Eric Schlosser’s Nov 30 editorial targeted Goldman Sachs, one of three private equity firms controlling most of Burger King’s stock. The fast food monarch, in turn, is reponsible for turning the tide back on the one-cent per bucket increase in wages for thousands of Florida tomato pickers.

It would cost Burger King just $250,000 a year to increase the pickers’ wages by this amount, to solidify similar deals struck with Taco Bell and McDonalds by the AMAZING Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Although many readers of this blog may not frequent Burger King, many others do.

Regardless of the location, when we shell out $6.50 (or $36.50) for a meal, do we have any idea how much of our dollar is going to the person serving us?
to the person making the food?
to the person harvesting the food?
to the person driving our ingredients across the country?

An alternative model is practiced by Just Coffee, a Madison, WI-based co-operative business which sources, roasts, and sells coffee held to the most fair and ethical standards “using the language and mechanics of market economics to turn the market on its ear.”

A number of food industry firms have introduced voluntary nutrition labeling and created self-monitoring agreements with the likes of the Clinton Foundation to illustrate their supposed commitments to nutrition and health. Aside from the obvious conflicts of interest between nutrition and corporations’ primary goal–shareholder profit– tweaking the current industrial food system to meet nutritional guidelines will never lead to a more truly transparent food system. Voluntary labeling will never answer any of the questions above –on the product label or the restaurant menu board.

Whether your priority is children’s health, labor rights or the environment, transparency is necessary in order to prevent the current unhealthy trends from continuing. Hopefully some measure of transparency in all of these areas will be included in the Hechsher Tzedek ethical kashrut labeling scheme.