Food is a necessity to life, an indisputable statement that has long been glorified. Yet again, are all of us sure that the foods we ate are safe and healthy. We devoted our full trust to the so-called regulatory body like Food & Drug Administration (FDA), but still the birth of factory farming and mechanization of food are at alarming rates, posing an utterly significant threat to health and environment. The impacts of food mechanization are clearly evinced through the direct illness to food consumers, outbreak and widespread of new diseases and degradation of water resources and aquatic life.
One of the effects of food mechanization is the direct illness it brings to consumers through food. The food contains deadly bacteria and pathogens that results to health problems among consumers. For instance, the presence of E. coli in corn-fed meat would cause kidney failures. “In the United States E.coli O157:H7 is the major cause of acute kidney failure among children, 100,000 Americans infected and 36,000 deaths reported yearly” (Greger). Other discerning examples include salmonella which accounts for food poisoning, “Salmonella Enteritidis-contaminated eggs were sickening an average of 182,000 Americans annually, by the beginning of 21st century” (Greger). Furthermore, the mechanization of food makes food less nutritious, thus promoting an unhealthy society. An example would be the high fructose corn syrup, found in wide range of food and beverages, that leads to a skyrocketed epidemic of obesity, “In the 40 years since the introduction of high-fructose corn syrup as a cost-effective sweetener in the American diet, in 1970, around 15 percent of the U.S. population met the definition for obesity; today, roughly one-third of the Ameri...
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...ills water organism such as fish. For example, the pfiesteria piscicida are killing the aquatic life “It (pfiesteria) causes lesion in fish and has caused massive fish kills in rivers, including the Neuse River, where 14 million fish are killed and 36400 acres of shellfish bed are closed” (Miller, 114). These conclude that food mechanization has caused our water quality and aquatic life to be in jeopardy.
All in all, mechanization of food is clearly deleterious to the world today as it brings direct illness to food consumers, outbreak and widespread of new diseases and degradation of water resources and aquatic life. We say that we are moving towards modernization, civilization, technological revolution etc. Yet, we overlooked matters that used to be so important to our heart, our own health and our mother nature. Consequently, we are the victim of our own mishap.
The world in which the human race lives in relies heavily on factory farming to provide food to over seven billion people. This method of food production is deemed normal and efficient in today’s society, yet has minute advantages. If we took the time to learn the conditions and technicalities of how factory farming actually operates, we would discover that the overall effects to the environment and human health are detrimental. Realistically, people are not going to stop consuming animal products, so instead, people should be conscious of how their food is being produced so that they may be informed in order to make changes in their dietary habits to better their own well being, as well as that of the environment’s.
Food is an essential part of everyday life without it one could not survive. Every day we make choices on what we put in to our bodies. There are countless varieties of food to choose from to meet the diverse tastes of the increasing population. Almost all food requires a label explaining the ingredients and the nutritional value allowing consumers to make informed decisions on what they are consuming. However, many may not be considering where that food is coming from or how it has been produced. Unfortunately, there is more to food than meets the eye. Since 1992, “ the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled, based on woefully limited data, that genetically modified foods were ‘substantially equivalent’ to their non-GM counterparts” (Why to Support Labeling). GM food advocates have promised to create more nutritious food that will be able to grow in harsh climate conditions and eventually put an end to world hunger in anticipation of the growing population. There is very little evidence to support these claims and study after study has proven just the opposite. GM crops are not only unsafe to consume, but their growing practices are harmful to the environment, and multinational corporations are putting farmers out of business.
The necessity of food has created one of the most powerful diseases in the health of today’s nation. According to the resent documentary (Silverbush 2012) it shows how obesity and hunger are closely related to one another. Obesity today has over taken what we know of most of the United States population. This phenomenon of unhealthy eating starts in children even before they start going to school. A large amount of today’s population is found living in the middle to lower class, creating complications when trying to support family’s with insufficient funds. When it becomes comes time to buy healthy foods for their family it becomes overlooked due to the high prices of fruits and vegetables. Times of scarcity lead the average American to buy cheap, unhealthy, quick and easy food products due to government subsidies. With food being an essential aspect to living it makes eating a necessity one cannot live without. Americans with low budgets are forced to buy products that are mass-produced. The high demand for food has caused a process in which food production has become degrading to the environment, the animals, the quality product itself, and the consumers. Large livestock farms create large amounts of animal waste that in turn producing noxious air emissions, water pollution, and potentially spreads risk of infections to humans. Billions of tons of polluting pesticides and fertilizers have destroyed waterways, are responsible for causing cancer, food-born illnesses and obesity, and are one of the many causes of global warming (Kallen, 2006). Many Americans are forced to go against the functional aspect of sociology and conform to eating products that are in turn dangerous for them resulting in multiple health issues. Due to t...
In our fast pace society, we base everything on time and money. This need to save money and time has transformed the way we see food and purchase food. Food is an essential part of all cultures. It plays a role in every person’s life. The population has the power to choose what we eat and how the food industry is shaped. There are many important questions that we need to ask ourselves in order to keep the food industry in check. These questions are: How do we know our food is safe? What should we eat? How should food be distributed? What is good food? These are simple yet difficult questions.
Although there are many dangers in the world, the necessity of eating shouldn’t be considered something that is dangerous. Bryan Walsh talks about the dangers of eating food in his article, “America’s Food Crisis,” that proves how the food industry has changed dramatically in recent years. Factory farming has become the new way of producing food for America, one that is slowly putting millions of people’s health at risk.
“Food Safety Consequences of Factory Farms.” Food & Water Watch. Food & Water Watch, 27
Filipovic, Jill. “To Save Americans’ Health, Government Must Intervene In Food Industry.” Aljazeera America. n.p November 17, 2013. Web. 27 March 2014.
