Many of you saw the Campbells Soup rant from one of their (now former) VPs. The short version is he allegedly said that their products contained bioengineered meat, and “if you look at our f****ng pantry, we have s**t for fucking poor people, right? We have s**t that’s for poor people. Who buys our s**t?” Allegedly.

Preparedness is mental, physical, financial and spiritual. Bad inputs in the form of garbage food negatively impacts all of these. Athletic performance, endurance, health…it all hinges on the fuel (food) that we are choosing or are stuck with. This little public outcry has re-spotlighted the thinking we should all have when it comes to what we are being offered by the marketplace. We really are being fed absolute slop when it comes to most things processed. But what has this go to do with being a prepared Citizen? Is this just some irrelevant “world has gone to hell” gum-flapping rant from the country store checkerboard or times gone by? Or does this really impact us as a community and most importantly our families? I would argue the latter all day long.

Yes, the issue of getting repackaged slurry of chemical garbage disguised as “food” in these United States is of significant concern. Anyone with a bloodline they want to see preserved and thrive in the future should do a hard reality check on what they are ingesting. This is part of the larger issue at hand for future generations; one of driving the quality out of everything under the guise of keeping products and services affordable (keeping businesses and stockholders in afloat). The default tradeoff in doing so has become reducing quality while also increasing the price for consumers. HFCS and seed oils have replaced real sugar and proper cooking oils and fats. These industries paid for studies that damned fat as the culprit and since the mid t late 20th century the food companies have leveraged these false studies to replace ingredients with dangerous substitutes under the guise of “health”. My assessment is if we were offered the same quality we had (quality based on the ingredients and quantity) the cost would be obscenely high. Think in terms of fifty to a hundred dollars for casual sit-down dining and $30 plus for individual fast food. Beef tallow, limited ingredients, real beef, cane sugar, no GMO, zero seed oils, no emulsifiers, binders, or fillers - just real food. The acceleration of the chemicals used to replicate actual food by restaurant service and prepackaged grocery has been stunning - and it will only get worse. Now we even have bio-engineered meat and ingredients being GRAS’d in wholesale (the FDA’s little game of allowing food companies’ self-categorizing non food ingredients as “Generally Regarded As Safe” or GRAS). Look in your kids’ eyes as they crack open that “Happee” Meal and contemplate the fact that the stuff they are eating is not actually food.

Everything is related. All of it. You are not a conspiracy theorist to think this is the case, it is foolish to be blinded by normalization of the downward slide we have encountered as a country (and in many of the EU it is the case as well, although not quite as stark with regard to the food supply, they are actually in far better shape than the US). Hospitals serve the same non-foods to patients in the US, to include the diabetic slurry of modern HFCS. The vast majority of physicians have limited formal education on nutrition, it is always the last in line when prescribing a solution in the commercial sick care system. Think about that for a minute, why would a health care professional allow empty and health damaging sustenance to be served to a patient? Healthy people are not a good return on investment for the sick system. It is always about the money and control. Why can’t you use your self-funded HSA (health savings account) for gym memberships or entry fees for races and athletic competitions? Throw some pharmaceuticals at it there Doctor Paycheck, insurance isn’t gonna’ pay for vitamins and holistic approaches. The drugs and ventilators used during COVID are a great example of this; they were proven to do more harm than good and yet they were incentivized for use by healthcare. The experimental preventative was all experiment and no prevention. How about the fast food restaurant experience now? Electronic ordering boards (literally covered in fecal bacteria, but that is for another time) where you punch in the order, pay, and then sit in a sterile box devoid of color and any human joy while you consume it. We are a couple of steps away from food pellets on Soylent Green Day. And with 36.6% of adults eating fast food on any given day and 83% of U.S. families consuming fast food at least once weekly the scale becomes unimaginable. (source Food Statistics 2025 (Latest Data and Trends Consumer Gravity)

A big revolving door. The FDA and USDA are both notorious for hiring and cycling food industry executives or providing them to big food and big drug after their taxpayer funded salaried positions are finished at the government agency. Big food conglomerates CEOs and VPs will cycle in and out of these two agencies ensuring the government watchdogs remain in step with the shareholder interests of the “food” magnates. Your best interest has always been your responsibility, but we need to come to grips there is no sharing that responsibility or even assisting with that endeavor by those who are chartered to do so. Not even with the “Make America Healthy Again” smoke and mirrors that many of us voted for. It should tell you everything you need to know when you see ingredients that are so bad they must be removed, but the food industry negotiated they can stay for another two years plus to phase them out (obviously so they would not lose $ that was already paid for the colored poison additives). Think about the absurdity and nefarious nature of that small slice of reality.

