The American way of eating : undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, farm fields, and the dinner table

In recent years the food industry has received a lot of media coverage as a result of the rise of the obesity epidemic in America. We have been bombarded by the latest fad diets such as South Beach and Atkins, that tell us to eat low-carb, no-carb, and most recently gluten free. Celebrity talk shows like Doctor Oz have reached the media forefront providing us with our daily episode of how to live healthier lives. Primetime reality shows like NBC’s The Biggest Loser have American television audiences cheering on immensely obese contestants as they compete to lose the highest amount of body mass in a single season through extreme diets and exercise regimes. Political figures like first-lady Michelle Obama have embraced the health craze by efforts such as the Let’s Move Campaign focusing on nutrition and exercise in a national effort to greatly reduce childhood obesity, most recently supporting an initiative promoting public schools to serve students healthier lunches. And documentaries like Food, Inc. have shocked moviegoers with gruesome images and statistics that make us cringe about the way our food industry operates, in an attempt to persuade us all to take the extra time, effort, and spend a little more to eat organically in hopes it will force food corporations to change some of their unsettling practices.

When I initially glanced at the cover of The American Way of Eating by first-time author Tracie McMillan and saw the image of the stacked canned fruits and vegetables I expected it to be another read slamming Americans and their habits of convenient consumption of mass-produced processed foods and canned and ready-to-eat produce, in an attempt to persuade me to change my eating practices by pointing out the benefits of supporting local farmer’s markets or shopping at organic grocery stores like Whole Foods. I was wrong.

Let me be clear. I am not saying that McMillan doesn’t believe in eating fresh and healthy foods, but rather her book gives readers something different. The American Way of Eating offers an original perspective that humanizes the food industry by telling her story from the point of view of a food worker. Readers benefit from the knowledge McMillan obtained through first-hand experience, as she worked undercover performing various jobs herself in three different aspects of the industry that feeds America. McMillan exposes the industry in a fresh way, not through a consumer’s perspective as we have become so accustomed to in the aforementioned examples, but through the eyes of the minimally and under paid food worker that labors at the bottom of the industry responsible for providing us with one of life’s most basic human necessities.

Prior to writing this book, McMillian worked mostly as a freelance investigative reporter writing stories about social justice. In the early 2000s McMillan was the managing editor of City Limits magazine, a bi-monthly, non-profit publication in New York City that features investigative reporting about social justice and civic issues primarily affecting low and moderate-income neighborhoods. Based on her previous experience and topics of choice, it does not come as a surprise that McMillan would choose to focus her first book reporting on the working class.

McMillan exposes the hardships the working-class of the food industry endure not by sitting down and interviewing them, but instead she draws from her background as an investigative reporter and applies to work in the jobs herself. She obtains employment in three different facets of the food industry; production, retail, and service. She works as a farmworker picking produce in the fields of California’s Central Valley, stocks fruits and vegetables on the shelves of Walmart’s produce department in a suburb of Detroit, and expedites restaurant meals in the kitchen of a New York City Applebee’s. She spends two months in each position and experiences life during those months by living only off the wages each job pays.

I felt McMillan’s choice to solely live off each job’s earnings was one of the most effective elements of her reporting. She didn’t merely experience a day’s work as a food worker and then retire to her cushy apartment paid for by money she had tucked away as a reporter, but rather she experienced two months in the lifestyle that accompanied the position in which she worked from the wages she earned. Among numerous things, this allowed her to expose through her own experience, the extreme poverty that many of California’s farmworkers live in. Making less than minimum wage, McMillan rented a room in a two-bedroom, one sink-less bathroom house, with enough rodents and cockroaches co-inhabiting it that she couldn’t imagine stepping off her bed without slipping on shoes first. She shared the tiny, pest-infested ranch home with thirteen other people, most of whom carpooled together to the farm fields. McMillan learned that her living situation was common for farmworkers because it brought down the cost of living to where someone earning as little as seven or eight dollars and hour would still be able to send money back to their families each month.

