In America, there are many people who never think twice to question what they are eating. Most American’s simply assume, if it tastes good it must be good. This is unfortunately not the truth. In 2001, a young boy tragically passed away after ingesting meat that was contaminated with the Escherichia Coli bacteria (Metzger). Escherichia Coli is a bacterium that is normal inside of the intestines of most animals including humans, but when it is presented outside of the intestinal tract it can be fatal. E. Coli is spread when cattle are slaughtered and the E. Coli from the hides of the animals is getting transferred into the meat (Daluiso). This bacteria is clearly very harmful to the human body. After the death of this child, his grandma and mother tried very hard to get a law passed that would better regulate the production of food and decrease contamination (Metzger). Kevin’s law is:
To protect public health by clarifying the authority of the Secretary of Agriculture to prescribe performance standards for the reduction of pathogens in meat, meat products, poultry, and poultry products processed by establishments receiving inspection services and to enforce the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) System requirements, sanitation requirements, and the performance standards (H.R.3160 - Kevin's Law).
This law was never passed, even though they worked for years on it. The sad thing about all of this is the incidence of people dying from contaminated food is astronomical. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates “1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases” every single year (Estimates of Foodborne Illness in the United States). The amount o...
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Lassiter, Sharlene W. “From Hoof to Hamburger: The Fiction of a Safe Meat Supply.” Willamette law review 33 01 Apr 1997: 411-971. College of Law, Willamette University. 22 Feb 2014.
Metzger, Sarah. "The Human Side of Safe Food." Livestrong. Livestrong Foundation, 16 Aug. 2013. Web. 21 Feb. 2014. .
Segelken, Roger H. "Simple change in cattle diets could cut E. coli infection." Cornell Chronicle . Ed. Susan Lang. N.p., 8 Sept. 1998. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
Smith, David, Mark Blackford, Spring Younts, Rodney Moxley, and Jeff Gray. "Ecological Relationships between the Prevalence of Cattle Shedding Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Characteristics of the Cattle or Conditions of the Feedlot Pen." Journal of Food Protection 12 (2001): 1881-2110. Ingentaconnect. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
Salmonella is one danger that has caused many effects to consumers. Walsh writes about one incident when an outbreak “from tainted peanuts that killed at least eight people and sickened 600,” (Walsh 167). This incident left many people asking the same question, how can we trust the food that we put into our bodies? Salmonella, a type of food poisoning caused by bacteria found on different food types has caused an epidemic because of its domino effect on food and our health. Once one factory is contaminated, that factory could be housing both crops and meat, which is then transferred to our supermarkets and on our dinner tables. ...
In the documentary, Food Inc., we get an inside look at the secrets and horrors of the food industry. The director, Robert Kenner, argues that most Americans have no idea where their food comes from or what happens to it before they put it in their bodies. To him, this is a major issue and a great danger to society as a whole. One of the conclusions of this documentary is that we should not blindly trust the food companies, and we should ultimately be more concerned with what we are eating and feeding to our children. Through his investigations, he hopes to lift the veil from the hidden world of food.
In cattle feedlots, the conditions are very bad. Most of the time, the feeder calves are standing in mud that is two feet deep. In these moist conditions, bacteria thrive. The cattle can suffer from foot problems, like foot rot. foot rot is a disease of the hoof which the skin between the toes of the hooves rots away and decomposes. If left untreated, the foot will swell and will rot off. This is extremely painful for the animal(Hasheider 34). In these feed yards, the feed is dumped into concrete feed bunks three times a day, and that is all the cattle get to eat. They are not offered grass or any type of forage, the forage, also known as hay...
Nestle, Marion. Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003.
The main reason that this law was put into place was because there were no regulations regarding food health and safety. There were also market failures due to the lack of food regulations, because the public could not tell if a certain food product had been altered in any way. Also many food markets completely neglected the environment, due to no set standard for environmental protection.
The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. Kallen, Stuart A. Food Safety. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2005. http://www. Print.
In the early twentieth century, at the height of the progressive movement, “Muckrakers” had uncovered many scandals and wrong doings in America, but none as big the scandals of Americas meatpacking industry. Rights and responsibilities were blatantly ignored by the industry in an attempt to turn out as much profit as possible. The meat packers did not care if poor working conditions led to sickness and death. They also did not care if the spoiled meat they sold was killing people. The following paper will discuss the many ways that rights and responsibilities were not being fulfilled by the meat packing industry.
The momentum generated by the passage of the Meat Inspection Act helped secure the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, which had been stalled in Congress since 1905. With these two pieces of legislation, the federal government took important steps to assure the public that the food they were eating met minimu...
E. Coli is a bacteria that is inside your intestines that helps you break down food. When cows are fed corn, it also decreases the healthy acids such as Omega-3 and increases Omega-6 which is unhealthy. We should also care about their living conditions because a cow is in one area for most of the day just eating corn and when cows eat corn they tend to poop a lot. It is crowded in the eating area for cows so when they poop it falls on the ground and they eat so much corn that they just keep pooping so eventually they start stepping in it and this would cause them to get diseases. Some farmers when they slaughter them do check for diseases but some don’t, so the diseases travel with the cow and onto your dinner plate which means that you could be eating an infected cow without knowing it.
Wilson, Jacque. "Who is Looking Out for Your Food Safety?." CNN. CNN, 08 Oct 2013. Web. 23 Jan 2014.
...hen rules and the enforcement of them in the meatpacking industry and slaughterhouses. However, Schlosser disregards to provide a solution. He simply points the finger and leaves the reader depressed, without means or logic to correct the situation. After reading, we enthusiastically agreed with Schlosser when he pulled on our emotional series. His logic was also substantial in this chapter with his thorough research and extensive truthful support. However, because he does not offer any solution to the problem, it diminished significantly from his argument. Although Schlosser's argument cannot be labeled an attack, in our minds, it certainly became nothing short of an overly emotional, well-jointed rage. Schlosser uses these numbers to show the errors of certain meat packing companies and in turn, how this has caused massive illness and injury to the general public.
Most American beef is raised on feedlots, to provide a lot of beef in a short period of time. These feedlots are crowded, which can cause the corn-fed cows to breed diseases that could be potentially harmful to the consumers. Feedlot owners have to give cows antibiotics to try to prevent the spread of diseases from animal to animal. Yet, sometimes these antibiotics are often unhelpful, and, therefore, it is possible for the number of these diseases cross over into humans. Bacteria such as Salmonella and others can cause infections in cattle and calves in turn affecting humans, if tainted meat from the
Tom Regan, “The Case for Animal Rights,” in In Defense of Animals, ed. Peter Singer (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 21. U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistical Services, Livestock Slaughter. 2005 Summary, March 2006: USDA, NASS, Poultry Slaughter: 2005
Food safety is an increasingly important public health issue. Governments all over the world are intensifying their efforts to improve food safety. Food borne illnesses are diseases, usually either infectious or toxic in nature, caused by agents that enter the body through the ingestion of food. “In industrialized countries, the percentage of people suffering from food borne diseases each year has been reported to be up to 30%. In the United States of America, for example, around 76 million cases of food borne diseases, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths, are estimated to occur each year.” (Geneva 2)
The third weakness is the fact that food tests, inspections, and the detection of contaminants are taken seriously only after an outbreak of some food-borne diseases, food poisoning, or deaths. The increase in the number of food establishments or outlets such as cold stores, hypermarkets, and supermarkets reported by the Public Health Director has also made inspection and control mo...