Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Final perspective on the food industrial


           The food industrial food system is a complex, global collective of diverse businesses that together supply much of the food energy consumed by the world population. Only subsistence farmers, those who survive on what they grow, can be considered outside of the scope of the modern food industry.What you must know about this system, is that they feed you food, no doubt but also, they feed you lies.The way they process food is very inhumane or you can say not the proper way,as told,but majority consume it anyways.My perspective on this subject matter evolved so much that now I question my food, where did it come from, who processed it, who slaughtered it. How fascinating, I have been eating these types food from unknown places, for so many years now,and not knowing the fact that majority of the meat  we receive where contaminated by rat droppings, and did these systems care? no I do not think so, to them it is just a business and " breeding for money". Can we trust our food here in America, honestly, it may vary, because few farmers still practice traditional animal husbandry and as far it goes for the animal treatment, for a fact that we will be consuming rightful bred animals.The economic research service states "The U.S. food system is a complex network of farmers and the industries that link to them. Those links include makers of farm equipment and chemicals as well as firms that provide services to agribusinesses, such as providers of transportation and financial services. The system also includes the food marketing industries that link farms to consumers, and which include food and fiber processors, wholesalers, retailers, and food service establishments". Which may mean, that our food that we consume, travels from links to link i.e places to places, now how do we know that it " travels " safe, when we NOW know what goes on in those slaughter houses or factories.In conclusion, over this semester I have learned a lot, a huge amount of knowledge on the food system, expanded my thoughts on these type of systems, I mean there is nothing wrong with being a vegetarian, after knowing what goes on in those food industries, and developing dangerous diseases, why not be safe than sorry. If someone were to ask me, if having these types of food, from such places, I would say stay away, probably we would end up saving our planet.  

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Proof of Survey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/Home_Landing.aspx?sm=EFJzEeMnyqmHN%2bc51qsOSB1bALKWkvZlhyO7WpH8n5w%3d

11th hour inside the CAFO

      In this blog, I will discuss about the documentary The 11th Hour...
       The 11th Hour is a 2007 documentary film, created, produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, on the state of the natural environment. It was directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners. The film documents the grave problems facing the planet's life systems. Global warming, deforestation, mass species extinction, and depletion of the oceans' habitats are all addressed. The film's premise is that the future of humanity is in jeopardy.The film proposes potential solutions to these problems by calling for restorative action by the reshaping and rethinking of global human activity through technology, social responsibility and conservation.

     "Global warming is not only the number one environmental challenge we face today, but one of the most  important issues facing all of humanity ... We all have to do our part to raise awareness about global warming and the problems we as a people face in promoting a sustainable environmental future for our planet".
                                                                                                  —Leonardo DiCaprio,

    In other words, our planet is in grave trouble due to the global warning that is happening, and must bring awareness to humanity.I believe that the CAFO system has to do a lot with it, because of the pollution they process.Briefly, in CAFO, we recognize the logic of industrialism applied to domesticated food animals. The result is a tragic, pathetic, and inhumane method of raising animals in factory farms to produce meat, milk, eggs, leather, fur, and nonessential culinary luxuries such as liver pâté. Living creatures are treated as machines, reduced to “units” in an assembly line of protein production by corporate food purveyors, with the individual animal’s suffering ignored. This is the kind of atrocity for which the word evil seems too meek and mild, and also leads to other issues such as environmental problematic issues.  

Saturday, May 5, 2012

The end of over eating......

In this blog I will be discussing about Dr.David Kessler`s article on the end of over eating.

             In The End of Overeating, Dr. Kessler explains how humans, much like Pavlov's dogs, become hardwired to anticipate foods with fat, sugar, and salt. The food industry has learned what humans want, and is only too be happy to give us what we crave. We quickly become trapped in a vicious cycle of dopamine-fueled urges when we want food, and opioid releases when we eat it. If dopamine and opioid sound familiar, it's because they play a major role in alcohol and drug addiction. Dr. Kessler draws a direct connection between food's power over people, and the pull of alcohol and drugs. It truly isn't a stretch to say, "I'm addicted to chocolate."Clearly, the knowledge we gained from this, is that there is much similarity between intake of sugar, salt etc, is just like consuming meat, because up to now in general, peoples already know about the CAFO`s, and knowing the fact how they process food but yet they still eat it just like in-taking sugar and salt like food.It`s like saying " once you pop you can`t stop", meaning the foods we eat is very addictive.

My tweet

https://twitter.com/#!/Bobbyfoodethics

Sunday, April 1, 2012

'' Farm to Fridge ''

In this blog, I will be writing about what animals go through from the four minute video I have watched.

