Food Inc.: What's Really In Your Food?



Major fast food corporations.  Source.

McDonalds Happy Meal, Burger King kids meals, Carl's Jr. Cool Kids Menu, all these sound delicious. But do you really know what that food is made of? In the movie titled, Food Inc., we are shown how fast food is really made, along with how the workers are treated, and how food gets on our table.   


McDonalds Brothers. Source.

McDonalds was created in 1940 by two brothers named Richard and Maurice McDonald, or the McDonalds' Brothers. They first started out as a normal restaurant. By the 1950's there were McDonalds all around the United States and workers would deliver your food to your car. Workers would make the hamburgers but that cost a lot of money. One day the McDonalds' Brothers decided to save money by creating a different process called the factory way. The factory way was able to have many workers, but payed them less money. They did this because it was now cheaper to make food. It also made it easy to replace workers since they all did the same job, they basically became robots. By using the factory way, it allowed them to make all the food taste the same everywhere a McDonald's was located. Now only four companies provide 8 out of 10, of the American beef patties.

Fake Crabby Patty. Source.

Back then, meat factories were allowed to label their meats however they wanted. In the movie, Food Inc., it shows how some meat companies would lie about how their chickens were raised. They would label their chickens "humanely raised" and have pictures of barns, and farmers. Humanely Raised means to be raised in a fair and comfortable way. But in reality those cows and chickens are really grown in factory where in the movie, Food Inc., it is shown that both the animals and workers are treated badly. One way the chickens were shown that they were being treated badly was when the movie shows how the chickens were living. All the chickens would be cramped in one big chicken house and would be laying in their own poop. It is also said in the movie that the chickens were given a shot against their will to grow faster. Since the chickens were so big, they had to drag themselves to move, resulting in burns on the chickens bellies. Many food companies don't want you to know this because they don't want you to know the truth about what goes on in their chicken houses.

Corn is in basically every food
we consume. Source.

In the movie, Food Inc., it is shown that both chickens and cows are fed corn. Corn can be found in almost every food now. For example it is in ketchup, Twinkies, syrup, salad dressing, French fries, and many other foods. However there are many hidden costs of eating cheap industrial food. It causes many problems in our world, and health problems in the long run. Large
meat suppliers choose to feed their produce, chickens and cows, corn
because it is cheaper. Corn is cheaper to produce because the government pays only half of what the corn is really worth while the farmers who grow the corn pay the other half. This causes there to be more corn available at a cheaper price. In the movie, it is shown that large meat companies, like Tyson, like to be able to buy food for their produce at cheaper prices. However, chickens and cows are not meant to eat corn, they are meant to eat greens. By feeding their produce a corn based diet cause some dangerous consequences. One consequence was a getting dangerous sickness.

Kevin Kowalcyk's mom campaigns
for safer food. Source.

In the movie, a story is told by the mother of a two year old who died from a dangerous sickness. His name was Kevin Kowalcyk and he got this sickness from eating ground beef that was contaminated with the sickness. The meat inspectors found the germs that cause the sickness in the meat on the day Kevin ate the meat, August 1, but didn't do anything about it until 16 days later when it was already to late. A solution that the meat companies used was pink slime, which is a mix with regular hamburger meat, beef, and ammonia, which is a dangerous chemical. 

Eating "junk food", or fast food causes many health
problems such as
diabetes and obesity. Source.

    

According to the movie, fast food and "junk food" are the cheapest to buy. This is explained in the movie because corn is over grown that it
makes up almost every food you eat. In the movie, it connects obesity, diabetes, and poverty to fast food. If you live in poverty, it would be cheaper to buy fast food instead of healthier foods like fruits and vegetables because they are more expensive. However by buying mainly fast food, you are eating a lot of salt and sugar which leads to diabetes and obesity that cause many health problems.


Joel Salatin at his
farm. Source

In the movie, Food Inc., they introduce us to a man named Joel Salatin. He owns a farm that raises chickens, cows, and pigs organically, or naturally. He doesn't keep them cramped together, and doesn't feed them corn. Joel lets his animalsbe free and eat greens, for example grass. In the movie government officials thinks that Joel's farm is dirty because he cuts his meat outside. In the movie they compared Joel's meat to the companies meat and found out that Joel's meat is cleaner and better for you. Many of the meat factories, where meat is put into packages like the ones at the store, get their workers from local towns or even Mexico. This is because they are taking away jobs form many Mexican workers by selling
cheaper corn than the Mexican farmers do.
Because of this, many Mexican workers come here to work for the meat factories.

Food corporations protected
by the law. Source.
    

In the movie it shows how food corporations are protected by the law. They are able to clone meat, or make an exact copy of the animal, to produce. Meat companies also have connections with the government and the people who check the meat for germs. Also, nobody is allowed to say anything bad about the meat
because the meat company could sue you.

America's Food Supply

Perdue company logo
Source.