In recent studies, it was discovered that most of the foods that Americans consumed are foods which had gone through so many processes and thereby losing most of its nutritional values. Unhealthy nutrients are also been added to foods as additive during production to either preserve flavor or enhance its taste and appearance. An individual cannot simply trust what he or she is consuming at a fast food restaurant or even a cheap prepared meal at a grocery store. Processed food or western diet needs to be replaced and totally taken out of the American life and diet; this will help the Americans to live a healthier life, and spend less on medical bills.
Throughout time new developments have taken a toll over our lives, but in the industry field things have taken a dramatic change, changing the farming methods used to produce. As Mark Hyman states in one of his quotes, “In the 21st century our taste buds, our brain chemistry, our biochemistry, our hormones and our kitchens have been hijacked by the food industry,” the government and industry companies have corrupted our mind set. Food, Inc., released in 2009, addresses the topic of corporate farming, and argues that the industries are producing unhealthy food for society. Director Robert Kenner filmed this documentary to aware all consumers of the dangers corporates are doing, which is only benefiting them and harming the society with the food they are producing and that in some cases is killing people due to the bacteria it contains. Corporate industries, government agencies, and private
In addition, factory farms contaminate the surrounding land because of the excessive amount of animal waste that emerges from these institutions. The waste is usually used as fertilizer for soil, but factory farms produce so much waste that it has to be stored, and often times, the waste leaks out of these storage containers and pollutes the surrounding area. Seventy-five percent of the antibiotics present in animal waste leaks into the environment and pollutes water and food crops, facilitating disease and posing a serious threat to public health. Factory farming also wastes one of earth’s precious resources: water. Excessive amounts of water are used to create minute portions of meat while miniscule amounts of water are used to harvest grain (Figure 1). These findings are troublesome because if humans continue to endorse factory farms, pollution and disease will possibly surge and water will continue to be utilized excessively, and this depletion of resources can greatly decrease earth’s ability to sustain 7 billion people3. As a resolution, many environmentalists recommend a vegan diet to save humans, other organisms, and the
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, dishonest ploys in the food industry have left Americans skeptical about what is really occurring inside the factory farms that generate much of the food they consume. Much of the public is unaware of the measures that farmers take to ensure economic benefits, and how they exploit the lives of many merely for decent profits. Currently, factory farms dominate the United States food production, instituting abusive practices that maximize profits at the expense of the environment, animal welfare, and even our health. The innocent animals undergo painful conditions due to the synthetic hormones injected into their systems and brutal treatment they are exposed to. This triggers an ongoing dispute between those who support advances in biotechnology versus those who do not. Modern industrial agriculture demonstrates a lack of concern for the wellbeing of the livestock, the consumers, and the environment, which is why factory farming practices must be banned.
Would you rather have food available for everyone with the possibility of diseases or having a possible food shortage, but the food will be safe to eat? How about changing the way food is produce or keeping it the same? In the film Food Inc., Robert Kenner tires to answer these conversational questions by examining corporate farms across America. Kenner shows the industrial production of meat where some people are okay with feeding animals antibiotics while others are not because it causes the meat to be unhealthy. The problem that arises is whether or not the mass production of food is abusive for the animals causing the food to become unhealthy. If this is true and the mass production of is abusive and makes the food unhealthy then the Food
“Genetically modified foods are a "Pandora's box" of known and unknown risks to humans and the environment. They have been forced onto the American public by multinational biotech and agribusiness corporations without adequate oversight and regulation by the United States government (Driscoll, SallyMorley, David C).”Genetically Modified Food is food which has been chemically altered by scientists during the production process to give the food more nutrients, better appearance, and a longer shelf-life (Rich, Alex K.Warhol, Tom). The importance of this issue is that these GMO’s can actually have a negative effect in our society in general. It could mutate in a negative way and cause cancer or other diseases. Genetically modified food should be strictly controlled due to its various detrimental effects on the environment, human health, and potentially insect/animal effects.
The three paradoxes of what people consume which include pleasure-displeasure, health-illness, and life-death. The positive aspects include pleasure and health, which are surrounded by satiety needed for energy and the continuation of life. The negative aspects of the paradox include displeasure and illness, which entails the ending of death. The paradoxes of food decide whether or not the consumer gains nutrients from what they are eating, or what they eat kills them. The way of coping with the pleasure-displeasure paradox can be found in traditional diet that has a narrow diet that is stable and doesn’t vary to ensure life and pleasure as a result of consuming the food. Health illness is coped by traditional combinations and preparations. While life-death uses the rituals of killing and thanking the food source to cope with the paradox. Modern day food processing has brought the human race away from the above paradoxes. When discussing the changing landscape of changing the changing food system, the questions that arrive are how foods are best altered to positively affect the human race. These trans-scientific questions, questions that scientists raise, but cannot answer yet about the changing food system, is the driving force of research into food. However, the problems with these
...esity is becoming an epidemic, nanotechnology could be used to create foods which are low in fat, salt and sugar but are still nutritionally dense and taste great. Food is naturally nanostructured material – simply boiling an egg causes many changes; the proteins in the egg white change shape and tangle together to form a solid. We now have the opportunity to study what exactly happens in these nanoscale changes. Nanotechnology gives us many ways to ensure our food is safe and waste is cut down. However, there are many concerns that this form of processing is another way to put more power into the hands of large food companies- yet food has never been safer than it is today largely due to the strict hygiene and sanitation practices these companies follow. As the population continues to grow – so too will the importance of new food technologies like nanotechnology.