For Food Day, a guide to entries with answers to 'Food, Inc.'

A Happy Food Day to my readers!  To celebrate the occasion, which is also my wedding anniversary, I revisit my motivation for writing Cracked on the Food Pyramid--"I'm showing Food, Inc. to my students this week."  I continued by writing "I'll have more to say about the movie on Monday," which elicited the following comment from Infidel753.

I'll be looking forward to that. It figures the official recommendations about food would reflect lobbying and food-industry profits more than actual nutrition.

My response was brief.

Thanks for your anticipation. It means I'll be sure to have something interesting to say. And, yes, it figures.

Before I try to fulfill that promise, I'm listing what I've already covered about the movie to produce a guide to entries with answers, much as I've done for "The End of Suburbia" and "An Inconvenient Truth."  That may not be an interesting thing to do for Infidel753, but it will certainly be helpful to my students.

• On Thanksgiving eve, I present "Food, Inc.": Worksheet and answers to question 30.
• Monsanto wins gene patent case: Answers to questions 26 and 27.
• Comments to CNN and Russia Today cover the March Against Monsanto: More answers to question 27.
• CoDominion news from Reuters and Al Jazeera: Questions 21 and 22 about Smithfield, the world's largest producer and processor of pork, which has been sold to a Chinese firm, but no answers.
• Corn questions from 'Food, Inc.' worksheet: Answers to questions 7-11, 13, 16, and 23.  This is one of two blog entries I copy and pass out to my students.
• "We eat a lot of oil": Answer to question 28, along with answers to questions 14-16 from "The End of Suburbia."  This is the other blog entry I pass out to my students.
• John Oliver and 'Food, Inc.' explain chicken farming: Answers to questions 4-6 and 12.  This is one I should give to my students!

It looks like I have more answers available to my students on my blog than I thought!  Even so, there is still room for one more answer today.


2. For which agricultural products is McDonalds the largest or one of the largest customers?  List at least five.

The slide above listed four.  CBC has a more complete list in How McDonald's has shaped the food biz.

With 36,000 restaurants in 119 countries serving 69 million customers a day, it's an accepted fact that McDonald's holds enormous sway over consumers' eating habits, food production and prices.

McDonald's is now the biggest purchaser in the world of beef, pork, potatoes, lettuce and tomatoes, and the second-biggest buyer of chicken, after KFC.

When it decided to add apple slices to Happy Meals a few years ago, the company quickly became the biggest buyer of the shiny red fruit in the United States.

Analysts expect the chain to soon become a power in kale as well, if its tests with the leafy vegetable – reportedly under way in Canada – are successful.

Indeed, every tweak to its menu has a butterfly effect, sending ripples that reverberate all the way to the dinner table, from the price of your meal to how it gets to your plate.

When my students ask about how McDonalds became a major purchaser of apples, I usually cite their apple pies.  Now I'll be sure to add apple slices in Happy Meals to the explanation.  Welcome to blogging as professional development!