I chose to watch video Food, Inc. I wanted to learn more about the foods we eat every day and how they are processed. During the video I watched and learned that animals are put into harsh conditions that redesign the way that they grow. They are given all types of drugs and steroids to make them grow quicker than they actually should. Chickens about 50 years ago would developed over 70 days but now they are forced to grow within 48 days because of high demand.
The producers of Food, Inc. asked dozens of farmers about going inside the farm and slaughter houses to see how the process goes and they all declined. Only one farmer by the name of Carole Morison allowed them in because she was tired of the way she was forced to treat her chickens. The houses were disgusting, they had to live in their own species and were all together. With the animals all together in unsanitary living space it is a high chance diseases will spread. The animals living the way they do, our food is not really safe. Sick or not they are still sent to
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Type two diabetes is normally common with older adults, but now it is starting to be seen in more children. Healthy food such as vegetables and fruits are too expensive to some. With fast food being cheap and quick it is always people’s first choice. Fast food restaurants are meat packing companies biggest customers. The farmers are put into these contracts that demand them to produce a lot of food. There really is no way out once you start. Farmers end up in about $500,000 debt and only earn about $18,000 a year. Companies demand that farmers upgrade their equipment that is able to produce meat quicker. The farmers are forced to take loans in order to upgrade their farm. If they decide to not cooperate with the meat companies they will be without a job. The farmers are not nearly getting back as much as they put in. They put in a lot of work and get in debt to produce a lot of
...in the market. Diversified mid-sized family farms used to produce most of our meat, but now, only a few companies control the livestock industry. This has resulted in driving family farmers out of the market and replacing them with massive confined feeding operations that subject the animals to terrible living conditions that subject our food to contamination. Major food corporations are only concerned with minimizing overhead in order to deliver the consumer cheap food, regardless of the health implications.
Zinczenko argues that fast-food companies ultimately hold responsibility for the growing problem of obesity and type 2 diabetes among the country. Due to the inexpensive prices, indefinite locations, and the deprivation of nutritional labeling. In Zinczenko’s view, “Before 1994, diabetes in children was generally caused by a genetic disorder- only about 5 percent of childhood cases were obesity-related, or type 2, diabetes. Today, according to the National Institute of Health, type 2 diabetes accounts for at least 30 percent of
“We take care of animals, and the animals take care of us.” (Rollin 212). The preceding phrase is a policy that American farmers in the old west lived their lives by. Modern farmers live do not live their lives anywhere near to this phrase because they own factory farms, and the whole reason for having a factory farm is to fit as many animals in a small space as possible in order to maximize profit. Factory Farms, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) first appeared in the 1920s, right after Vitamins A and D, because if animals are given these vitamins in their diets, exercise and sunlight are not necessities for the animals to grow anymore (In Defense of Animals 1). The growing number of factory farms is coupled with the decreasing population of rural areas, which means that many people are beginning to factory farm because it yields a higher profit (“Agricultural Sciences” 170). In the 1950s, the average number of chickens on a given egg farm in the United States was 100, but now the average number is a shocking 10,000 chickens (“Factory Farms” 4). The reason for the increase of chickens has to do with new and cheaper technology developed just after World War II. The new technology increased the number of chickens, while it had the opposite effect on dairy and meat cows, their numbers went in the other direction. The number of cows used for milk was cut by more than half between 1950 and 2000, because farmers discovered new and more efficient methods for milking cows (Weeks 4). Many activists for animals’ rights are concerned about the methods used by factory farmers because they confine their animals into tight spaces and since there are so many of them in a small ...
...nts that are harmful are released. The factory farms have not only been seen to affect humans, but the animals also. The food given to these animals are supposed to make them grow faster, but it is also causing serious digestive problems for the animals. According to the Sustainable Table, “recent studies have shown that chemical additives in feed may accumulate in animal tissues, potentially exposing consumers to unwanted chemicals such as veterinary drug residues and heavy metals.” This is not fair for the animals and humans to have to suffer through something like this just so unhealthy food can be produced.
“If you live in a free market and a free society, shouldn’t you have the right to know what you’re buying? It’s shocking that we don’t and it’s shocking how much is kept from us” (Kenner). For years, the American public has been in the dark about the conditions under which the meat on their plate was produced. The movie, Food Inc. uncovers the harsh truths about the food industry. This shows that muckraking is still an effective means of creating change as shown by Robert Kenner’s movie, Food Inc. and the reforms to the food industry that followed its release.