            The video showed us the cruelty of animal slaughter. The difference between animals being raised to being slaughtered inside regular farms, are far more different then these " Modern Farms ". For instances, let`s talk about the poultry, thousands of chickens being crowed / cramped, deprived and denied from their natural needs, Such as fresh air, and exercise just basic needs. So that said, many of them fall ill, develop diseases, the workers brutally make them suffer so the fact that may die a slow death. The eggs, the chicks go through a unimaginable process. The male chicks are not worth the time, due to the fact that they don`t lay eggs and are not " profitable ". So they are killed after hours being hatched, methods for killing the male chicks has been created. And as for the female chicks all I can say is that they are destined for long life cruelty. What words come to mind ,cages/confinement etc. Let`s talk about the cows ( dairy / beef ), the majority of the dairy products are confined. The cows go through a painful process, some of the actions the factory workers perform are really unnecessary, they are subjected to mutilation and amputation. Just an example, they cut off their tails not knowing if it hurts them or not, Hence the injury they go through and developing illness. So basically they are left to die a slow horrifying death. And can`t forget about bacon, mother pigs commonly known as Sows, they are confined into cages bigger then their bodies are. After they give birth to piglets, the workers make them go through such an horrific, unimaginable process. Soon as they are born they go through castration, ripping out their private parts and other unimaginable procedure without anesthesia. So the sick ones which did not " make their inhumane procedures " are left to rot. clearly, this is what the animals go through every day, just so that we may eat, and fill our needs until satisfied. This is the journey the animals go through from " Farm to Fridge ".

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Introduction to the CAFO system

             In this Blog I will discuss about the introduction to the CAFO system by Daniel Imhoff. 
         
         Daniel Imhoff raised an important issue He said in the first page of the introduction  " Our domesticated livestock have never been as cruelly confined or slaughtered in such massive quantities in all of history."  notice when he said confined, meaning enclosed, trapped , which leads to believing that there is a system which needs to be questioned. For instance, a high number amount of animals are being massively slaughtered , as we speak. nearly 10 billion  animals ( livestock's ) are being slaughtered. Even more alarming this concept is being spread through out the globe, Daniel Imhoff mentions in the introduction that " The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that global consumption of both meat and dairy products will double by 2050." ( Henning Steinfeld , Pierre Gerber, Tom Wassenaar, Vincent Castel, Maurice Rosales, and Cees de Haan, Livestock's long shadow: Environmental Issues and options [ Rome: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2006],xx .Which leads to acknowledging a new farming system called The CAFO ( Concentrated Animal Feeding operations ).


          The idea Factory Farms comes into mind, because the animals are being mistreated far worst then one can imagine. The pace of killing is relentless, the animals are being held in a assembly line as if they were meant to be purposely ill-treated. These animals are being assembled  in a factory like concentrated camps, in other words concentrated animal feeding operations ( CAFO ). A CAFO is a feeding operation, that feeds animals unusual foods in order to gain weight in a rapid pace. As it is mentioned " Animal density and weight gain are the primary objectives." by Daniel imhoff. These operations are causing numerous issues such as environmental pollution , medicine abuse. They use lands for fertilizing or you can say " spray-fields "  for the animals, but by doing that while cramped up and no natural  farming doings they produce a lot of waste which is a problematic concern. As it is stated " The intensive concentration of animals produces obscene amounts of waste. It is not uncommon for a CAFO on 100 acres to generate the same amount sewage as a city of 100,00 inhabitants." by Daniel Imhoff ( Introduction ) xv. Also its becoming a toxic social and ecological liability, because the fact that it will spread to other places and very fast. Another point being, concerning medicine over usage, inside the CAFO the animals are rapidly growing fast,why, because of the antibiotics they receive daily, whether they need it or not. As mentioned by Daniel Imhoff " Inside the CAFO, animals are routinely administrated  antibiotics whether they need them or not." And by doing that they are creating more forms of diseases such as Salmonella E. coli and other disease forms.

          The CAFOs makes us believe that what they are doing is legal and right. By saying that they are trying to feed a " hungry planet " , deceiving us by their professional  business appearance. But as you read in the introduction Daniel Imhoff mentions a lot of profound illegal/unlawful actions, ideas (i.e concepts). That the " hungry planet " must take actions against what they are doing. As he said : " Clearly, they ways in which we produce our food define us as a culture and as human beings. The subject forces us to ask big questions: How did we arrive  at this place where they very foundation of human society-secure and sustainable food production- has become so far removed from caring farmers and cycles of nature?." ( Daniel Imhoff ). The CAFOs arises a lot more concerns and issues , that we must take into consideration ,and hopefully come to an conclusion.