This week I decided to watch
the 2008 controversial documentary Food,
Inc. This documentary led to a change in the way many Americans view the
food they eat and buy in stores.
The documentary covers
issues ranging from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and patents on seeds
for producing crops to the meat industries that Americans receive 80% of their
meat and poultry from. I chose to focus this post on the way meat industries
put our favorite proteins on our plates.
Have you ever wondered where
the chicken you’re eating came from? Or maybe why chicken breasts today are so
much larger than those from 50 years ago?
Our society wants more and more lean, white meat; so chicken breeders have been forced to select birds that will produce the largest amount of meat in the smallest amount of time. By selecting and breeding the chickens that display these characteristics, we are hurting the chickens. With the increased amount of breast tissue, some chickens cannot even walk. Nutrients discusses some of the other health issues we are beginning to see in today’s altered chickens. Do you think we should continue to selectively choose which chickens are bred in order to achieve the largest chicken possible?
In Food, Inc., one Perdue chicken grower allowed for her chicken pens to be filmed so that the world could see the awful treatment of the chickens. Below, you witness the harsh living conditions of chickens living back-to-back with no room to move and the capture of these same chickens as they are loaded onto trucks for butchering. The scary thing is, chances are, the chickens you see below, were something that ended up on your dinner plate.
Although this post has focused on the treatment of chickens, this does not mean that cows and pigs are treated any better. Many facilities keep large amounts of cattle in relatively small, dirty pens as you can see below. No animal should have to live in the conditions that the big name meat industries, like Perdue, Smithfield, and Tyson, are putting them through.
Please leave a comment about whether you agree or disagree with the government's efforts to put enough meat on the table for every American family.
In your writing you seem to be biased towards thinking that all the food industry does is terrible. I was wondering if you could represent the other side of this argument. Without this mass production life would most certainly be different from what it is now. I enjoyed reading this blog post, but am just curious to see the full story, not just one half.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that all the food industry does is bad, though that is all that seems to be presented in this documentary. I would agree that without certain measures taken today, we would not be able to supply the worlds growing population. However, at the same time, I believe we could find a better means of producing enough food for the population.
ReplyDeleteI too have seen this documentary and with this you definitely grasp the main concepts that I think as a society people need to be aware of. Today we people really have no idea where their food comes from and this helps bring light to a lot of problems with the food industry. And with this post you definitely appeal to peoples emotions and it makes me think about the food I am eating.
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