Industrial Food

When thinking about the food that we eat, Americans rarely think about where that food we came from. Like the saying goes, “ignorance is bliss”. To us Americans, not knowing the cruelty and mistreatment of animals behind the food we eat is bliss. We don’t like thinking about the fact that the food we eat is genetically produced, and the animals we eat are mistreated and stuffed with harmful chemicals that hurt their bodies and ours. But it is time to open our eyes to what corporate culture has in store for us when we are sitting down to enjoy a nice meal consisting of meat.

In our culture, we as Americans eat a lot of industrialized food. This food is mass-produced in factories that are harmful to the animals we eat. According to The Meatrix, companies have taken over small family farms that grow their food in a healthy organic environment. When surrounded by huge companies that can produce a lot more products than small farms can, these small farms cannot survive for much longer. They are forced to shut down, therefore giving way to the harmful factories. These harmful factories infect their animals with growth hormones and other chemicals that are suppose to make these animals grow big so they can produce a lot of meat when killed. According to http://www.chooseveg.com/animal-cruelty.asp, Chickens are fed harmful steroid-like chemicals that increase their growth at such a rapid pace that their poor chicken legs are not able to sustain the weight of their body, therefore killing them in the process. Cows and pigs are also fed harmful chemicals in the hopes of fattening them up before they are sent to the slaughterhouse. These chemicals that are in the animals bodies not only hurt them, but they are also hurting us in the process. Also according to The Meatrix, animals that are no longer healthy or dead are then used to feed other animals. For example, if a cow were not to survive, the workers would take the blood of that cow and feed it to a living cow, passing along many diseases and increasing the chance of mad cow disease in that cow. After humans eat these cows, they can also become infected. Corporate factories don’t care that they are harming their animals and the people who eat these animals, they just are thinking about making money. Corporate companies and factories keep this information from us Americans because they want us to buy into the whole fast food nation of ours. If we were to know how these companies treated their animals, people would surely stop eating it. By keeping this information a secret, the companies are protecting their name and also generating profit from it.

Personally, from knowing this information, I am very turned off, however this does not mean I will turn into a full-blown vegetarian. One of the things I could do without giving up meat is researching which major companies treat their animals cruelly. I know for a fact that KFC mistreats their animals and feeds them steroid like chemicals, which is a huge turn-off to me as a consumer. By knowing this fact, I know not to ever eat at a KFC (not that I have in a really long time anyway). Not all animals are mistreated however. When buying meat from a local-grown farm, you can be sure that they did not mistreat their animals in the way that major companies do. Although the meat might cost a little more, it is also healthier in the long run for our bodies. No one is saying that you must be a vegetarian and can no longer eat meat, but next time you are eating meat, be aware of where the meat came from. It is disgusting to think about, and people would rather not, but being healthy is important, and not buying into mass-produced animal cruelty is also important.