Animals trapped in factory farms are severely abused and tortured from birth to death. Chickens sometimes will be starved for up to 2 weeks and given no water to shock their bodies into moulting, chickens and hens will have their beaks removed to prevent fighting between other animals. Pigs will get their tails cut off to stop other pigs biting them off. These cruel procedures are done to minimise as few of animals dying as possible so more product can be created by the farmer. Within factory farms, animals are abused with overuse of antibiotics to prevent disease and maximise their body growth to create a higher yield of product. According to Animal Rights Action, 2 out of 3 farms are now factory farmed worldwide and factory farming is only increasing this is leading to more animals being raised for slaughter, abused and tortured, mentally and physically. This is not fair. How would you feel losing your child minutes after it's born? As within factory farms, female cows get their calves are taken away from them within minutes they are born never to be seen again. This leaves these poor female cows depressed which causes them to lose weight and because of this are slaughtered as farmers want to maximise their yield of
Factory farming began in the 1920s soon after the discovery of vitamins A and D. Shirley Leung said, when these vitamins are added to feed, animals no longer require exercise and sunlight for growth (B2). This allowed large numbers of animals to be raised indoors year-round. The greatest problem that was faced in raising these animals indoors was the spread of disease, which was fought against in the 1940s with the development of antibiotics. Farmers found they could increase productivity and reduce the operating costs by using machines and assembly-line techniques. Unfortunately, this trend of mass production has resulted in incredible pain and suffering for the animals. Animals today raised on factory farms have had their genes manipulated and pumped full of antibiotics, hormones, and other chemicals to encourage high productivity. In the fast food industry, animals are not considered animals at all; “they are food producing machines” (BBC). They are confined to small cages with metal bars, ammonia-filled air and artificial lighting or no lighting at all. They are subjected to horrible mutilations: beak searing, tail docking, ear cutting and castration. The worst thing is that ...
However, when creating fast food restaurants, the industries were not thinking about the negative effects such as obesity. Other than obesity, other harmful effects exist as well. Fast food restaurants serve unhealthy products such as greasy foods and artificial meat that lead to dietary health issues in many adults and children. A recent study showed that “Young children who are fed processed, nutrient-poor foods are likely to become unhealthy teenagers, and eventually unhealthy adults. Now twenty-three percent of teens in the U.S. are pre-diabetic or diabetic, 22% have high or borderline high LDL cholesterol levels, and 14% have hypertension or prehypertension”
...struggling to earn any income at all and sometimes do not even get the opportunity to eat. Another issue that Raj Patel did not touch on is the lack of care consumers have for the farmers. It seems that consumers care about farmers about as much as the corporations do, which, in my opinion, is not a lot. When consumers only care about low prices and large corporations only care about making a profit, the farmers are left out to dry. Many consumers believe “food should be available at a bargain price, a belief that relies on labor exploitation and environmental exhaustion at multiple points along the commodity chain.” (Wright, 95) Corporations as well as consumers generally tend to be selfish and I think Raj Patel is afraid to mention this. If only these people cared a little bit more about each other I believe the hourglass of the food system will begin to even out.
In the movie “Food Inc” we saw how the food industry keeps their farmers under their control. Food incorporation sets new protocols that require the farmers to keep purchasing more on dept. As a result of loans and only $18,000 annually (Kenner) they are stuck in a hole that they can’t get out of. I find many things disturbing about this. First off, I find it disturbing that he picked a poorly educated farming area. It seems obvious that the farmers don’t know what they got into and don’t have any knownldge of how to get out. I find it an example of poor unionization within the small farmers that are to be blamed not the ones that find out how to exploit it (Kenner).
Poultry is by far the number one meat consumed in America; it is versatile, relatively inexpensive compared to other meats, and most importantly it can be found in every grocery store through out the United States. All of those factors are made possible because of factory farming. Factory farming is the reason why consumers are able to purchase low-priced poultry in their local supermarket and also the reason why chickens and other animals are being seen as profit rather than living, breathing beings. So what is exactly is factory farming? According to Ben Macintyre, a writer and columnist of The Times, a British newspaper and a former chicken farm worker, he summed up the goal of any factory farm “... to produce the maximum quantity of edible meat, as fast and as cheaply as possible, regardless of quality, cruelty or hygiene” ( Macintyre, 2009). Factory farmers do not care about the safety of the consumers nor the safety of the chicken, all the industrial farmers have in mind are how fast they can turn a baby chick into a slaughter size chicken and how to make their chicken big and plumped. Factory farming is not only a health hazard to the well-being of the animals, but the environment, and human beings ;thus free range and sustainable farming need to be put into practice.
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...
Farmers are essentially the back-bone of the entire food system. Large-scale family farms account for 10% of all farms, but 75% of overall food production, (CSS statistics). Without farmers, there would be no food for us to consume. Big business picked up on this right away and began to control the farmers profits and products. When farmers buy their land, they take out a loan in order to pay for their land and farm house and for the livestock, crops, and machinery that are involved in the farming process. Today, the loans are paid off through contracts with big business corporations. Since big business has such a hold over the farmers, they take advantage of this and capitalize on their crops, commodities, and profits. Farmers are life-long slaves to these b...
It is horrifying to know the fact that the processed food that we eat today is once animals that are processed alive. The ignorance of the companies has caused the suffering of these poor animals. Gale (2013) writes, “.[media] do not tell us that chickens are the most tortured animals in factory farms and that most chickens have to stand on their own feces all day and end up getting litter burn from their manure. hens are often crammed together in cases so tiny that they do not get enough room to even lift a single wing—which then immobilizes them for their entire lives.”
Food Inc. Is a very well made documentary, very explicit and very clear about how the food industry works and how everything has been altered through the years to comply people’s demand. While consumers are demanding more cheap and “qualified food”, thinking that the bigger and the colorful the better, Food Inc. makes clear how meats, grains and corn are not produced in a healthy way for people anymore. In the same way, they show how the workers are being exploited by these huge monster food companies more and also how they have literally “kill” small farms. These fill showed us a lot of information about what we really eat and it tries to let us know how what we think is healthy it isn’t. This film have people who are specialist in a specific