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An essay about food safety
An essay about food safety
Review of related literature importance of food safety
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Investigative Journalists Uncover Food Safety Concerns
Investigative Journalism is the strongest factor for health in the food industry, both for the lives in the past, as well as today. Before the turn of the 20th century, there were cases of extreme health concerns exposed by investigators. The most widely known food investigator is Upton Sinclair, who uncovered the horrors of the meat-packing industry in 1904. Investigative journalists have uncovered the dirt and corruption in many food businesses, which has led to the creation of new and widely improved food and drug legislations, as well as the making of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Investigative journalists have shed light upon the wrongdoings in the food industry that prove
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After the publication, sales skyrocketed. The public was mortified by the gruesome happenings inside the meat-packing industry. Sinclair was alarmed by the response, however, because he viewed that the public had eyes only for the condition of the meat, and little for the troubles of factory workers. Sinclair said, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." (“Upton Sinclair's The Jungle: Muckraking the Meat-Packing …show more content…
Though his work had done wonders for the food we eat, is it accurate to say that the food produced after these laws were created is safe to consume? According to journalist, James Andrews: In 1994, Beef Products Inc. (BPI) CEO, “Eldon Roth, started developing a pH Enhancement System to reduce the number of pathogens in beef.” Which soon led to the introduction of Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB); and is known for another name, “pink slime” (Andrews). According to Josh Sanburn, below explains the creation of
Upon his 1906 publishing of The Jungle, Sinclair was coined as an avid “muckraker” when President Roosevelt addressed an audience in April of that year. When asked whether or not the novel provided a realistic account of workers conditions within the Chicago meat packing industry, Roosevelt accused Sinclair of being a liar in an attempt to discredit him. A large part of this was credited to Roosevelt’s personal distaste for Sinclair’s apparent link to the Socialist party but, Roosevelt was also unaware that Sinclair had worked undercover at the plant to gather first hand and accurate accounts. The Jungle shined light on the poor working conditions of workers in a meat packing facility. Throughout the novel, Sinclair gave gruesome examples of what workers went through each and every day. Each department of the facility was faced with its own risks and challenges, “There were the wool pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle men; for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with
Sinclair agreed to "investigate working conditions in Chicago's meatpacking plants," for the Socialist journal, Appeal to Reason, in 1904. The Jungle, published in 1906, is Sinclair's most popular and influential work. It is also his first of many "muckraker" pieces. In order to improve society, muckrakers wanted to expose any injustice on human rights or well-being. Therefore, it was Sinclair's goal to expose the harsh treatment of factory workers through The Jungle. The improvement on society, that he hoped would follow, was the reformation of labor.
After the clean-up, U. S. meat is imported by many countries, opening fresh markets for the packers. Upton Sinclair is supposed to be. to have said that he aimed at the public's heart, and by. accident. He hit it in the stomach.
The beginning of Meat Inspection Act seemed to be at 1904, after “The Jungle” of Sinclair published. In fact, it started twenty years earlier, the regular law, used to satisfy Europe, the largest meat export market, but in 1865 Congress passed an act to prevent the importation of diseased cattle and pigs. Because of disease, European like Italian, French, and English restricted or banned the importation meat, and they turned to another supplier. Some bills were introduced but they failed to gather sufficient support. May 1884, Bureau of Animal Industry was established, it was doing good job in fighting Europe restrictions, helping the packers, but not helping the domestic consumers. March 1891, the first major meat inspection law was passed; some country removed the prohibitions on importing American pork. It distressed the European packing industry as well. So, they imposed more standards. Government had to do more action; major percent meat slaughtered was inspected. Some of companies exploited the law, but most of them, especially big companies agreed with the committee in 1902. In 1904, Smith, who was a great information aid to Sinclair, published a series of articles in The Lancet...
At the beginnings of the 1900s, some leading magazines in the U.S have already started to exhibit choking reports about unjust monopolistic practices, rampant political corruption, and many other offenses; which helped their sales to soar. In this context, in 1904, The Appeal to Reason, a leading socialist weekly, offered Sinclair $500 to prepare an exposé on the meatpacking industry (Cherny). To accomplish his mission, Sinclair headed to Chicago, the center of the meatpacking industry, and started an investigation as he declared“ I spent seven weeks in Packingtown studying conditions there, and I verified every smallest detail, so that as a picture of social conditions the book is as exact as a government report” (Sinclair, The Industrial Republic 115-16). To get a direct knowledge of the work, he sneaked into the packing plants as a pretended worker. He toured the streets of Packingtown, the area near the stockyards where the workers live. He approached people, from different walks of life, who could provide useful information about conditions in Packingtown. At the end of seven weeks, he returned home to New Jersey, shut himself up in a small cabin, wrote for nine months, and produced The Jungle (Cherny).
