In veterinarian Holly Cheever’s story, a Brown Swiss dairy cow gave natural birth for the fifth time out at pasture. The following day she and her new calf were led to the milking line where the baby calf was separated from her. She was let out to the field every morning after the first milking of the day, later to return for milking in the evening, and again was let out to graze the field for the night. This was back in the days when cows were allowed to spend some of their time in natural surroundings. The mother cow kept returning to the milking line in the morning with empty udders. The farmer decided to follow her and discovered the reason for this puzzling situation. The mother cow had given birth to two calves; she submitted one to the …show more content…
farmer and hid the other in the woods because she remembered the previous births and how her baby calves were taken from her. In Holly’s words, “Though I pleaded with the farmer to keep her and her bull calf together, she lost this baby, too-“off to the inferno of the veal crate” (Cheever 1). In today’s times, cows seldom see the grass of a pasture let alone the opportunity to save their babies. Some human beings have taken great part in the suffering of livestock, while others choose to ignore why or how this is done. In their ignorance they continue to swallow meat containing hormones, antibiotics, and other harmful chemicals.
Factory farm animal harm negatively impacts farming and consumer health; by offering government incentives to factory farmers to open graze and bring awareness to consumers of the health risks of consuming factory farm meat, animal abuse could significantly …show more content…
decrease. During the 1950’s, modern confinement methods were introduced with poultry and dairy livestock. They were moved from outdoors to confinement facilities; livestock raised for meat followed suit in the 1960’s (Becoff and Meaney 168). Cattle raised for beef are confined in feed lots that can hold thousands of animals. These animals may have little or no protection from extreme weather conditions. They may be castrated, de-horned, and/or branded without the aid of painkillers ("Factory Farms"). This injustice has been allowed because of the ignorance of the public. People have been persuaded to believe that these animals suffer none. They may go on to believe that what happens out of view is perfectly just. According to, Farm Forward, “Farmed animals are remarkable creatures that experience pleasure and have complex social structures, cows develop friendships over time and will sometimes hold grudges against other animals that treat them badly” (Balcombe 168). The structure of factory farming ensures that even the animals’ most fundamental needs, clean air, sunshine, freedom from chronic pain and illness are denied them. Firstly, factory farm dairy cattle are repeatedly injected with recombinant bovine somatotropin, rBST (also referred to as bovine growth hormone). It is a genetically engineered hormone to increase milk yield (The Humane Society of the United States 7). The use of rBST may have significant welfare consequences, since unnaturally high milk yields are associated with poor body conditions, increased rates of mastitis, lameness, and reproductive problems. These wonderful creatures have no voice but ours and we must educate ourselves of the deplorable facts to ultimately make better decisions in where, how, and when to purchase livestock products. Secondly, families are purchasing products that are in direct relation to the pain of livestock products. USA Today Magazine posted an article portraying factory farming’s negative effects on human health. It goes on to discuss how CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations, a term used to define factory farms) produce high levels of waste, contribute to the spread of human and animal diseases, and play a role in biodiversity loss. The high output of meat from factory farms has silently sold to the public that meat is almost required at every meal, the negative impacts on human health through high consumption of processed meats is evident. “Diets high in animal fat and meat—particularly red and processed meats, such as hot dogs, bacon, and sausage—have been linked to obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain types of cancer” ("Public Health Risks from Animal Farm" 6). There is solid evidence the largest U.S. meat and poultry producers feed antibiotics to healthy animals on a daily basis to make them grow faster and to compensate for the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in which they are bred and slaughtered. The science is clear that feeding animals antibiotics just to make them grow larger faster threatens human health. In 1997, for example, the World Health Organization recommended that feeding animals antibiotics for growth should be banned if the same antibiotics are used to treat humans (Hoffman). When they infect us, antibiotic-resistant bacteria are more difficult and costly to fight and more likely to cause death. We have plowed our way through the mad cow disease scare, the e-coli bacteria in our food, and the over-use of antibiotics in our meat supply. It is time to accept that modern factory farming methods produce meat not healthy for us to consume. One solution is to create an environment natural to livestock by offering factory farm owners incentives to open graze and refrain from antibiotic use in their livestock.
In Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan keeps hearing about this farmer in Virginia named Joel Salatin who calls himself a “grass farmer”. So, through Pollan’s research in to organic farming he is interested to find out why this guy’s food he is producing is so great. He inquires about ordering a chicken; a bon a fide free range natural chicken. The owner, Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm, gives only one instruction, “I’m afraid if you want to try one of our chickens, you’re going to have to drive down here to Swoope to pick it up” (Pollan 126). Pollan finds himself spending a week in Virginia, working as a farm hand, and learning how Salatin can produce the finest chickens, eggs, beef, and pork. He discovers the success of Polyface Farm lies in the design structured around the growing of grass, stocking it with animals that first improved the quality and quantity of the grass he could grow, while producing marketable local food for human
consumption. This is how most of us envision the way our food is produced. There is tremendous potential for increasing the welfare of livestock in the factory farm industry. Many of the housing problems can be prevented by increasing the available space, using appropriate bedding materials, and providing opportunities for exercise. Providing regular access to pasture and suitable high-fiber diets could help alleviate the health, stress, and behavioral problems associated with confinement and feed concentration. As consumers the obligations are on us to demand better quality of care for all livestock. Addressing issues of animal well-being and sustainability in farming requires a broad approach, changing the way a nation eats is as much a cultural issue as it is a technical one. Reforming farming requires social and political action, but it also requires the work of writers, artists, scholars, and consumers. The modern growth of factory farming or concentrated animal feeding operations continues to pollute health on humans, animals, and our environment. The above is representing the ugly truth about factory farming, and hoping to catalyze a change of conscience to the consumer. The havoc that cows, chickens, pigs, workers and the consumers experience demonstrate that all citizens need to reconsider their love of inexpensive meat. It needs to be understood that if this process continues, our children will continue to make the same mistakes. We must act now to shut down the factory farm and forge ahead with new models for humane farming.
Many families in America can’t decide what food chain to eat from. In the book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan lists four food chains: Industrial, Industrial Organic, Local Sustainable, and Hunter-Gatherer. The Industrial food chain is full of large farms that use chemicals and factories. Industrial Organic is close to it except it doesn’t use as many chemicals and the animals have more space. Local Sustainable is where food is grown without chemicals, the animals have freedom and they eat what they were born to eat. Lastly, Hunter-Gatherer is where you hunt and grow your own food. The omnivore's dilemma is trying to figure out what food chain to eat from. Local Sustainable is the best food chain to feed the United States because it is healthy and good for the environment.
Millions of animals are consumed everyday; humans are creating a mass animal holocaust, but is this animal holocaust changing the climate? In the essay “ The Carnivores Dilemma,” written by Nicolette Hahn Niman, a lawyer and livestock rancher, asserts that food production, most importantly beef production, is a global contributor to climate change. Nicolette Niman has reports by United Nations and the University of Chicago and the reports “condemn meat-eating,” and the reports also say that beef production is closely related to global warming. Niman highlights, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides are the leading greenhouses gases involved in increasing global warming. A vast majority of people across the world consumes meat and very little people are vegetarian, or the people that don’t eat meat, but are there connections between people and meat production industry when it comes to eating food and the effect it has on the climate? The greenhouse gases, methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxides are not only to blame, but we should be looking at people and industrialized farming for the leading cause of greenhouse gases in agriculture and the arm-twisting dilemma we have been lured into, which is meat production itself.
Animal and plant husbandry due to human growth has transformed into factories that pump out foodstuffs in higher quantities than imaginable centuries in the past. This is done through the use of monocultures, which produce one single crop in high quantities, and factory farming, compact animal lots that grow the animal as quickly as possible for slaughter. The shift to monoculture farming and factory farming was due to the rapid increase in population and advancements in farming technology, for example pesticides. In recent years the focus has shifted to escaping factory farming through organic farming. Organic farming produces foodstuffs without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or any other artificial factors. Organic farming focuses on natural development of organisms. Author Michael Pollan in his essay “The Animals: Practicing Complexity” describes his time at an organic farm and describes Polyface Farm as profitable, efficient, cheap,
Pollen seeks out to inform not just the misinformed or the health conscious folks, but just anyone who is willing to listen. He is not trying to tell his readers to stop eating fast food, nor is he telling his vegetarian readers to start eating meat. Pollen attempts to inform all his readers about the things that go beyond an ordinary double cheeseburger or the pain one must go through for fresh abalone. He covers all the dilemmas regarding the consumption of an omnivore as far as buying the “food” that was also used in feedlots, to the organic, freshly grown and gathered fungi and fava beans. I’ve been well informed and can no claim I am less ignorant to the topic of food. I may now think twice before I take a bite out of anything, such as where it came from or how it got to be. As for now, I am really craving some chicken nuggets from McDonalds.