Restaurant Supply. Consolidation and monopolization only leads to a downturn in quality. These are facts. There is a single dominant food distributor in the US that is continuing to grow and buy out smaller competing companies. This distributor has a less than stellar reputation and is known to cut costs by using fillers and shortcuts that have resulted in a noticeable downturn in restaurant food. Consumer cost goes up, quality goes down. Even chain restaurants that once made some of their items in house now purchase pre-packaged flash frozen items that are super microwaved at the time or order. Have you noticed how much faster food seems to come out at some of these places? Have you noticed just how monotone and bland the food has become? Yeah, us too. We used to enjoy going out to eat as a “treat”, while it was more expensive the convenience and experience was worth the slight cost tradeoff. The quality was on par with what we could make at home. Now? Oh hell no. Corporate feeding troughs have fallen into the “this actually isn’t that great” category at best. Used to a family could get an arguably decent steak at a couple of the known large chains. I remember well getting nice thick cuts of beef that were well prepared. Now even the “Biggin” or the “Cowboy Cut” is an anemic thin piece of what may or may not have been actual meat. It arrives curled up on both ends because it was cut too thin to withstand the brief cooking temps to achieve medium rare. I recently had a ribeye that I know damn well was glued together. Real fat and marbling is easily recognizable; this was easily identified as a pieced together and “glued” piece of something. None of it tastes right anymore, ask any of your friends and they will say the same. It isn’t just “in your head”. Strike up a conversation with workers and former workers in the prepared food / restaurant space, you will be amazed at the low end food you are being served. If they have been around for any amount of time, especially as kitchen staff, you will hear about how only few years ago they would prepare and actually make a lot of the items in house. You will find out the restaurant now gets everything prepackaged and ready to microwave in plastic infusing wrapping.

“Ok, Ill just go to the grocery store.” Hang on a second professor, we still haven’t fixed the glitch. Prepared foods from the grocery are no better and the CAFO beef supply is noticeably poor quality. The prepackaged foods suffer from the same types of quality issues as the restaurant swill. Remember the ketchup label? Ok so you go the unprocessed veggie and unprocessed meat route, that is good to go right? Ever heard of this relatively new preservative substance called Apeel? That ain’t rainwater misting on the produce, more FDA GRAS allowed chemicals. But it is “natural” so they OK’d it for use on organic produce as well. I’m not even kidding. The beef, pork and chicken from the grocery are probably not the source most of us think it is either. It is always CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) unless it is marked differently, but even the grass fed organic beef or free range chicken is worthy of additional research. Packaged CAFO beef has color added, gases to maintain color, and God knows what else inside that styrofoam and plastic container. We have had CAFO beef in recent months that has a detectable odor of cow s**t. We are resorting to buying half of a beef from local grass fed ranchers. Chicken and hog farms are in the same condition, unfortunately the options for anyone wanting to do right are few (and expensive).

Not the four legged, grass fed free range type. I’m talking about the two legged ones with bank accounts and their offspring. That is you and me brother, we are the cattle being fed this garbage. We are the ones being used as bank accounts to fund corporate food conglomerates. And it is the whole package, nothing ever gets better it seems. The personal well being and bloodline future of feed cattle isn’t usually considered past their usefulness to the owner. If you take away the salad bars that used to be present in several chains and replace it with soy filled slop the human cattle will still continue to graze on what is presented before them. They are too ignorant to realize the feed corn they are getting is filled with chemicals, antibiotics, and in some cases ground up insects. Buy hey big cow is still hungry so nom nom nom nom.

Ok discussing food awareness in the good old USA is a bit like me screaming into the wind. But we as a community and thinking humans must get past the “it is what it is” “what else are you going to do besides bitch about it” mentality. What are you going to do, never eat out or buy processed food again? Well…yeah. If that is what you see as the way ahead for your family. Will we (my family) continue to buy processed food? Sure in some capacity, but as more of these things come to light, we will be a lot more deliberate about it. And have a long term plan to exit the majority of the food system if things don’t improve over time. Maybe have a long term plan in place to minimize your family’s exposure to the non-food food, but at a minimum it should be an informed decision at the grocery store or the executing a food break exit at the blue interstate sign with all the colorful restaurant logos.

The underlying issue is one of tolerating mediocrity. Human beings in modern society have been conditioned and are all in when it comes to accepting low quality as “it is just the way it is”. Cars that no longer last 100k miles, disposable clothing, and appliances that are supposed to be “smart” yet give up after only 4 or 5 years. Grandma’s hand me down 1950s fridge in your garage is still clipping right along. We could still do that, still produce those lifetime appliances and 350 small blocks dropped in inexpensive limited option work trucks but the manufacturers don’t…because we consumers tolerate the BS 4 banger turbo in the new truck because the grill and styling make it look badass. It doesn’t matter if it is the food we eat, the weapons components we purchase, the plastic chicom garbage that American’s buy, and even the people we choose to surround ourselves with. We have come to accept things that are low value propositions just because they are what is available. Sure, there are exceptions and no one who has walked this earth since around 2,000 years ago is perfect, so this is not judgment or recommendation to isolate in the woods and eat organic tree bark. Will I still scoot into Cracker Barrel with my buddies after a cold morning on the range? Yeah of course I will. Do I judge someone for buying a 2026 model $70k mini pickup truck with what will surely be a disaster of an engine for long term ownership? Nope, I still love you my brothers. As always, we don’t ever pretend to tell you what to think…we provide angles and information. Do with this what you will. And as always please remember there are no coincidences my friend; everything in this modern world is related. Everything.

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