Food Inc Documentary Summary

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Today, the American consumer is unknowingly eating animals that have been raised in torturous, contaminated living conditions, raised on chemicals and synthetic food, and slaughtered inhumanely. In the documentary Food Inc. the directors take you behind the scenes in what really happens on these so called farms, all controlled by four meat packaging companies. (Food Inc. Robert Kenner. Magnolia Pictures. 2008. Documentary.) Showing you the tainted living conditions the cows, chickens, and pigs are residing in while being fed foods that are not only a part of their natural diet, but also filled with hormones. Farm animals also endure monstrous acts from the workers, many animals won’t even see the light of day until they’re being led into trucks …show more content…

On top of that most farm animals are being fed corn, which is not a natural diet for any of the livestock. The reasoning is because corn is very cheap, since it can be subsidized, and is very fattening as well. This grain laced with different types of hormones helps fatten the animal much faster than it would be if they ate their own natural food. If you look at the inside of a cow they have a special organ called rumen to break down grass and other vegetation, which should be part of their diet. The rumen is the largest part of the cow’s four stomachs, surprisingly holds approximately up to 40 gallons of liquid, and fills up most of the left side of the cow. Rumen helps ferment the food ingested by the cow by a complex ecosystem of microbes, which releases fatty acid which results in how the cow gets their energy from vegetation. (Kunzig, Robert. “Carnivore’s Dilemma” National Geographic Magazine. n.d.). Many animals fall sick and even die before they’re slaughtered because of the unhealthy diet, many times chicken can’t even stand up from their own …show more content…

When a cow is first born, most of the time they are separated from their mother, causing the mother emotional distress. The calves are then forced down and branded with a hot iron scorching their skin and leaving a permanent mark, the branding is noticeably grievous. (“Cattle Breeding: Tradition Without a Heart” Britannica Advocacy for Animals. 30 September 2013). Then for the rest of their life the cows are stuck in overcrowded, filthy pens often stepping ankle deep in their own feces. Chickens have a similar situation, they are kept in pitch-dark hen houses, with no windows and very poor ventilation. In the Rolling Stone’s issue by Paul Solotaroff, they estimated a total of 500 million tons of factory-farm animal waste in just one year, and the amount of fecal matter from animals raised for food in the US was 87,000 pounds per second. (Solotaroff, Paul. Rao, Nita. “In the Belly of the Beast” Rolling Stone. 10 Dec, 2013). Not only is the environment dreadful but, several workers have treated and still treat the animals insolently. Many animal activists have gone undercover to uncover the veil of how the livestock are actually treated in the factory farms. One anonymous source reported that many mother pigs have the natural instinct to run after their children once they have been vehemently separated. “Some moms would resist and these guys would just pounce, three or four kicking and

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