"The Right Thing to Do": Taking a closer look at Quaker Oats

Author: Stokes, Sutton

Source: Food, Culture and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, Volume 8, Number 1, Spring 2005 , pp. 73-96(24)

Publisher: Berg Publishers

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Abstract:

Quaker Oats advertising campaigns have long aimed not only at the stomach, but the conscience: "Think you don't have time for a hot breakfast?" asks one. "Think again." The implication is clear: there is something especially wholesome and nourishing about a piping-hot bowl of oatmeal, and the smiling man in eighteenth century garb offers a product that makes it easy to do what another Quaker ad calls "the right thing to do." But how can we be sure? What makes food "right"—health effects alone, or ethical/moral considerations about the business of getting that food from the farm to the grocery store?

This paper rubs the sleep out of its eyes and takes a closer look at what's in the steaming bowl on the breakfast table. It turns out that a dollar spent on Quaker oatmeal is a dollar in PepsiCo's bank account, and that part of that dollar goes to one of the world's largest suppliers of beef cattle. Meanwhile, it's no coincidence that the suicide rate is climbing among the farmers of the Canadian Great Plains … In the increasingly globalized agribusiness industry, think there's any such thing as a "safe" food? Think again.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/155280105778055380

Publication date: 2005-03-01

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Formerly, The Journal for the Study of Food and Society (ISSN: 1528-9796). Click here to see all previous issues.
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