Food Shock

"The vast majority of food in Australia is massed-produced in an industrialised system and the results are not as palatable as the everyday shopper might imagine. Our fruit and vegetables are sprayed with pesticides and herbicides, many of which have been banned overseas for years. Our beef is more often than not finished in feedlots, where thousands of cattle stand in their own faeces, regularly dosed with antibiotics to prevent the diseases that are an inevitable result of these conditions. Our chicken meat is 'spin chilled' in a dilute chlorine solution to help preserve and whiten it. ... If you combine all this with the as-yet-unknown effects of genetically modified crops, the growing water crisis, the continued sale of valuable farming land to foreign interests, and the constant struggle Australian farmers face to survive in a 'free-market' economy where 'big business' makes the profit and their overseas competitors are subsidised, it soon becomes evident that food production in Australia faces a very uncertain future."--P. [4] of cover.