food are important.

OurFood wishes you success on your researches.

Bibliography

1: Biodynamic farming and compost preparation.
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/biodynam.pdf.
2: 60 000 jobs lost in German retail sector; Eurofood, 17 December1998 pg 5.
3: Carrefour sales up 10.4% in November; Eurofood, 17 December 1998. pg. 9.
4: Freese, Gunhild: Billig wie noch nie;Die Zeit, Nr.9; 25.2.99.
5: Schrempp erwartet Weltregierung; Bild am Sonntag; 45.Jahr;nr. 52 27.12.98.
6: Tempel, Gudrun: Als wär's der liebe Gott,Die Weltmacht der Konzerne;Bertelsmann Sachbuchverlag; Gütersloh-Wien, 1971.
7: UNICEF - Nachrichten 3 September 1998 Schuften für den Wühltisch.
8: Genscher, Hans-Dieter: Wer regiert unsere Welt 2000, Herr Genscher?: TV Hören und Sehen 27.2.99/5.03.99 S. 20.

next up previous author@OurFood.comOurFood DownloadOurFood SearchOurFood Index