Blog 4: "Farm to Fridge" Summary

     This blog is about a small video I watched called "Farm to Fridge" by Mercy For Animals.  This video uncovers the gruesome world of the meat market.  The mystery behind the meat, so to speak.  Initially, the goal seemed to be to show us the "journey" these animals go through on the way to our plates.  It shows that before these animals were pork, poultry, beef, and seafood, they were sows, chickens, turkey, and cattle with families to raise and peaceful lives to live, just like we humans do.
      The video revealed what happened to 4 month pregnant sows.  These animals are locked up in small stalls barely bigger than their bodies and they develop open sores and other injuries due to this lack of space.  Many other brutalities faced it not only by the conditioning itself but by the workers.  Workers of these factory farms hit, yell, and kick the sows to move, while piglets get their testicles ripped out of their bodies and tails chopped off without anesthesia.  These mutilations often cause fatal deaths.  The video also revealed that sows who weren't growing fast enough were slammed into the ground, gassed and strangled.  What's even more interesting is that these acts of killing were defended by the pork industry.  Market weight pigs are then sent to slaughterhouses after being knocked in the heads with steal rods and hung upside down awaiting their throats to be slit; sometimes the animals were fully conscious.  Some were scolded alive, again, some fully conscious.
       Coincidentally the egg market deemed similar acts of mutilation and cruel acts of killing "Standard" and "acceptable". When chickens are first hatched they are sorted male from female.  The males are "unprofitable" and are killed within hours after hatching. The video reveals male chicks being thrown into grinding machines while still alive.  Some are thrown into trash bags to suffocate .  According to the video more than 200 million unwanted male chicks are killed on their first day of life each year in the United States.  While the male chicks are killed, the female chicks are in for a lifetime of endurance of cruelties and horrors of the slaughterhouse.  Females undergo the mutilations of hot blades and lasers to remove their beaks to reduce pecking influenced by overcrowded living space.  These mutilations cause acute as well as chronic pain.  Based on the video 95% of egg-laying hens spend their lives confined in a cage with no sunlight or fresh air.  These former  mothers, or hens, cannot walk, turn around, or even spread their wings without pushing other birds aside.  The devastation of this confinement include feather loss, open wounds, birds trapped in cage wire and premature death cause by overbearing stress.  Undercover investigations show hens being stepped on, tossed into dead piles while still alive or violently tossed in trash cans.  Both chickens and turkeys being raised for food are grown so large that they suffer crippling leg disorders, chronic pain, and fatal heart attacks.  Their necks are broken or they are clubbed to death if they are "no good".
      The treatment of these animals have a lot to do with my group's project in inspecting the traditional meat-eater" and how well they know what goes on behind the production of their foods, and if they are aware of such horrors in the food factories what their reasons are for continuing consumption.  It helps to point out the continuing question of the rights of animals?  When it comes to our food, why are their no emotions linked to are food choices?  Is it because our food choices are already being made for us by a secretive government run by the corporations?
      Seeing factory farms, rather than reading about them certainly clarified the level of cruelty all non-meat-eaters and vegans are up against.  It shows that food choices go way deeper than just deciding to do something, but knowing why you're doing it and what difference it will make in our nation ethically.  I certainly want to do something about my diet now after viewing the horror rather than just hearing.  It's like you never really know until you witness.

Blog 3: The End Of Overeating

    This blog is about a passage I read called "The End of overeating" by David A. Kessler, MD.  In chapter 6 Sugar, Fat, and Salt  Are Reinforcing, I was awakened by the startling fact that food places target consumers by highlighting what our body's desire and make their foods based on that. Our body's naturally like sugar, fat, and salt depending on an individual's tolerance for these ingredients.  According to the passage, studies have shown that we work harder for what we desire more than what we need.  These food places reinforce, or make people want even more, the consumption of these ingredients by first establishing a strong sense of desire for these foods.  The feeling we get during and after consumption of these foods cause the illusion of reward to our emotions, when in reality our body's don;t receive the reward where health is concerned at all. As I read more, Kessler discusses further discusses how these addictive ingredients then tend to attach to our emotions, preferably feelings of happiness and associate the setting with the food that initially caused this feeling.  This is another crafty way food companies target for the consumption of salty, sugary , and fatty goods. "Cues associated with the pleasure response demand our attention, motivate our behavior, and stimulate the urge we call "wanting"(pg.32, "The End of overeating"). If we immediately associate happiness and joy with a certain location which we have consumed something of fat and sugar, it becomes a desirable place to go because of previous experiences at the location. In the end, an example of what the finished product of a fast food joint like McDonald's works like this: When child is rewarded with a juicy, fatty burger with a sugary Coca-cola or see a McDonald's Ronald McDonald advertisement, the emotion of happiness cues them to have the urge of wanting this particular food again.  They know it will be heading back to Mickey D's with mom for more reward of happiness like before.

Blog 2:Explaining Contadictions

A good argument isn't complete without a great breakdown of a contradiction.  Contradictions are two clashing arguments that together equal a negative argument, or one that cannot be completely true.  In the text Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, a sense of irony is sprinkled throughout the text in different point of views.  In the text a character Kenny Dobbins is a worker at Monfort slaughterhouse where he loyal to his employers and even his workers as further shown in the text.  The company over the years had seemed really good to Kenny because he figured that with his lack of skill and knowledge, Monfort didn't have to give him a job but they did anyways, or so he thought.  One day Kenny was working with the pre-beaker machine in the factory when he noticed one of his co-workers had just turned off the machine and was trying to stick his head into the machine which he'd known to have taken fifteen minutes to shut down completely.  He ran and saved his co-worker and his employer gave him an award for"Outstanding Achievement in concern for fellow Workers."  The care shown in acknowledging the worker's heroism contadicts with the later situation after Kenny suffered major injuries because of his dedication to his work, that was then neglected by Monfort.  The irony lies within the idea that the companies will give an award for workers caring about each other but won't care about the workers themselves. Their award is the sparing of the worker rather than taking personal care of the worker.  As proven with Kenny, once the worker becomes useless to them, they are no longer needed and replaced.