Rotten (series) : Who would have thought food could be so evil?

in #tv4 years ago (edited)

I love a good documentary every now and then because with all the other mindless entertainment i consume like Gerard Butler saving the world or a Karate Kid cast reunion, I like to walk away with some extra knowledge from time-to-time.

Rotten focuses on food manufacturing and distribution, primarily as it applies to the United States, and how these corporations are often involved in shady deals with powerful people and politicians that result in the harm of the average person.


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Who would have thought that something as innocuous as garlic could cause so much pain in people's lives? I never would have thought anything of it and am now extra glad that I personally purchase most of my fruits and vegetables from a local market instead of a grocery store.

As it turns out, most of the entire global garlic market is supplied by China and most of the exporting is handled by just a couple of companies that make a lot of money. I'm not one of those people that immediately hates any large company for making profits, but when they do so by cheating, I have a problem with that.

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Garlic is cheap to grow no matter where it is but a majority of the cost is brought in because the global (and particularly American) market desires pre-peeled garlic, and this is costly and often must be done by hand. Inside this episode a hidden camera goes to China and reveals that the garlic is being peeled by forced free labor in prison - which isn't illegal, but is against import regulations of the United States. These prisoners (and I'm not trying to be soft on criminals) are being forced to peel garlic for 10-15 hours a day, many of them losing nails in the repetitive process.

Obviously, labor costs in the USA are significantly higher than China anyway, but introduce free prison labor, and the domestic operations don't stand a chance.

Whatever, i'm kind of an open-market kind of guy, but when you start exploiting humans in the process, even prisoners, I change my tune on that.

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Staying true to the "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" corporate mantra, a USA based company, Christopher Ranch has joined forces with the Chinese garlic producers and apparently is the largest distributor of garlic in the USA, by far. They have been accused of unfair trade practices and "dumping" on the market on many occasions but they have a massive and powerful legal team, as well as (apparently) the favor of the correct politicians - imagine that!

Christopher Ranch denies all the allegations in this Netflix special, as you would expect. The thing that makes me believe the documentary creators is the fact that they stand to gain nothing by presenting this information whereas Ranch is likely doing damage control. I have personally never heard of the company, but to be fair I haven't lived in the USA since 2004.


The series covers a wide variety of food and the level of corruption and back-handers that exists throughout. There are episodes about poultry, peanuts, honey, fish, and even weed and how there is a mad and disappointing scramble to have these industries be almost completely controlled by a few massive suppliers.


from the Netflix official channel

So if you didn't have enough reasons to be worried and feel as though pretty much everything in the world is evil, here is some more depression-ammo. Since a lot of my family are or were involved in farming (both of my parents grew up on farms) this series hits particularly close to home.

I found Rotten to be extremely well-produced and I was never bored during the 3 or so episodes that I have seen so far. I fully intend to watch each of them because at the end of it all, you know something when you are done - even if maybe your life was less worrisome without that knowledge.

Support your local farmer's market!

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This was an awesome docu!! The Honey mafia is insane and i never touched runny honey since :)

i haven't gotten to that episode yet but all the ones I have seen have been really eye-opening. It's all pretty sad really.

I realised that different countrys show different netflix programs and I was in Poland in jan to april and it was showing there then.

Yes its very sad, and imagine what isnt being documented. Im proud to take as little part as I can in society luckily

I saw that one and know the honey in the shops here isn't honey anymore. I will only buy honey from it's source now and we have a few bee keepers around my area.

Yeh! its insane, I was showing someone (who didnt care) the added fructose syrup inthe ingredients for the cheap, convinient honey cos its fluid.. stupid lazy humans 😆

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Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.

I will give it a try~!! I love this kind of documentary!

@tipu curate

Upvoted 👌

We need to encourage local farmers to be more empowered and able to produce good crops. The government needs to push regulations that support local agriculture. We do not want to be importers of agricultural products abroad on the basis of lower prices. we are often ignorant of farmers' incomes. They suffer more from an abundance of imported products, so they lose income despite abundant harvests.
what often happens is that during the harvest the price drops and farmers need to cover the huge production costs.
If all support the farmers will enjoy good results. Give help by buying local products.

over here in South East Asia, local markets from local farmers are far more popular than supermarket produce sections. I don't know if this means that the stuff at the local markets is better or not, but i do like the idea of helping the little guy. I don't know how they make their stuff like whether or not they use a lot of pesticides and what not and to be honest with you I don't really care.

I just like the idea of helping the little guys.

I tried to grow my own garlic this past year. It didn't turn out so well. I have a lady at work that grows her own and she usually gives us some each year. My wife and I go through so much that it doesn't usually last that long. It isn't that surprising to hear that corporate greed has their hands in yet another aspect of your lives.

I have watched a few and missed the garlic episode. Honey was bad enough and what the Chinese have don to the industry. The honey bees are getting less and less yet honey production is increasing is all you need to know it ain't honey. The whole bunch are crooked bastards.

The world's food supply will never be the same. Organic farming is way to go. Organic farming is a philosophy of life as opposed to these new methods which are just untested.
Very interesting post, duly upvoted.

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