Persisting Injustices in the Food Industry

When someone thinks about the food industry 100 years ago, they might think of workers getting stuck in crazy unsafe machines, and not receiving any workers comp, or anything. They might think of immigrants flooding the industry with reduced pay. They might even think about animals trapped in horrible living quarters. Well, when they think about the present, the same thoughts might not pop into their minds, but in fact, the food industry has not changed. Workers are still treated poorly, animals are treated lousy and their main priority is to make cheap products.

Food workers are treated poorly. In, The Jungle, while talking about the food industry, it states, “The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—from

top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie” (Sinclair 112). In other words, these industries don’t care about their workers at all. In, “The Most Dangerous Job”, it states, “Despite the fact Kenny had been with the company for almost sixteen years… Kenny learned that he’d been fired” (Schlosser 165). This also showed that this company did not care for its workers. These workers, past and present, did not receive respect from their workplace which meant they were treated very poorly. Since both of these stories showcased a different time frame, but similar scenarios, then the food industry must not have changed.
The Animals were also treated lousy. In, The Jungle, Jurgis was describing the factory, “They use everything about the hog except the squeal” (Sinclair 72). Using every part of a pig is disgusting on its own, but the squealing means the pig is suffering. In, Food Inc., the living conditions were also being described, “The cows were knee deep in manure, stuffed right next to each other” (Kenner). These cows were forced to live in horrible living conditions, that no human could even imagine having to live. From suffering, to horrible living conditions, animals were treated poorly in the past and now. Although there are some slight differences, the food industry hasn’t changed how they deal with animals.
One argument that one might make towards the food industry actually changing, is that food got cheaper.

An example of this is in Food, Inc., when a struggling family says, the only way we’d be able to survive is because of cheap food (Kenner). Yes, cheap food does prevent them from starving, but at what cost? This is coming from an obviously obese family, so this cheap food, that is “saving” them, is also slowly killing them. Expensive food is expensive because people actually took time to create it. Cheap food usually comes from huge companies trying to create as much product while doing the least amount of work as

possible.
Like stated before, companies want to produce cheap product.

In, The Jungle, it says, “The rich people not only had all the money, they had all the chance to get more; they had all the knowledge and the power, and so the poor man was down, and he had to stay down” (Sinclair 94). These rich company owners pay their workers nothing even though they have money to spare. In Food, Inc., the same obese family from before says, we don’t eat fast food because we want to, we eat it because that’s all we can afford (Kenner). This also supports the previous claim, but this family realizes the predicament that they’re in. They work for a food industry, and they get payed so little, they are forced to eat the crap they produce. Big companies are just recycling the money they pay to their workers by forcing them to consume their product. Since both instances have workers with excessively poor pay, it proves that then and now, companies are trying to get produce products as cheaply as

possible.
If one looks back 100 years at how food is produced, they wouldn’t see much of a difference from how it’s produced today. Aside from some technology changes, the food industry stayed fairly the same, and also remained extremely inhumane. Then and now, workers were treated poorly, animals were treated lousy and they focussed on creating products as cheaply as possible. From animals living in their own feces, to workers being forced to eat the horrible food they create, it is apparent that this is true. Although the food industry hasn’t changed in the past 100 years, that doesn’t mean it still won’t. The consumer world is very susceptible to change now-a-days. If people start eating more healthy, like eating organic foods, locally grown foods and foods low in unhealthy substances, then stores will start producing more of that food making it cheaper. Although it may be difficult, if people boycott fast food and other junk foods, then they will go out of business creating space for those healthy foods. It is possible to have a good food industry, it just requires a little work.