Food Mafia

To summarize a majority of "Food Politics," I would say that the food industry runs their businesses at times like the mafia. They wine and dine with the politicians, creating friendships through gifts, frequent social encounters, united interests, bribes, and pretty much what ever it takes. But, if these friendly tactics do not work they will turn to more abrasive tactics such as suing your pants off. Like many things in the world the food industry looks so harmless at first, but if you find yourself past the veil you have entered a den of wolves. Money drives these companies to do what ever they must to continue to make it. To them it is just business. The food industry mainly uses lobbying to influence the government. They do this in three ways: promoting the views of special interest groups, attempting to influence government laws and policies affecting them, and communicating with the government on laws and policies of interest. The last two seem the same but one is more for laws that are coming out and the other is for doctoring up laws to benefit the industry and government. The government does little to limit lobbying because they benefit from the research and technical advise that is offered through these well funded companies. There is a lot of money exchange between the government and lobby groups who work for the food companies. There is hard money and soft money. In a nut shell there are a lot of rules dictating hard money which is normally in the form of a donation. Soft money is less documented and in larger amounts. There is also what is called a "revolving door," which is the transfer of jobs between lobbyists and government officials. Pretty much one day you are a lobbyist the next day you have made it on the inside to benefit the company you where working for. Or, one day you are a government official who works with lobbyists and realized they make more money than you and are less restricted so you use your "friendship" with certain interest groups to get a job and then use your former government contacts to help you achieve that job. Oh politics at its finest. Overall the facts in this book are appalling but surly not limited to the food industry.