How Processed Food Products Affect our Environment

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Many people pick up food products off the shelves and put it into their shopping carts without actually knowing what exactly the product has been through. The documentary “Food Inc.,” directed by Robert Kenner helps us realize all the predicaments we have in our Food Industry. For example, one of the main problems we have is that our food is no longer being produced in all American farms, but instead in dirty abusive factories. Not only is this processed food unhealthy for us, but the workers and animals are being severely abused as well. Our food industry is spreading many different diseases rapidly amongst our American society, ranging from brain damage to miscarriage and birth defects.
Due to the irresponsibility of our food industry today, the ability for sicknesses to spread is very simple. Especially, now with the fact that animals on factory farms generate excessive amount of excrement, a volume that is a great deal more than which is produced by the entire United States population. This waste pollutes not only the air we breathe but also the water we drink; thus, it eventually spreads across our nation. Our nation’s factory farms create roughly 89,000 pounds of waste, roughly every second. This waste contains highly concentrated chemicals and bacterial toxins, in which all are without the benefits of waste-treatment systems. According to a contamination study conducted by Minnesota agricultural extension, engineer John Chastain stated, “The data indicates that the pollution strength of raw manure is 160 times greater than raw municipal sewage.” (Chastain, “Greener Media”). Now, the question comes what do we do with this excess waste? The answer is that the waste is usually dumped into lagoons to rot, or it is also sprayed...

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Food Inc. Dir. Robert Kenner. Perf. N/A. Youtube.com, 2008. Online Documentary.

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McPhee, Laura. "Factory Farms." NUVO. N.p., 28 Nov. 2008. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.

McDonald, L. Clifford, Matthew J. Kuehnert, Fred C. Tenover, and William R. Jarvis (1997). "Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci Outside the Health-Care Setting: Prevalence, Sources, and Public Health Implications" Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, Alanta, Georgia, 3.

Hamblin, James. "The Toxins That Threaten Our Brains." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 18 Mar. 2014. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.

"Neighbors of Vast Hog Farms Say Foul Air Endangers Their Health." The New York Times. The New York Times, 10 May 2003. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.

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