Most of what you just said makes sense to me, and I believe you are right to draw the attention toward the elephant in the room: quality and variety of ingredients.
The reason why I'm writting this reply is this bit:
> I’m talking about anything processed/manufactured (99+%) that comes from a factory.
No. If we want a chance of survival we have to stop assosiating "factory" and "industry" to "bad". First, despite some of the bad press the food industry regularly receive is probably well deserved, overall food safety out of a factory is very good; much better than anything we ever had in history, and especially safer (if not tastier) than the equivalent homegrown product.
Highly processed food is a problem, be it out of a factory or fried by grandma.
I've worked a bit in this industry, and I can attest that even the less regulated industry will self-regulate periodic biological tests and put in place germ control policies that are much stricter than anything your local farmer will ever be able to do; just because of economy of scale.
And the same goes for the environment: If we don't want to exhaust natural resources we haveto resort to industry economy of scales. The quantity of energy and water that would be required to grow tomatoes in our gardens is stupidly wasteful compared to industrial norms. The quantity of detergeant and water needed to clean cooking pots for family-scale cooking is enormous compared to the quantity needed to clean tanks used in the industry.
I feel stupid to have to state the obvious but I'm starting to get really afraid of this trend that associates small scale with better safety, better variety and better economy of resources while the complete oposite is true.
The reason why I'm writting this reply is this bit:
> I’m talking about anything processed/manufactured (99+%) that comes from a factory.
No. If we want a chance of survival we have to stop assosiating "factory" and "industry" to "bad". First, despite some of the bad press the food industry regularly receive is probably well deserved, overall food safety out of a factory is very good; much better than anything we ever had in history, and especially safer (if not tastier) than the equivalent homegrown product.
Highly processed food is a problem, be it out of a factory or fried by grandma.
I've worked a bit in this industry, and I can attest that even the less regulated industry will self-regulate periodic biological tests and put in place germ control policies that are much stricter than anything your local farmer will ever be able to do; just because of economy of scale.
And the same goes for the environment: If we don't want to exhaust natural resources we have to resort to industry economy of scales. The quantity of energy and water that would be required to grow tomatoes in our gardens is stupidly wasteful compared to industrial norms. The quantity of detergeant and water needed to clean cooking pots for family-scale cooking is enormous compared to the quantity needed to clean tanks used in the industry.
I feel stupid to have to state the obvious but I'm starting to get really afraid of this trend that associates small scale with better safety, better variety and better economy of resources while the complete oposite is true.