Living off the wages affected McMillan’s eating habits as well. While working in the kitchen at Applebee’s, McMillan witnessed first-hand that the food served there was never fresh. Vegetables and potatoes were pre-measured out and stored in plastic bags before being microwaved (still in those bags), and the alteration of expiration dates was a common practice to reduce food waste. However, during the time of her employment, McMillan found herself regularly eating Applebee’s meals, mostly because she was given an eleven-dollar meal credit per shift and it was the most convenient and cost effective way for her to eat.

By going undercover and working alongside other food workers, McMillan was able to provide a voice for those who would not normally get to have their stories told. McMillan was able to earn the trust of her fellow workers by keeping her reporter identity a secret. She heard real stories about poverty, living and working conditions, job-related injuries, and employers depriving workers of rightfully earned wages. Farmworkers in the onion fields told McMillan they often sleep in their cars or out in the fields to save on rent. “Around here they tell me, it’s not bad for this kind of living; in a town an hour south, there are snakes and scorpions in the field.”

She also hears stories from co-workers while at Walmart who had suffered from “a broken-foot from a runway pallet jack, carpal tunnel borne of the rigors of pricing, and ramming a guard rail on an icy exit ramp.” All of these coming from staff who work for a corporation that discourages its employees from filing for workers’ compensation.

McMillan also enlightens readers on what it’s like to work in the food industry by providing by her own impressions of her various jobs. She finds farm work to be incredibly arduous and takes a physical toll on her body. McMillan recounts her experiences; “The filth and heat drain nearly all my energy and replace it with apathy. When I finish my nine-hour day, I have little interest in doing anything besides taking a cold shower and lying on my bed with ice packs under my neck and back, a fan blowing on me from the window, only leaving if I flee to the air-conditioned public library. Everything but keeping cool has plummeted in import.” In just the two months that McMillan spent working in the farm fields, she suffered heat sickness as well as a sprained arm.

McMillan lets readers draw their own conclusions about the food industry by providing her observations and interactions. While working at a suburban Detroit Walmart, she is the one who informs the head of the produce department what a plantain is. After this interaction with her co-worker and observing him on the job, she can’t help but wonder how someone who is just barely out of high school and obviously knows very little about produce, and even less about keeping it fresh, is put in charge of half of the town’s fruits and veggies.

Her observations and interactions with the family she lives with while working in a garlic field in California’s Salinas Valley also humanize the food industry for readers through the stories she shares about the relationships and bonds she forms with the them, especially the five children. For instance, McMillan does her part to contribute to the home by teaching English to the fourteen-year-old daughter, who is unable to attend school because she must care for her younger siblings while her parents work the fields in order to support the family on their meager earnings. Despite what little the family has, they somehow always manage to have enough to include McMillan in their family meals. In exchange for the English lessons fourteen-year-old Inez teaches McMillan how to make tortillas.

Readers gain a better understanding for the food workers when McMillan analyzes the motivations and dilemmas behind the some of their choices. McMillan witnessed farm workers being routinely cheated out of pay by employers who fudge the hours on the pay stubs of many of the workers to make it appear on paper as if they received minimum wage. “Even though Rosalinda’s tarjeta will show that she came in at 5:30 a.m. and left at 2:30 p.m., a nine-hour day, her check will say she was there for two hours—exactly the number of hours she would have had to work at minimum wage ($8) to earn what she made via piece rate ($16).” McMillan offers an explanation as to why workers continue to tolerate this treatment, “So as far as I can tell, most of the workers I’m working with are undocumented, giving them a compelling reason to keep quiet. Workers with the legal status to work here might be more prone to make a fuss, but if they did, growers might do what they’ve always done when the threat of higher wages: looms: use machines instead.” McMillan realizes farmworkers have few choices other than to accept this treatment.

McMillan gives us another example when she analyzes why her fellow Applebee’s co-worker refrained from telling anyone that he witnessed another co-worker secretly drug her drink during her last shift, which in turn caused her to be the victim of sexual assault. “I suspect there were other things at play besides moral imperatives. Hector was one of the newest cooks in the kitchen, and still feeling out his place in it. For workers without job security, speaking out against a colleague carries real risk—particularly if you are supporting three kids while trying to move out of a homeless shelter”.

