American companies have been highly skilled at maximizing profits without bearing the societal costs

Jason H. Karp: "U.S. industrial food companies have been myopically incentivized to reward profit growth, yet bear none of the social costs of poisoning our people and our land. Since the 1960s, America has seen the greatest technology and innovation boom in history. As Big Food created some of the largest companies in the world, so too did their desire for scaled efficiency. Companies had noble goals of making the food safer, more shelf-stable, cheaper, and more accessible. However, they also figured out how to encourage more consumption by making food more artificially appealing with brighter colors and engineered taste and texture. This is the genesis of ultra-processed food. Because of these misguided regulatory standards, American companies have been highly skilled at maximizing profits without bearing the societal costs. They have replaced natural ingredients with chemicals, they have commodified animals into industrial widgets, and they treat our God-given planet as an inexhaustible, abusable resource. Sick Americans are learning the hard way that food and agriculture should not be scaled in the same ways as iPhones."