Thursday, January 26, 2012

Food Inc.

Overall, I really liked this movie and it really made me rethink what I have actually been eating. I find it kind of sickening to know what goes into my food. I remember watching this film in English 110 and I did not eat McDonalds for almost a year because it just disgusted me. However the choice of not eating McDonalds also came from when we read a story in a book, "The Essay Connection". The story was called The Meal and it talked about how much corn was put into the average McDonald's meal. What struck me the most was how much these meat packing factories don’t care. All they have in mind is money and don’t pay any attention to what goes in their meat or the food safety. One man said that “as a farmer you think about faster, fatter, bigger, cheaper”. He did not mention anything about food safety. They don’t like to take the time to properly raise the animal to completion, unlike a local farmer. Local farmers let their animals graze amongst grass. Factories that mass produce meat feed their animals corn because corn is cheap and it will make the animal fat quickly! I also thought it was sad the part where they talked about the chicken houses and the large companies that basically owned the farmer. Many of these farmers were in deep into debt because they spend so much on the houses and they constantly need upgrades so they have to pay for those upgrades because if not they have the chance of losing the contract with the company. The other part that was really sad was the part where the two year old boy, Kevin, at a hamburger and 12 days later died from the rare form of ecoli. The factories get infested with ecoli because it comes from the corn that is fed to the cows. The cows eat the corn and they get ecoli and then they stand in their manure that has ecoli in it so if one cow has it they all have it. The ecoli in the leafy greens came about because the pastures are so close to the fields so when it rains, the manure runs off into the fields and it gets on the leafy greens.
http://www.foodincmovie.com/about-the-issues.php
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20284274,00.html

The domestic art that I think is the most important is the homecooked meal vs. the fast food meal. I think having a homecooked meal is very important because when you cook it yourself atleast you know whats going into your food. I understand that the lifestyles that people lead today are sometimes way to busy to make home cooked meals where the family can eat together. Everyone has different schedules and are on the go constantly, so they resort to fast food. Fast food is more convenient and cheaper than buying stuff to make your own meal. I know it's hard for my family to all have time to sit down and eat dinner as a family because we all have busy schedules and I am not home a lot because of school and work, so I do stop and get fast food but I also love the homecooked meals!

http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/the-food-movement-rising/

2 comments:

  1. I agree with you I had no idea of what I was really eating, and what was really in my food. I like your websites that you cited

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  2. I find it horrible how in control the corporations are of the small and local farmers just trying to make a living. I come from a farm town, and its kind of eye opening to understand what really there life may be like and what struggles they have. They are so in debt they have no choice to stay under the corporations thumb to do anything and everything to just survive.
    I also agree home cooked meals are very important too!!

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