     Perdue is a major chicken processing company located in the U.S. They are the third largest processing company in the United States, annual sales of over 6 billion dollars. Perdue produces 59,320,000 pounds  of ready to cook chicken. In the article titled, "Abusing Chickens We Eat," by Nicholas Kristof, published in The New York Times, his main claim is that chicken should be raised humanly, and for corporations to not lie on packaging. For example, they would label their packaging, "cage free" or "humane".

     However, Perdue's chicken were not humanly raised. They were given hormones to their chickens when they are just baby chickens. Since they give the chickens hormones, they are basically fully grown in about 49 days instead of 3 months. However, because they are fed hormones, they chickens breasts are to heavy for them, therefore they are unable to walk more than a few steps. Also, their internal organs and bones can't keep up with them growing so fast, that some chickens can't even walk. There was a study conducted that showed that if humans were to grow at the same rate of the chickens, we would weigh about 660 pounds in 8 weeks.

Chickens breasts are so big
they can barely
stand. Source.

   Not only are the chickens being given hormones that harm them, they are forced to live in horrendous conditions. First of all, many chicken keeps would not get any sunlight at all. It was Dusty and smelled like feces. Many chickens live in stockyards, where they have very little room to move. There is also excrement on the floor that rarely, if ever, gets cleaned up. Since it never gets cleaned and chickens have to drag themselves around to move, the bacteria in the feces causes the feathers and parts of the skin to be "burned of" of the chicken. Even though the labels on the Packaging say, "cage free" it doesn't change anything. In Kristof's article he writes, "The claim about the chickens being raised "cage free" is misleading because birds raised for meat are not in cages. It's egg-laying chickens are caged, not the ones we eat. So "cage free" is meaningful for eggs but not for chicken meat." This means that the corporations are trying to manipulate us into thinking that the chickens are being treated humanly, when in reality they're not.  

Meat inspection in
Chicago. Source.

     During 1906 in America, the living conditions for people were horribly unsanitary both in the streets, and in homes. As a result of not having a proper sewage system, there was excrement on the sidewalks making diseases and bacteria very easy to transfer. The homes were dirty and crowded, also causing disease to spread easily. Also, there were many rats in the city. Because the meat was left in room temperature, at night when the meat shop was closed, rats would sneak in and eat the meat that was outside, and would leave they're droppings in the meat. The next day, the meat would be packaged and sent to the market for people to buy. However, President Roosevelt read a book titled, "The Jungle" which spoke about the truth on how the meat was really processed. He became involved in the situation and passed the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906. This bettered the life of Americans because people wouldn't get as sick anymore, and compelled businesses to be honest with the civilians.

     By reading the article titled, "Abusing Chickens We Eat" by Nicholas Kristof, it opened my eyes to the reality or food corporations and how they treat their products and employees. In reality, it's not only chickens being abused it's also other animals like cattle. Also, many of the "farmers" say its not really farming anymore. It's just mass production. I learned that the corporations make the farmers upgrade their chicken stockyards all the time making the farmers go into debt. And if the farmers wouldn't upgrade, they would run the enormous risk of losing their contract with the corporation. By learning all this new information on food corporations, I have decided I would cut down on my meat and poultry consumption.

    

What Happened To The 43?

    

Poster of missing students. Says,
"They took them alive, bring them
back alive." Source.

     Ayotzinapa School is located in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. They accepted people who were sons of farmers or lived in great poverty. They taught them to not let the government push them around, to stand up for themselves, and their community, and to always speak the truth. On September 26, 2014, 43 male students went missing, and 6 were killed on their way to a protest. They were intercepted by the local police and taken to an unknown location. The motive as to why they were taken is still unclear.
     There were many people who protested in Mexico and all around the world. The protests started out peacefully, but quickly became violent due to no results. On October 20, 2014, some masked protestors set fire to Guerrero Cumple, an office of a state social assistance program in Chilpancingo. The next day they set fire to the regional office of the Party of the Democratic Revolution in Chilpancingo which controls the state government.   

Protestors in Acapulco, Guerrero,
Mexico. Source. 

Many of the residents of Iguala were angered and frustrated with the government and wanted to find their children. They were frustrated with the local government because they didn't do much to find the 43 missing students. It is believed that Jose Luis Abarcas' and his wife, Maria De Los Angeles Pinada, ordered the attack on the group of students. A few days later they fled Guerrero along with Iguala's police chief. The authorities only arrested some local police officers that were supposedly connected to the attack. After much time of the authorities doing nothing to find the students, the citizens of Iguala made their own search parties, hired a private anthropologist team, and even went to meet with the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto. He signed a document that promised he would do everything in his power to find the missing students alive and bring the attackers to justice. Therefore he assigned a search team and a forensic team to locate the missing students.


Enrique Peña Nieto, President of Mexico.
Source.

     It is still unclear as to why the students were attacked. Some may say it is because of their different political beliefs. At Ayotzinapa School, students were taught to stand up for themselves, speak the truth, and rise against power.