Watching Food Inc. brought up many important issues that go on in our Food Industry. The thing that struck me the most was about Barbara Kowalcyk’s son Kevin, who died only 12 days after eating a hamburger and contracting a rare form of ecoli. This is a huge problem and a problem that seems to have no means to an end. There are cases everyday of people contracting diseases and serious illnesses from the food they eat everyday, and normally nothing seems to be done about it. The hamburger meat that killed Barbare Kowalcyk's son was recalled not the day that he was infected with ecoli, but around 16 days after the fact and by that time Kevin had already died. One of the opening lines in the movie, was "food is becoming more and more dangerous". The fact that this is true is astonishing. People need to know that there is food is safe and that it will provide them with nourishment, not diseases. I know that people would much rather there food be grown correctly, cooked correctly, or packaged correctly rather than having it done wrong just so it will be cheap and fast. The food industry is controlled by only a handful or large companies, and they are more concerned about making a profit, and speeding up production than what happens to the people that eat the food. This was obvious in the case of Barbara. She has been fighting since the day her son died to make the food industry responsible for what they did and to help prevent it from happening again to someone else, but as she said, "she feels as if the food industry was more protected than my son". This very fact is horribly wrong and I hope someday that people will realize the great harms they are causing the people in this country.
Relating this to my own life was quite interesting to see just how my family handles the issues of the food industry. As far as I can remember my family has been growing a massive garden in one of the large open areas of lawn on the side of my house. We grow corn, green beans, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, zuchinni, etc. It is a lot of work but quite honestly very rewarding. Not only do we have fresh food that is delicious and affordable, but also we sell it to a lot of people locally instead of them buying it at the supermarkets, to us it is a lot safer and more economical. Not only that but we don't but meat at the store either we get it from a local butcher shop, and from a local farmer that raises cattle. We purchase a cow off of him, have it butchered and then fill our deep freeze in our garage with local and fresh meat that will last us quite some time rather than but it from the store with no idea where it came from. These little things can help everybody in our society. With such problems and health risks in our food industry, make changes. Make changes such as these small yet helpful ones and it helps take down some risk of health issues, of animals and workers being abused, and of large corporations taking over the entire food industry before our eyes.
I found a link that related to food saftey and provides an even more indepth look at all the different times of contamination that have been caused by food and all the reasons why this has been happening, such as the revolution of "factory" farming.
I wish that they would make sure that the food they prepare and sell to us all, is safe, I couldnt believe that the company couldnt even say sorry for the death of her son.
ReplyDeleteIt is really sad that the food industry has so much protection. The lady in the video was even afraid to talk about it because she didnt want to be sued. I think the food industry should take more precautions, and treat their animals better.
ReplyDeleteI think it is awesome that you grow a garden and sell fresh produce to the locals. I also talked about how the food industry was more protected than Barbara's son. It's true but so wrong.
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