Every year worldwide, over seventy billion animals are killed for food in factories without the inclusion aquatic animals (“Factory Farms Overview¨). The animal rights movement began in Europe during the nineteenth century to protect horses, dogs and cats (Recarte 1). However, now modern animal rights groups have switched their focus to factory farms, test animals and the removal of ag-gag laws. The fight to create less painful and stressful environments in factories and the altogether removal of animal testing and ag-gag laws has been taken on by animal rights groups like ASPCA (“Factory Farms”). The biggest issue currently facing animals is factory farming.
Fast food consumption is taking America by a storm and it is for the sake of our lives. Fast food relies heavily on industrialized corn because of how cheap and easy to grow it is. With that being said, animals are being fed with corn rather than being fed with grass. In the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Rich Blair who runs a “cow-calf” operation s...
What is an omnivore? An omnivore is a creature that consumes both plants and animals for nutrition. In Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma he explains just as the title suggests, the omnivore’s dilemma. In it he describes how omnivores, such as ourselves, came to eat the way we do now. After he discusses the basics of that, he proceeds to talk about Americans and how they eat. Pollan divides his writing into four main areas: introducing what the omnivore’s dilemma is, explaining how we decide what to eat, introducing our anxieties towards eating, and the problem with how Americans decide what to eat. Pollan calls on the expertise of Paul Rozin and other specialists to help back up his claims.
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.
Cannibalism is a very taboo subject, it is illegal and viewed ethically wrong to most people and religions. This topic is problematic not only morally, but to societies which thrive on law and order, it would jeopardize all that a society depends on. Which is why it is so important to analyze a legitimate document that argues for cannibalism. Jonathan Swift’s argument “A Modest Proposal” takes the topic of cannibalism and argues that it would be practical at the time to solve the problem of poverty in Ireland.
Throughout “The Omnivore's Dilemma” Pollan makes it evident that the overall callous nature of the meat industry, harsh living conditions, and the brutal deaths of animals are all in the name of pleasure. Although, He makes good claims as to how these realities of this industry are justified but essentially it is clear that indulging in meat products does sacrifice morals. Morals you may or may not have depending on one's stance on ethics involving the consumption of animals.
Like many other industries, the farming industry has evolved into big business, “Animals on factory farms are regarded as commodities to be exploited for profit.” In each industry from clothing to instruments, the bosses want to make a profit. The more they can supply with the least amount of waste, the more profit they make. The same goes for factory farming. However instead of humans being the ones directly affected by big bosses, the animals are. They don’t have a voice, and can’t stand up for what is right or wrong. These animals are manipulated in every way to make a better profit. Factory farms mass produce animals for ...
The animals that are raised in factory farms, and the farms are ran just like any other business. According to the article Factory Framing, Misery of Animals, the factory farming industry strives to maximize output while minimizing cost, always at the animal’s expense. “The giant corporations that run most factory farms have found that they can make more money by squeezing as many animals as possible into tiny spaces, even though many of the animals die from disease or infection” (Factory Farming). This is actually quit disgusting that we eat food that walks around in each other’s feces and can attract disease. These animals live a life of abuse, but we sit back and say it’s okay because we will eventually eat them. “Antibiotics are used to make animals grow faster and to keep them alive in the unsanitary conditions. Research shows that factory farms widespread use of antibiotics can lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threatens human health” (Factory Farming). These animals aren’t treated with proper care and we act as if they are machines. Chickens for example, become so big and distorted that their legs can longer support them. Eventually they die because they can longer walk to get food or water. According to Factory Farming, most of these animals have been genetically manipulated to grow larger and to produce more eggs and milk than they naturally
Factory farming is raising livestock in a small, confined area on a large scale for the purpose of supplying food for human consumption. It is argued that factory farming is extremely cruel for the animals involved and that there are better ways for food to be produced. The food produced by factory farms may be cheaper, but the chances are it is also of lower quality. The animals inside these factories are not fed on a particularly healthy diet. Factory farming may lead to the production of cheaper meat produced, but this could be bad for society when the health consequences can result fatal. Factory farming should be banned worldwide because not only is it cruel toward innocent animals, it also results in economic problems and major health concerns.
When these agricultural resources are given to the animals involved in meat production, these resources are lost. Besides the loss of land, the process of animal production is contributing to pollution and other greenhouse gases that are doing irreplaceable damage to the environment and contribute to untold negative health