The film Food Inc
is a powerful documentary about contemporary food systems and
corporatization of our food supply. Some of the images of factory farms
and slaughterhouses were unforgetable. The scene of pigs being
crushed, and chickens grown unnaturally fast on top of each other so
that they can't even walk were truly horrible.
2000 pigs an hour at Smithfield.
Yet, one of the most disturbing elements of the film in my mind was not the violent replacement of Old McDonald's traditional farm, but the efforts by these corporations to keep secret what they are doing. In a capitalist economy your dollar is your vote, meaning that what you spend your money on "votes" to determine what is produced, and, to the extent the consuer is thougthful, how it is produced.
(Of course, again in a capitalist economy particularly one with wealth as unequal as ours, dollar voting is not "democratic" -- some get for more votes than others... )
How do consumers make intelligent choices about what they purchase if the full information is not available?
I really enjoyed your blog. Your clips was interesting especially about the wealth distribution in our country. I didn't realize that the top 1% of earners own half the countries stocks, bonds and mutual funds-amazing but saddening! and those poor little pigs, I will be thinking of them when I buy a Smithfield spiral ham for Easter :(
Oh no! I cannot believe that 32,000 pigs are killed each day. And I surely didn't know they were crushed to death! Those working conditions are sickening as well. It makes me so sad and uncomfortable thinking and talking about what is happening (to the animals and workers) in the slaughterhouses. Food Inc. is a great film and exposes many truths. I can only hope that it continues to spread the word to make a change.
Absolutely shocking and sickening. Is it weird that we see and learn about all of this craziness happening around us with our food that we need to nourish us and we still don't do anything about it. We can't! As consumer's we are powerless. How can we boycott against something that is cheap and keeps us alive? What a twisted world we live in...
I think that as consumers we can do something, it may not seem like much but every little bit helps. I'm sure that if I exposed some of my friends and family to this information it would make them reconsider what they buy and eat. It is hard and I'll admit that because there are still items at the market that I would not want to give up purchasing and I definitely don't think I could become a full time vegetarian however, there are things I could do. That Ted Talk about being a weekday vegetarian, it really opened my eyes to a new way that could be beneficial, by not eating meat for just five days out of the week I could be making some impact, it may be small but it's still an impact. I think I may consider it and if not that, then I am definitely going to choose one thing, at least, to change in my lifestyle to stand up against what the food industry is doing to our world.
I've seen the graph you showed us in class on Facebook last summer. I remember feeling really angry and upset. As I have mentioned in my essay, people work way too hard for so little... to the point where it could harm some people.
I really enjoyed your blog. Your clips was interesting especially about the wealth distribution in our country. I didn't realize that the top 1% of earners own half the countries stocks, bonds and mutual funds-amazing but saddening! and those poor little pigs, I will be thinking of them when I buy a Smithfield spiral ham for Easter :(
ReplyDeleteOh no! I cannot believe that 32,000 pigs are killed each day. And I surely didn't know they were crushed to death! Those working conditions are sickening as well. It makes me so sad and uncomfortable thinking and talking about what is happening (to the animals and workers) in the slaughterhouses. Food Inc. is a great film and exposes many truths. I can only hope that it continues to spread the word to make a change.
ReplyDeleteI've seen that wealth distribution video before. It's still ridiculously shocking to see it like that
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely shocking and sickening. Is it weird that we see and learn about all of this craziness happening around us with our food that we need to nourish us and we still don't do anything about it. We can't! As consumer's we are powerless. How can we boycott against something that is cheap and keeps us alive? What a twisted world we live in...
ReplyDeleteI think that as consumers we can do something, it may not seem like much but every little bit helps. I'm sure that if I exposed some of my friends and family to this information it would make them reconsider what they buy and eat. It is hard and I'll admit that because there are still items at the market that I would not want to give up purchasing and I definitely don't think I could become a full time vegetarian however, there are things I could do. That Ted Talk about being a weekday vegetarian, it really opened my eyes to a new way that could be beneficial, by not eating meat for just five days out of the week I could be making some impact, it may be small but it's still an impact. I think I may consider it and if not that, then I am definitely going to choose one thing, at least, to change in my lifestyle to stand up against what the food industry is doing to our world.
ReplyDeleteI've seen the graph you showed us in class on Facebook last summer. I remember feeling really angry and upset. As I have mentioned in my essay, people work way too hard for so little... to the point where it could harm some people.
ReplyDelete