Premiered Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 | Check your local listings.
Over the past century, an American industrial revolution has given rise to the biggest, most productive food machine the world has ever known.
In this episode, host Yul Kwon explores how this machine feeds nearly 300 million Americans every day. He discovers engineering marvels we've created by putting nature to work and takes a look at the costs of our insatiable appetite on our health and environment.
For the first time in human history, less than 2% of the population can feed the other 98%. Yul embarks on a trip that begins with a pizza delivery route in New York City then goes across country to California's Central Valley, where nearly 50% of America's fruits, nuts and vegetables are grown and skydives into the heartland for an aerial look of our farmlands.
He meets the men and women who keep us fed 365 days a year -- everyone from industrial to urban farmers, crop dusting pilots to long distance bee truckers, modern day cowboys to the pizza deliveryman.
Explore stories from this episode of America Revealed
- Colorado Cowboys: Meet Ralph and Carlos who are two modern day cowboys
- Commercial Bee Kepper: David Hackenberg is a commercial bee keeper, he transports his bees all over the country to pollenate crops.
- Waste Deep: Rick Dovey presides over a landfill of your food trash.
- iFarm: Find out about the latest American agricultural innovation.
- Local Ocean: Long Island clammer Alex Duschere shows how your fresh seafood is sourced.
- Bee Keeping: Join Yul as he inspects a beehive - a crucial insect to corn production.
- Corn - The Key Ingredient: Find out more about corn production in America.
- Corn Production: Learn more about the corn production process.
- Factory Farming: Follow the evolution of small, traditional farms into factory farms.
- La Tomatina: Agricultural farming has created a surplus in food production.
