The Beef with Meat
Emily Dilber
Grand Blanc High School
Most of us do not think twice about the foods we pick up from the supermarket. Many Americans have a preconceived belief that the food being sold to us is safe, and withholds the highest standard of quality. Certainly, compared to many places in the world, this is true. But is the United States sincerely trying to carry out these standards, or have we begun to see a reverse in the health and safety of our food- and more explicitly in our meat? Jonathan Foer, author of “Eating Animals” argues for reform within the food industry- not only for the humane treatment of animals but moreover for our own health. Although Foer exposes the ills within the food industries in order to persuade readers to change their diets for the better, his “vegetarianism or die” assessment may be too extreme for most Americans. The true ills do not start with the meat, but with industrialized production of it through methods practiced by factory farming.
Why is there not more of an up stir being caused by the rates of avoidable food-borne illness? Perhaps it doesn't seem obvious that something is wrong simply because it happens all the time. With 76 million cases of food-borne illness that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have estimated happen in America each year, meat infected by pathogens “fading into the background” does not seem probable. (2010). In reality, most didn't "catch a bug" so much as eat a bug. And in all likelihood, that bug was created by factory farming.
Beyond illnesses linked to factory farming, factory farms are contributing to the growth of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens simply due to the overconsumption of antimicrobials. (Journal of...
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...armers’ markets, raise your own cow– the list goes on. These methods are all possible. But speaking as a “run-of-the-mill, suburban citizen”, even after knowing all the ills of factory farming, these methods are not appealing to me. We all like convenience and affordability, which these methods cannot offer AYYYY CITE And that is truly the issue here. The meat that we are getting– that convenient meat that none of us seem to want to live without– is quite frankly grotesque and unhealthy. But we keep eating.
Is it possible to come up with an all-inclusive evaluation to contrast the positives of meat consumption with the negative consequences of meat production? And is there a simple answer to the question: are the benefits of eating the factory-farmed meat greater than the undesirable cost of producing it?
As the Harvard biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham
The argumentative article “More Pros than Cons in a Meat-Free Life” authored by Marjorie Lee Garretson was published in the student newspaper of the University of Mississippi in April 2010. In Garretson’s article, she said that a vegetarian lifestyle is the healthy life choice and how many people don’t know how the environment is affected by their eating habits. She argues how the animal factory farms mistreat the animals in an inhumane way in order to be sources of food. Although, she did not really achieve the aim she wants it for this article, she did not do a good job in trying to convince most of the readers to become vegetarian because of her writing style and the lack of information of vegetarian
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. ...
Moreover, this system of mass farming leads to single crop farms, which are ecologically unsafe, and the unnatural treatment of animals (Kingsolver 14). These facts are presented to force the reader to consider their own actions when purchasing their own food because of the huge economic impact that their purchases can have. Kingsolver demonstrates this impact by stating that “every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we
Food, especially meat is such a central part of human society that it cannot be ignored. Just as big minds came together in the 60’s to make a better chicken, they can come together to solve a crisis that harms every person living in this country. Jonathan Safran Foer’s book gives an important look into what goes on behind the scenes of factory farms, and offers logical solutions. However, it will take more than this, and more than just vegetarian encouragement to make any lasting changes. It will take the votes of consumers both in the supermarket and on ballots to evoke a better system. Take a look at what is on your plate next time you sit down for a meal. Did you vote well?
Our current system of corporate-dominated, industrial-style farming might not resemble the old-fashioned farms of yore, but the modern method of raising food has been a surprisingly long time in the making. That's one of the astonishing revelations found in Christopher D. Cook's "Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis" (2004, 2006, The New Press), which explores in great detail the often unappealing, yet largely unseen, underbelly of today's food production and processing machine. While some of the material will be familiar to those who've read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or Eric Schlosser's "Fast-Food Nation," Cook's work provides many new insights for anyone who's concerned about how and what we eat,
In the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, the author talks about, not only vegetarianism, but reveals to us what actually occurs in the factory farming system. The issue circulating in this book is whether to eat meat or not to eat meat. Foer, however, never tries to convert his reader to become vegetarians but rather to inform them with information so they can respond with better judgment. Eating meat has been a thing that majority of us engage in without question. Which is why among other reasons Foer feels compelled to share his findings about where our meat come from. Throughout the book, he gives vivid accounts of the dreadful conditions factory farmed animals endure on a daily basis. For this reason Foer urges us to take a stand against factory farming, and if we must eat meat then we must adapt humane agricultural methods for meat production.
Factory farming is a necessary component of our modern food production and supply system. In 2005, the U.S. produced 45.7 billion pounds of red meat. It efficiently produces and distributes huge quantities of food to feed the growing population of America. But the overfeeding of antibiotics in the U.S. meat industry has gotten to the extreme and it calls for a drastic change in order to prevent a potential public health crises.
