Food Inc Sociology

a. Social Interaction/ pg. 29: one person’s actions influencing someone else

In the film Food, Inc., viewers are shown inside the world of chicken farming, among other things. We are told who controls the meat market, and then we are taken to a few of their actual chicken farms. It is clear from these farms that the chickens are not taken very good care of; however, this is not entirely the fault of the farmers, but primarily the fault of the big-name companies that own these chickens. The farmers can only do so much to ensure quality in the care of the chickens when they have a quota to meet. As a result, the chickens are fed food that does not serve to give them nutrients, but food that fattens them up quickly. Often times chickens became

This may seem like a good thing because it saves people time and money, but this lack of human contact with our food can create problems. If a machine is rapidly running and problem occurs, if no one notices the issue or if the machine does not pick up on it and stop production, there could be batches of food, and meat in this case, that is defected – or, even worse, infected. If the machines are not clean and yet they are constantly churning and producing food which will later be consumed, this could result in a serious problem. Using machines can be fine if they are well-maintenance and cleaned often, but this does not seem to be the case. As the movie showed us, these factories are filthy and the floors are always covered with blood and guts that surely acts as a cesspool for bacteria to breed. And how do they clean up? Well, the movie did not cover this, but I assume the floor has drains in it where the blood flows and my guess is that they may occasionally mop the floors, but there is no way that these workers take the time every night to make the factory pristine when the next day they will just dirty it up again. This is highly unsanitary and outrageous that this is even allowed – how many people have to get ill from eating bad meat and other foods for this to stop? How many outbreaks of

This was shown in the video when the interviewers went to a different chicken farm before the one where they were let in. This farm was run by a man, and although he did not seem to mind talking about the conditions of the chicken farm, there were certain things he seemed to try not to answer and he definitely did not allow the cameras to enter the “coops.” This is because, since his chickens are owned by a large company in the industry, if he showed how the chickens were treated before being made into food, that would lessen the company’s reputation. It appears the companies know their techniques are so morbid and inhuman that they do not want the public to be aware of them in fear of a drop in sales. With that being said, the female chicken farmer did not care and let the camera crew into her coops as a sort-of call to arms. She wanted to expose the industry and even though her coops still had windows unlike many of the other farm’s coops, the company that owned her chickens wanted to get rid of them because chickens are calmer in the dark. It was courageous of this woman to try and let everyone know what really goes on behind the scenes of the food we eat. Though, and I cannot remember if the film said this or not, but I am sure she no longer has her job. It is easier for the companies to silence their employees rather than