The three jobs McMillan takes on, and the workers she labors alongside, aren’t the ones that normally come to mind when we think of the food industry. They aren’t the waiters who place your piping hot entrée in front of you, nor are they the ones who greet you at the entrance and politely ask how many are in your party. They’re not even the ones who ring you up at the supermarket register or politely ask if you would prefer paper or plastic. But rather they are the invisible ones—the ones we usually never see. They are the ones who harvest the fields, stock the shelves at night, and work under the heat lamps in the back of the kitchen making sure the tartar sauce isn’t left off the plate when you order fish and chips. They are the bottom feeders of the food industry, minimally paid and minimally seen, yet each one have a unique story to tell, each contributing to the giant industry responsible for bringing us our daily bread. McMillan’s time spent as a food worker had its limits; a few fields, two Walmarts, and a single branch of the country’s largest restaurant chain, but hopefully her experiences and original take on this topic will expose readers to understand how America eats in a new way…through the eyes of those who depend on it most.

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“The American Way of Eating” brings to print the harsh reality of our nations food industry not just based on the quality of the food we are sold but the circumstances workers must face to make a living working for the multi-billion dollar industry. Tracie McMillan goes undercover to explore the lives of the workers who feed our nation not only from the angle of poverty and immigration but by gender. As a young, white, English speaking woman working under improper conditions in Americas food system, McMillan depicts an accurate reflection from the female point of view and hardships.

Child labor, overcrowded housing and hazardous work conditions are issues that coincide with the cost of growing crops for a low price in the state. McMillan spends an extensive amount of time in California’s Central Valley picking crops such as grapes, peaches and garlic.

“So far as I can tell, most of the workers I’m with are undocumented, giving them a compelling reason to keep quiet. Workers with the legal status to work here might be more prone to make a fuss, but if they did, growers might do what they’ve always done when the threat of higher wages looms: use machines instead.”

McMillan brings to light the various wage and hour violations amongst the farm industry. If the US were to increase farm wages, this would only raise the price of food for every American family, the exact opposite of what the so-called American dream brings to our society.

The author takes on the task of surviving at the level of poverty and highlights in the beginning of each section her wages, food bill and percentage of income spent on food to grasp the reality of how many workers are living in the San Joaquin Valley.

“My world, and thus my sources of food, now consists of three municipalities and the trailer park.”

McMillan provides enlightening and useful footnotes to present the facts revolving around the issues of the farming industry. For example, the many people living in the San Joaquin Valley are in areas where their tap water comes from groundwater that is vulnerable to contamination from fertilizers that can be extremely harmful if ingested.

Community survival is a theme that the author highlights when displaying examples of the poor lifestyles of the farm workers. She finds herself dependant on her co-workers for that extra meal to get her through the week. This display of dependence is one that could only have been identified through her authentic experience. Both psychological and sociological research states that the poor gain stronger social skills due to their dependence on one another.

With poverty comes sacrifice. McMillan encounters the housing conditions and just how far families will go to keep a roof over their heads. According to her research, nearly half of the workers in Central California are living in housing considered over crowded.

“Tight quarters come with their costs, most notably mental health and the potential for spreading disease…a place like Lorena’s does two things. One, it’s a shelter in the most basic sense of the word. And two, it brings the cost of housing down…”

Poverty finally resonates in the author through her experience in the fields. She recognizes poverty as a restrictive lifestyle and learns that prioritize her needs. Food is no longer a luxury item but a form of fuel. Health and nutrition are no longer precedent in her way of living. She learns to turn to high calorie food with excessive sugar and carbohydrates as a form of energy to make it through her day. As a middle class white woman that is essentially reaching out to a middle class audience through her writing, she sheds light on how easy it is to reprioritize your lifestyle when it comes to a lack of income.

The author soon admits after her experience through the fields, the stores and the restaurants that she of all people understands the harsh reality of the connection between the field and the food we are sold. Even with that connection understood, McMillan disregards those factors into her decision to purchase food living as a low-income employee. This is an example of the survival method many low-income families must use to get by.

“…None of it factored into my decision about my McDonald’s lunch…meals simply aren’t the most urgent battle facing me, and with good reason.”

