How is something as simple as food becoming such a cause for concern? The demands for fast disassembling of meat come not only from the authority of the meatpacking industries, but from the substantially large businesses involved. These businesses include our nation’s most popular fast food chains, such as McDonald’s, Burger King, or Wendy’s. Logically speaking, over millions of animals are slaughtered each day for the simplicity of these restaurant’s menus; initiating the necessity for expeditious dispensation lines in the factories. “Cattle intestines often carry dangerous pathogens such as E. coli and are supposed to be kept away from the meat, but faster lines can lead to more intestinal spillage onto the meat” (Working Conditions 3).
Meatless Monday’s is an extremely controversial movement. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) initially showed support for this cause by stating in an internal newsletter that “The production of meat, especially beef, has a large environmental impact. According to the U.N., animal agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gases and climate change. It also wastes resources. It takes 7,000 kg of grain to make 1,000 kg of beef.
“What’s the Case?” In the early 1990s there was an epidemic among livestock in New England. There were approximately 170,000 cattle found to have “mad cow disease”, so name because the condition attacks the central nervous system, which leads to bizarre behavioral symptoms and often death. The disease appears to have been caused by an “unconventional transmissible agent,” meaning it is unlike most organisms. No genetic material has ever been detected from this organism in infected tissues, although there are foreign protein fibers that accumulate in aggregate in the brain. Infected cows were still turning up in the late 1990s to early 2000s.
Fast Food Nation: Cogs in the Great Machine After reading, the meatpacking industry astonishes me in several ways. Iowa Beef Packers (IBP) is one of the biggest meatpacking industries in the United States and in my opinion, cruel to their animals. Meatpacking industries are competitive and personally believe that the industries are mostly concerned with the money. The old Chicago slaughterhouses were usually brick buildings, four or five stories high. Cattle were herded up wooden ramps to the top floor, where they were struck on the head with a sledgehammer, slaughtered, and then disassembled by skilled workers.
(Almost 80% of all antibiotics sold in the United States are used in animal agriculture.) C. Diseases 1. Spreading of bacteria, viruses and fungi “Far from their natural habitat, the cattle in feedlots become more prone to all sorts of illnesses. And what they are being fed often contributes to the spread of disease. The rise in grain prices has encouraged the feeding of less expensive materials to cattle, especially substances with a high protein content that accelerate growth” D. Transportation Billions of farm animals endure the rigors of transport each year in the United States, with millions of pigs, cows, and “spent” egg-laying hens traveling across the country.
Just in case you may not know cattle does not naturally feed on corn. Cows are built and have always eaten grass until now. A researcher with his hand literally inside of a cow’s stomach tells us that cows that eat only corn produce a very deadly form of E. coli. A very horrific virus that killed one of this documentary’s most touching subjects little 2 –year old Kevin Kowalyck. The act in which no company apologized for until this day.
Factory farms in the United States are growing at a very strong rate. In these factory farms the workers do not take the animals lives into consideration. They do not give the animals proper living environments and they all die in a very painful death. The government must put new laws into effect so that the animal abuse stops. Most of the United States’ meat, eggs, and milk come from Factory Farms or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
After this the movie started to focus on raw milk. One of the persons interviewed for the documentary said that she could smoke through pregnancies and give her children fast food everyday but the government made it illegal for her to feed her children raw milk. The main argument of the FDA is that raw milk can have many disease-carrying pathogens. Which might be true from grain fed cows but almost never from grass fed cows. Basically what you feed the cow is what you will get back.
Diet For New America : Yahel Michaeli, Section# 3155 1. What are the main health problem and the main environment problem that the movie talks about? - The main health problem in the movie are : Heart diseases , diabetes , cholesterol, and breath cancer . The environment problems are water problems: to grow cows and authors animals for meat we need to use thousands of gallons of water, in that case lots of water are wasted the earth is getting dried and we will stay without water , also if people will stop to eat meat, there won't be so much pressure to grow more and more cows . The cows will live by their self , and we'll have more water for us and the whole environment.
Many fruits and vegetables have a certain time of year that they are plentiful however they are now modified to ripen before their season. The majority of the meats in the meat department are boneless. Hamburgers have E. coli and it has proven to be fatal. Soy and corn are patented and owned by the world’s largest genetically modified organism company in the world Monsanto. Farmers are persecuted and sued for accidentally infringing on Monsanto’s seed “rights”.