The Ugly Truth
Over the past decades, the food industry has changed the contents of our food- they have changed what we eat and how we make it. Scientists have been working with large corporations to develop new farming techniques and technology in order to mass produce crops and notably increase their yields. With this movement, their intent is to ‘feed the world,’ and it has successfully helped to curb the hunger epidemic. However, some unintended repercussions arose from these new techniques, including the spike in obesity. Obesity has become a critical problem in America, and is defined as weight that exceeds what is considered to be healthy for a given height. The obesity rate has increased remarkably over the years, and even tripled in …show more content…
A myriad of factors contribute to this crisis, including the inaction of governmental agencies, the corruption of big corporations who maintain a monopoly over the food industry, laboratory synthesized chemical additives, the nature of the fast food industry, and various other …show more content…
Today, there are as few as 13 that produce all of America’s meat. These slaughterhouses are operated by a handful of large corporations that control 80% of the country’s meat supply. This includes fast food companies as well as grocery stores. The production of livestock has changed drastically. Thousands of chickens are kept in a dark, poorly ventilated poultry house. Mature chickens are ready for slaughter in half of the time, and are twice the size, compared to the chickens that were raised in the 1970’s. This can be attributed to hormones that are given to the chickens via chemically orchestrated chicken feed. Since the chickens are packed so tightly into one area, disease is widespread among them and even sick chickens are shipped to the slaughterhouse for processing. Cattle is produced in a similar way. The animals are raised in places known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, where they barely have enough space to pass each other. Cows too are fed chemically orchestrated, corn based feed, which is problematic because they have evolved to eat grass. The change in diet has created a harmful, deadly strand of E. Coli to evolve among the cows, which has been the culprit of the myriad of E. Coli outbreaks over the years. The cows stand “ankle deep in their manure,” which also lends itself to the widespread of diseases among the cows. Much of the diseases, harmful bacteria, and feces then
Over the past decades, the food industry has changed the contents of our food- they have changed what we eat and how we make it. Scientists have been working with large corporations to develop new farming techniques and technology in order to mass produce crops and notably increase their yields. With this movement, their intent is to ‘feed the world,’ and it has successfully helped to curb the hunger epidemic. However, some unintended repercussions arose from these new techniques, including the spike in obesity. Obesity has become a critical problem in America, and is defined as weight that exceeds what is considered to be healthy for a given height. The obesity rate has increased remarkably over the years, and even tripled in …show more content…
A myriad of factors contribute to this crisis, including the inaction of governmental agencies, the corruption of big corporations who maintain a monopoly over the food industry, laboratory synthesized chemical additives, the nature of the fast food industry, and various other …show more content…
Today, there are as few as 13 that produce all of America’s meat. These slaughterhouses are operated by a handful of large corporations that control 80% of the country’s meat supply. This includes fast food companies as well as grocery stores. The production of livestock has changed drastically. Thousands of chickens are kept in a dark, poorly ventilated poultry house. Mature chickens are ready for slaughter in half of the time, and are twice the size, compared to the chickens that were raised in the 1970’s. This can be attributed to hormones that are given to the chickens via chemically orchestrated chicken feed. Since the chickens are packed so tightly into one area, disease is widespread among them and even sick chickens are shipped to the slaughterhouse for processing. Cattle is produced in a similar way. The animals are raised in places known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, where they barely have enough space to pass each other. Cows too are fed chemically orchestrated, corn based feed, which is problematic because they have evolved to eat grass. The change in diet has created a harmful, deadly strand of E. Coli to evolve among the cows, which has been the culprit of the myriad of E. Coli outbreaks over the years. The cows stand “ankle deep in their manure,” which also lends itself to the widespread of diseases among the cows. Much of the diseases, harmful bacteria, and feces then