The Meatpacking Industry In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

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The mission of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has always been to protect consumers and enhance public health by maximizing the compliance of regulated products and minimizing the risk associated with those products (FDA 2012). The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is an early piece of investigative journalism that sought to expose the horrible and unsanitary conditions of the time in the meatpacking industry. Based on the findings outlined in the book an early FDA agency would have implemented the following rules and policies to correct the revolting practices of the meatpacking industry: Clinical setting to promote the highest level of sanitary conditions for facilities that store or slaughter livestock The conditions at the slaughterhouse…show more content…
The belief of the general public was that the hundred and sixty-three federal inspectors were responsible for protecting them from diseased meats. According to Sinclair this is not the case, inspectors were appointed at the request of the packers for the purpose of confirming that diseased meat was kept in the state (Sinclair p. 150). The author also highlights the importance of the packer; a meat packing employee seemingly charged with ensuring no meat was wasted. There are several occurrences in the Jungle were the packer came up with innovative ideas that allowed them to circumvent the established rules. An example of this was meat in the process of turning was given a Number Three Grade as a means of classifying. The author mentions how packers developed a technique that allowed them to give all meat a Number One Grade by extracting the bone the portion generally suspected to be the most rotten. Another example of packers deceiving consumers was a special concoction of “tripe, and the fat of pork, and beef suet, and hearts of beef, and finally the waste ends of veal, when they had any” (Sinclair p. 153). This mixture was given several grades, and sold at different prices to the…show more content…
An agency such as this would have been very busy providing needed assistance for children, youth & families in the Jungle. Some of the social issues the author discussed were the exploitation of youth. Children were forced to work at home & at the meatpacking plant. According to the author the children of Aniele searched the dump all day looking for food to feed the chickens (Sinclair p. 26). The meatpacking plant also exploited youth by hiring children at a third of the price of an adult to do the same work for long hours (Sinclair p. 108). Parents also contributed to these acts by lying about the ages of the children who were so young they could barely reach the work benches in order to get additional income (Sinclair p.

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