In his article “Boss Hog: The Dark Side of America’s Top Pork Producer,” (Rolling Stone Magazine, December 14, 2006) Jeff Teitz reports that not only are millions upon millions of pigs being abused and slaughtered each year by America’s largest pork producer, but, in turn, the waste produced by those pigs is polluting, destroying, and even killing others. Teitz begins by revealing that Smithfield Foods, the world’s most profitable pork processor, killed 27 million hogs last year, which is roughly equivalent to the entire human populations of America’s thirty-two largest cities. As Teitz delves deeper into statistics, he explains that more fecal matter is produced from half a million pigs at one Smithfield subsidiary than the 1.5 million residents of Manhattan, and in just one year Smithfield’s total waste discharge is enough to fill four Yankee Stadiums.
Teitz explains that the living spaces for the pigs are so small that they will trample each other to death, and piglets are unintentionally smashed by their mothers. Teitz asserts that, not only are the living spaces small, but they...
Once upon a time, there were three little pigs that were kicked out of their birth home by their parents and told to live life on there own. These three little pigs were ready to build their own homes and get secure jobs. The first little pig was lazy, overweight and did not like to work at all. He wanted to take the easy path, and built a house out of straw which could barely support it’s own weight. After he was finished building his insecure house of straw, he decided to visit his brothers. He danced down the dirt path, to see how they were progressing with their homes.
Pollan believes that American factory farms are places with technological sophistication, where animals are machines incapable of feeling pain (368). In other words, factory farms use plentiful of technology where they do not pay attention to animals feelings. For example, beef cattle who live outdoors are standing in their own waste, and factory farmers do not considered that wrong and unsanitary. Hurst alleges that “turkeys do walk around in their own waste, although they don’t seemed to mind”(5). This shows that factory farmers think that animals really don’t have feelings and really don’t care. Pollan also disagrees with industrial farming because he states that, “American industrial farms itself is redefined- as a protein production- and with it suffering” (369). He affirms this because industrial farming cages their animals. Interestingly, both authors believe that animals still die and suffer no matter what circumstances an animal is living. Pollan believes animals should be treated with respect and not be caged. On the other hand, Hurst asserts that “farmers do not cage their hogs because sadism, but because being crushed by your mother really is an awful way to go, as is being eaten by your mother”(6). So Hurst say that he cages animals to protect them. Also both authors believe that there needs to be ways to enrich the soil, so the farms can have bigger harvest, healthy plants, and keep cost down. However, Pollan believes that farmer should use compost. He states that “the finish compost will go to feed the grass;the grass, the cattle; the cattle , the chickens; and eventually all of the animals will feed us” (370). So he thinks compost is good for the farms. Hurst on the other hand, think manure and commercial fertilizer is good for the farms. Hurst spread poultry litter on pasture and this made cattle production possible in areas
In the 1890’s, somewhere in England “The Story of the Three Little Pigs” was created. In this fairy-tale, an old sow sends out three pigs to find their wealth. Firstly, while establishing their wealth, the pigs came across this man that supplied them with material to build their houses. Therefore, each pig begins to build their own house, either out of straw, sticks, or stones. The pigs soon after came across the wolf and he blows down the first two pig houses and eats the pigs.
pigs begin to take control. By the end of the novel, the pigs have manipulated the rest of the animals into doing everything they want. The pigs then become almost exactly like the humans. The most important pigs are Napoleon and Snowball, that is until Napoleon
Throughout the story, the animals begin the trust the pigs more and more, allowing themselves to be told what to do and be taken in with blind devotion. The pigs act on their newly gained trust and by the end of the story are able to lie back on their laurels and run the farm from the comfort of Mr. Jones’ armchair.
According to Roni Neff, Marie Spiker, and Patricia Truant, up to 40% of all food produced in America is thrown away (Neff, Spiker, & Truant, 2015, p.2). This wasted food is worth hundreds of billions of dollars that is lost each year in the United States alone, and creates many threats to our country. Food waste is an important and widespread issue in the United States because most of the food thrown away is perfectly fine, it could be used to feed the hungry, and the waste hurts the environment.
Tietz, Jeff. "Boss Hog: The Dark Side of America's Top Pork Producer." Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone, 14 Dec. 2006. Web.