Bost supports his claim by comparing the process of raising meat to the process of harvesting of crops; he argues both systems have their flaws, in the sense, they produce pollution into the Earth’s atmosphere and kill animals whether it was their intent or not. The author’s purpose is to inform both non meat eaters and meat eaters the ethics of eating any food in general in order to create an understanding of where their food comes from and how their food choices affect the surrounding organisms as well as the environment. The author writes in an objective tone for his audience who may be biased on the issue of the ethics of eating meat or crops, he equally provides the pros and cons of both opposing views and compares the overall effects they have on organisms, in the end Bost advices both sides to reflect on the ethics of eating
The food may be cheaper than organic farming, but it damages human health because the animals that produce the products (e.g. milk, eggs) does not eat natural/organic food/ give the organic. They are given a combination of additives to make them grow faster than the normal way. The chances are it lowers the quality of the products. The animals are not fed on a particularly healthy diet and often what they do eat is full of hormones and antibiotics, which have already had a damage in humans. The trouble is that a factory farm is not sanitary because the animals are compacted together and the condition are the animals is more likely to become sick and infect other animals, which is why antibiotics is used even though it has
Odder still, those who do choose to act in accordance to these uncontroversial values by refusing to eat animals […] are often considered marginal or even radical.” It is evident that factory farming is the best alternative and best way to get large amounts of food produced at an affordable price, I agree with the statements that Foer points out through “Eating Animals”. This statement that Foer is implementing is the fact that although most people are informed about what is occurring with produce and factory farming we still manage to let it keep occurring since we continue to buy these products. Furthermore, other people want farming to be humane yet, complain when the products coming from more humane source is more
It would only take five days of being grass-fed to kill all the bacteria in the cow’s stomach and yet, no one allows it. Everyone is aware of this simple fix but instead of this, beef is washed in chlorine to kill the bacteria, then sold to stores and customers. When the producers of “Food, Inc.” asked to interview these big companies, guilty of these practices, they refused. My sense of trust in the American food industry has most definitely been shaken. While it is understandable that companies are competing to cut as many costs as possible to sell their product at the best prices, it should really be recognized that their products are living beings and deserve to be treated humanely. I would much rather pay more for animals products if I knew the animals being used and killed were treated well and safely. The risk of an animal having a disease than their meat being chemically treated in order to make my lunch is way too high and it's not worth being able to sell meat at such low
Antibiotics are intended to kill bacteria. However, not all bacteria are alike, and they often mutate over time. Some types of bacteria are resistant to certain antibiotics. Therefore, as an antibiotic is more often used, the population of bacteria will gradually be replaced by a population of bacteria which the antibiotic cannot kill. (In simpler terms: more antibiotics that are used can cause the bacteria to not be affected by it at all.) (National Resources Defense Council, n.d).The regular use of antibiotics is so common because of the promotion of the increased growth rate in animals, and it is also used to increase profits (Dr. Tim O’Brien, 1997). The use of antibiotics should not be used to solely benefit large meat companies. Angela Browning, Junior Agriculture Minister, mentions that over 62 different antibiotics were authorized for use in the feed of cows (Dr. Tim O’Brien, 1997). In a business where profits are counted in pennies per cow, the weight gained with antibiotics and hormones is profound. Patrick Boyle of PBS states that “there is some evidence to indicate that the antibiotics kill the flora that would normally thrive in the animal's' intestines, thereby allowing the animals to utilize their food more effectively” (2014). This antibiotic can pose more health risks to humans. The biggest disputation over antibiotics concentrates around taking antibiotics that are used to heal human diseases and giving them to cattle. Microbiologist Dr. Glenn Morris states that the main problem for people is that, if someone consumes the bacteria through improperly cooked meat, he or she may not react well to antibiotic cure. Antibiotic resistance can become a big issue with the cows. The World Health Organization (WHO) specifically is worried about this issue, so they often suggest restraining the use of antibiotics in the animals we eat. In a
Today’s medical experts say that avoiding meat helps you avoid saturated fat. They have found out from studies that women who eat meat daily have a fifty percent greater risk of developing heart disease than vegetarian women and a sixty-eight percent greater risk in men (staff writer). People may not know about serious diseases meat can cause such as, mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease. In the September 1999 issue of the Emerging Infectious Diseases, approximately 76 million food-borne illnesses- resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths occur in the United States each year from improperly cooked or diseased meat (Licher). That is a lot of fun!
For the past years the global demand for meat has multiplied and with that the world meat consumption is expected to double and double which is a crisis. Meat factories have consumed huge amounts of energy, contaminated water and generated lots of greenhouse gases. Therefore if you eat less meat there is less demand for it and fewer animals are killed which means less greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere. In the article Mark Bittman who is an American food journalist talks about how animals have a big effect on the environment and public health by giving an example on how cattles are fed and raised, “cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people.” Here Bittman gives only one example out of millions examples on how animals are treated in an unethical way which affects our environment and our health too. In the article Flesh of your Flesh the author Elizabeth Kolbert considers many issues on how we humans live in a two face guide on how we look at animals versus meat. America consumes roughly thirty-eight billion pounds of poultry, twenty-seven billion pounds of beef, and nine billion birds and numerous more of the animals that are slaughtered annually to provide meats for American people for food (Kolbert). We americans are meat eaters. We consume a lot of meat and at the end of the day we face huge health problems such as obesity. Meat is not the only source to rely on for protein. Whoever says that eating meat means survival that is not true because of the large amount of resources
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.