In the documentary film Food Inc., viewers were shown how food such as meat and poultry are truly processed before it even gets to what we see as chicken nuggets or cheeseburger. Also how the government is mostly controlling most of it.
During 1950 the first McDonald's was completely different from what we are used to now, it was first a restaurant where foods were serve by worker on a roller skates. Until one day the McDonald brothers decided to save money by firing all of their employees and switch to a factory process which was later on adopted by other restaurants.
With this process, workers were paid lower which meant there was not much workers needed. This new process helped the McDonald brothers by making multiple amounts of money while the food cost less. The made McDonald's one of the riches company during the changes in 1950. This resulted McDonald's supplier to become rich and bigger. As of now four companies now owns 80% of beef business here in the United States.
Today, multiple companies out there are misleading people their products based on the name and labels they put, these products are meat and dairy. We, buyers are mislead because these companies have a nice picture of an animal or a red barn. We think that these animals are living in a clean environment, but most of these animals are raised in factories where they don't have any freedom to walk around. One example of a company that is misleading us is Tyson Chicken company. This company genetically enhance chicken's breast by injecting hormones into them which makes them grow quicker. In the documentary, it stated that these chickens fully grow in 49 days compare to 6-8 weeks. But Tyson company does not want any of us to know what the truth is on how these chickens are raised.
Do you want to know what these chickens or cows are eating in a daily basis? About 30% of the United States land are used to grown corn, but did you know that our government is paying farmers to over produce and use the extra corn to feed the animals which makes corn a dominant crop? You'll mostly see corn on mostly everything you eat nowadays such as chips, ketchup, cheese, and also battery! With this dominant crop it might be a good thing, but is it? Cattle and other animals are supposed to be eating grass instead of corn, one of the major problem that has emerged as a result of feeding corn to these animals mostly cattle is called E. COLI 0157:H7 which is an acid resistant that makes you sick for weeks and life threatening disease.
One of the major consequence of this deadly disease is a young kid's live was taken away from him by the name of Kevin Kowalcyk where he ate a ground beef from a restaurant that could be McDonald's or Burger King which was contaminated with E.COLI 0157:H7. Who do you think was responsible for Kevin's death? The government should be responsible for his death by making sure that the U.S. Department of Agriculture were processing meat that does not contain any diseases. After Kevin's death the government decided to add additives in some meat to prevent E. COLI called pink slime which contains ammonia.
Most of us does not know what the food we eat everyday such as poultry or meat go through before we see them wrapped as a burger or on a packaging. But do you wonder why in every fast food restaurant there is a dollar menu or something similar to that? Well these companies get their meat in a low-cost because it is not pure beef as we think it is. They get it from a factory that adds other parts of meat into it which makes them cheap. Companies believe that with this process, they will be able to produce food quicker in a safe, clean environment.
Farmer, Joel Saladin strongly disagree with this process, he believes that every animal should be raised in a open, sanitized, unclosed environment before they are slaughtered. Compare to factories, chickens are raised their factories where the living conditions are poor and covered. Also, Saladin stated that these chickens go through chlorine after they have been slaughtered while the chickens that goes through his company does not. Lastly, factories mostly get their workers from other countries such as Mexico where workers are in need of a job. Workers are provided with jobs but as soon as the company meets its demands, they start letting this workers go by deporting them back to Mexico.
Workers that previously worked in these factories are highly upset due to this companies promising them a job where they would get multiple great benefits. But this industrial food companies are dishonest or misleading because they are putting the environment, society in harm and lastly health cost. But we cannot do anything about it due to this food corporations protected by laws where representatives choose to protect the company rather than the consuming citizens.