At the turn of the twentieth century “Muckraking” had become a very popular practice. This was where “muckrakers” would bring major problems to the publics attention. One of the most powerful pieces done by a muckraker was the book “The Jungle”, by Upton Sinclair. The book was written to show the horrible working and living conditions in the packing towns of Chicago, but what caused a major controversy was the filth that was going into Americas meat. As Sinclair later said in an interview about the book “I aimed at the publics heart and by accident hit them in the stomach.”# The meat packing industry took no responsibility for producing safe and sanitary meat.
was the sheer power that big companies possess the food industry. The top 4 meat packing companies which are Tyson Foods, JBS USA, Cargill Meat solutions, and Smithfield Foods; control 90% of the meatpacking in the United States (Kenner). In addition to that, there were more than 1,000 slaughterhouses in the U.S in 1990, but in 2007 there was only 13 (Kenner). In the film Food Inc. a union organizer explained how Smithfield was taking advantage of low income workers, especially undocumented immigrants. Smithfield chooses low income, rural settings for its giant slaughterhouses, such as the hog slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, NC which is the world's largest slaughterhouse (Kenner). This way Smithfield can manipulate workers into doing about anything with the threat of losing their jobs, most often to keep quiet about what happens inside the slaughterhouse
Our current system of corporate-dominated, industrial-style farming might not resemble the old-fashioned farms of yore, but the modern method of raising food has been a surprisingly long time in the making. That's one of the astonishing revelations found in Christopher D. Cook's "Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis" (2004, 2006, The New Press), which explores in great detail the often unappealing, yet largely unseen, underbelly of today's food production and processing machine. While some of the material will be familiar to those who've read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or Eric Schlosser's "Fast-Food Nation," Cook's work provides many new insights for anyone who's concerned about how and what we eat,
Have you ever wondered what the wolf's side of The Three Little Pigs story was? Well, Jon Scieszka gives his readers the opportunity to see a different perspective dealing with this very circumstance. In many of his books, including The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by A. Wolf, Scieszka has used this style of writing that varies from the norm. Every turn of the page gives rise to new wonder and suspense as to what the reader will encounter as he or she moves through the pages of this intriguing book. Many of us grew up hearing fairy tales and nursery rhymes and most of us accepted them the way that they were. However, Jon Scieszka likes to take his readers on "adventures" through the "other side." He twists well-known stories around just enough to challenge the view that we have had for so long, yet not so much that we are unable to realize what story he is "imitating" or "mocking."
Factory farms have portrayed cruelty to animals in a way that is horrific; unfortunately the public often does not see what really goes on inside these “farms.” In order to understand the conditions present in these factory farms, it must first be examined what the animals in these factory farms are eating. Some of the ingredients commonly used in feeding the animals inside factory farms include the following: animal byproducts, plastic, drugs and chemicals, excessive grains, and meat from members of the same species. (Adams, 2007) These animals are tortured and used for purely slaughter in order to be fed on. Typically large numbers of animals are kept in closed and tight confinements, having only little room to move around, if even that. These confinements can lead to suffocation and death and is not rare. Evidence fr...
Although this is completely untrue, seeing that the pigs only occupy themselves in self-centered and self-beneficial engagements, the other animals believe it to be true because they do not know what files, reports, minutes, or memoranda are. Their ignorance leaves them unable to question Squealers story and they mistake the pigs’ true actions for hard, laborious work.... ... middle of paper ... ...
In the Freakonomics Radio podcast “The Cobra Effect”, producer Katherine Wells explores a problematic situation that affected the residents of Fort Benning, Georgia. With a population of over 120,000 residents, Fort Benning is twice the land area of Atlanta, Georgia. This is plenty of space for the thousands of pigs that inhabited Fort Benning. Retired Vietnam War veteran Bill Brickner described pigs as a nuisance and pointed out that only a handful of pigs can cause damage to military equipment. With the growing pig population in Fort Benning came a call to action. In the summer of 2007, Fort Benning officials established a policy named the “Pig Eradication Program” in hopes of decreasing the pig population. This policy called for a bounty
...People respond to the three pigs because either they have been in the pigs’ position, or they are ready to learn from the pigs’ experience. Everyone faces his own personal “wolf” that bares its teeth and threatens to blow away his foundation, but “The Three Little Pigs” offers hard work and determination as a solution to any problem that seems insurmountable. Proper preparation prevents poor performance regardless of the situation, and the three pigs show that sometimes, a poor performance might be the last one.