During the late 1800's and early 1900's hundreds of thousands of European immigrants migrated to the United States of America. They had aspirations of success, prosperity and their own conception of the American Dream. The majority of the immigrants believed that their lives would completely change for the better and the new world would bring nothing but happiness. Advertisements that appeared in Europe offered a bright future and economic stability to these naive and hopeful people. Jobs with excellent wages and working conditions, prime safety, and other benefits seemed like a chance in a lifetime to these struggling foreigners. Little did these people know that what they would confront would be the complete antithesis of what they dreamed of.
Discuss how Upton Sinclair portrays the economic tensions and historical processes at hand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Upton Sinclair, the author of The Jungle, wrote this novel to unveil the atrocious working conditions and the contaminated meat in meat-packing workhouses. It was pathos that enabled his book to horrify hundreds of people and to encourage them to take a stand against these meat-packing companies. To obtain the awareness of people, he incorporated a descriptive style to his writing. Ample amounts of imagery, including active verbs, abstract and tangible nouns, and precise adjectives compelled readers to be appalled. Durham, the leading Chicago meat packer, was illustrated, “having piles of meat... handfuls of dried dung of rats...rivers of hot blood, and carloads of moist flesh, and soap caldrons, craters of hell.” ( Sinclair 139). His description
In this paper, there contains information on how The Jungle portrays industrialization in a way that most can understand clearly. In Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, he addresses the problems of industrialization through the experiences of the Rudkus family. What is portrayed by this family is what happened to most immigrants and how they reacted to the situations they were put in.
One the key pieces of legislation that was a prime example of the progressive era, was the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. This law came about due to muckraking, and also because of public and political interests. Muckraking, such as Upton Sinclair’s piece, “The Jungle”, helped in the timing of the adoption of this legislature. This piece of legislature, allowed for the regulation of processed food items in United States food markets. The Pure Food and Drug Act was assigned to the Department of Agriculture under the Bureau of Chemistry (Law, 2004).
In Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, The Jungle, he exposes corruption in both business and politics, as well as its disastrous effects on a family from Lithuania. In a protest novel, the ills of society are dramatized for its effect on its characters in the story. The Jungle is an example of protest literature because it exposes in a muckraking style the lethal and penurious conditions that laborers lived and worked in, corruption in business and politics, and the unsanitary meat that was sold.
Even though monopolies are illegal, public corruption allows companies to form and continues to be a problem today. In an article published by the Los Angeles, Anh Do
In the world of economic competition that we live in today, many thrive and many are left to dig through trashcans. It has been a constant struggle throughout the modern history of society. One widely prescribed example of this struggle is Upton Sinclair's groundbreaking novel, The Jungle. The Jungle takes the reader along on a journey with a group of recent Lithuanian immigrants to America. As well as a physical journey, this is a journey into a new world for them. They have come to America, where in the early twentieth century it was said that any man willing to work an honest day would make a living and could support his family. It is an ideal that all Americans are familiar with- one of the foundations that got American society where it is today. However, while telling this story, Upton Sinclair engages the reader in a symbolic and metaphorical war against capitalism. Sinclair's contempt for capitalist society is present throughout the novel, from cover to cover, personified in the eagerness of Jurgis to work, the constant struggle for survival of the workers of Packingtown, the corruption of "the man" at all levels of society, and in many other ways.
At the turn of the twentieth century “Muckraking” had become a very popular practice. This was where “muckrakers” would bring major problems to the publics attention. One of the most powerful pieces done by a muckraker was the book “The Jungle”, by Upton Sinclair. The book was written to show the horrible working and living conditions in the packing towns of Chicago, but what caused a major controversy was the filth that was going into Americas meat. As Sinclair later said in an interview about the book “I aimed at the publics heart and by accident hit them in the stomach.”# The meat packing industry took no responsibility for producing safe and sanitary meat.
Journalists began to expose the dishonesty happening in bigger corporations, something referred to as muckraking, a name given by the President. Muckraking is “the use of journalistic skills to expose the underside of American life” (Give Me Liberty: An American History Vol. 2, Foner, 2017, pg. 695). Some influential “muckrakers” were Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarrell, and Upton Sinclair. Lincoln Steffens, who wrote the Shame of the Cities, “showed how party bosses and business leaders profited from political corruption” (Give Me Liberty: An American History Vol. 2, Foner, 2017, pg. 695). His work was published in McClure's Magazine from 1901-1902, then in book format in 1904. Ida Tarrell, hired by McClure's Magazine, exposed Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company's schemes. Her final product called, History of the Standard Oil Company, became two volumes, published in 1904. Upton Sinclair, considered as one of the most influential uncovering novel, the Jungle, exposed America's Meat Industry. In 1906, the Jungle described “unsanitary slaughterhouses and the sale of rotten meat” (Give Me Liberty: An American History Vol. 2, Foner, 2017, pg. 696). These discoveries led to change in Americans protesting for change. Some issues may not have been addressed immediately, but the issues did have their time in the spotlight, like, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. After the