The Negative Effects Of Eating Animals By Jonathan Safran Foer

Animal assembly line

Did you know that over fifty-six billion animals, all over the world are being slaughtered for meat production yearly? This is caused by the high demands for meat, since the consumption of meat has increased annually. To accommodate the meat demands the agricultural farming has turned to factory farming. An intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also called factory farming. Factory farming is a large, industrial operation that cultivates large quantities of animals to meet the food consumption of humans. In the United States, Over ninety-nine percent of farm animals are raised in factory farms, these factories were invented to focus on profit and efficiency. They do this by sacrificing the animals’

In the book “Eating animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer, he points out the many negative effects of factory farming has on the environment. More particularly, in “Chapter 6:Slices of Paradise/Pieces of Shit”, Safran Foer talks about the environment tolls of animal agriculture waste, which results in killing wildlife, polluting air, water and land . He states “the problem is quite simple: massive amount of shit”. According to farmsanctuary.org “In the U.S. alone, animals raised on factory farms generate more than 1 million tons of manure per day, three times the amount generated by the United States population”. Because of this Safran Foer state factory farms use unorthodox methods to get rid of the excess waste. According to Safran Foer, one of the methods that factory farms use is dumping it into natural rivers, which results in killing wild marine life by pollution. Factory farms typically store animal waste in vast, air exposed lagoons, often the size of several football fields, which are likely have spills and leaks. In 2011 it was reported by the state-journal register that an Illinois factory farm spilled over two hundred fifty thousand gallons of manure into a creek, which killed over one hundred thousand fish. Because of their negligent choice the Illinois factory farm were fined over eighty thousand dollars. “Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan 's office said in a news release

Eric Schlosser of “Fast Food Nation” exploits the negative changes it causes. In “Fast Food Nation” Eric Schlosser takes parts to talk about how fast food changed the way animal were raised in order to meet demands from the people. He exploited larger proportion of fast food is made from sub-standard meats, which are taken from low quality animals. In short, the meat is not from one common placed, but rather from a host of parts that are pounded together to make a whole burger. To which a single disease like E.coli can spread to multiple meat products. “E. coli 0157:H7 is a mutated version of a bacterium found abundantly in the human digestive system. Most E. coli bacteria help us digest food, synthesize vitamins, and guard against dangerous organisms. E. coli 0157:H7, on the other hand, can release a powerful toxin- called a "Vero toxin" or a "Shiga toxin"-that attacks the lining of the intestine….A single animal infected with E. coli 0157:H7 can contaminate 32,000 pounds of that ground beef” (Schlosser). The likelihood of disease spread is very high since the meat is taken from different animals. In chapter 9 of the book, he provides a case in which ground meat was recalled after E. coli was identified. The worst part of that, was that 25 million pounds of the meat had been consumed. He also warns that with fast foods, the possibility of nationwide food