McMillan is forced to financially organize and budget her life. Hours, pay, post-income tax, housing, food, and much more are considered when you are living pay-check to pay-check like many Americans do. Cutting coupons and taking donations becomes part of the norm.

According to “The Hands that Feed Us,” written by the food chain workers alliance in America, people who work in food actually have a higher chance of being unable to afford to eat. With more than 86-percent of food workers reporting that they earn poverty wages they are unable to eat like the rest of the U.S. “The Hands that Feed Us” states that it is actually food system workers that use the most food stamps being circulated. Apart from the apparent and potential health and safety violations in the work place and their lack or health care food workers are essentially slaves to our nation. Earning stamps while working in poor conditions and giving the money immediately back to where they received it. It’s a vicious cycle.

McMillan is able to tie together the disadvantages of both poverty and gender. Being a female in the world of farming and the food industry all together comes with shortcomings. The author finds herself in a “particularly tricky” situation when looking for work in the fields. While a large majority of farm workers are immigrants who speak little to no English, McMillan finds herself drawn back for being a white, female and knowing very little Spanish due to the large immigrant population and Spanish being the dominant language in the fields. After adapting to the lifestyle of the dependant farming community the author attempts to obtain more work in the fields but is forced to keep her guard up due to the evidence of sexual harassment in the work place.

With a great deal of desperation McMillan comes to find the unspoken rule in the fields: “…When the vulnerable depend wholly on the powerful, episodes of sexual quid pro quo and even rape are not unheard of in the fields…”

A 2010 survey concluded that near 80-percent of women of the Mexican-descent who were farm workers in California’s Central Valley experienced sexual harassment or bribed into performing sexual favors for a higher pay or more hours.

Sexual assault and harassment are not evident only in the fields. It surrounds the food industry entirely. Sexual harassment is and has been an issue for women in several job markets, not just those who are working for minimum wage. In this example, the author again finds herself at a disadvantage for being a white female. She herself falls victim to sexual assault and molestation by a colleague while working at Applebee’s. McMillan only knows of her assault by “hearsay” due to the fact that a co-worker drugged her on her last day as an Applebee’s employee.

“It occurs to me, in sequence, that this might be one reason women have been so rare in restaurant kitchens; that much of what kept my workplace bearable was not my own ability to roll with the punches but Freddie’s personal interest in making sure I faced very few of them to begin with; and that this is possibly a glimpse of what life- not just work-is like for the vast sea of women born with fewer privileges than me.”

After her own experience with sexual assault in the workplace McMillan highlights the hardships many women must face to maintain their households, and in several situations that meant putting up with sexual discrimination. Without children to feed or actual bills dependent on her low-income, the author is able to deal with her unfortunate situation like a middle-classed, English speaking women could: she could walk away. Walking away is not an option for many women working in kitchens or in the food industry today, they must work on to support their families and continue through the vicious cycle that our nation has set up through food stamps and low production costs.

McMillan exposes the situation workers are faced with when their jobs could potentially be on the line. For those who are not fortunate enough to have job security, speaking out or telling on a colleague comes with a great risk. The author meets a man who is faced with several hardships at once while trying to hold onto his minimum wage kitchen job.

“For workers without job security, speaking out against a colleague caries real risk-particularly if you are supporting three kids while trying to move out of a homeless shelter, and particularly if it appears that an indirect intervention will take care of the problem.”

The title of McMillan’s writing is similar to Jessica Mitford’s 1963 expose, “The American way of Death,” which highlights the abuse and negativity revolving around our nations funeral homes. Mitford writes on the extreme commercialization of the funeral home industry and the excessive expense of holding a proper funeral. Much like McMillan’s investigation of our nations food industry, we are exposed to the harsh reality of work conditions and the vicious cycle of poverty that are background to our over commercialized grocery stores and the real cost of low-priced goods.

Through her undercover investigation of the work conditions, the poverty underneath it all, and the sexual discrimination attached to Americas food industry, Tracie McMillan establishes America’s ignorance toward a priority that should be one of its biggest. “ Making sure its people can eat well, not just through the agriculture it practices but though the wages it pays, the work and education it provides, and the rules it keeps.”