Friday, June 1, 2012

final blog



                The most important information on my research on the Industrial food system would be how America allows such damage to animals, earth and our health to continue. This class has opened up my eyes on this world around me, America. I’ve realized how manipulating and disturbing some aspects of our government can be. I am not bashing my country, but I am realizing some truth. Main information that sticks to me is just how they allow such animal torture to continue as long as they can profit. Governments that can allow disturbing actions to continue on living animals, in my opinion don’t see us any different. I feel as though if we were put in Factory Farms and we were the living animals they wouldn’t treat us any different. Government can come up with a new system and change the ways of this Industry but choose to be blind because they profit money.

                My perspective evolved a lot, reading “Slaughterhouse” by Gail A. Eisntiz really made me shrug. I haven’t read books in a long time and to be given a book so impacting made me want to continue looking for more books similar, which can impact me in such a way. To think that Eisnitz is stating facts makes want to take action in this industry and put a stop to it, though I know one person cant. Book and videos I’ve seen in class has changed my mind completely on this system. The truth behind our food industry disgusts me.

                My eating habits are completely different now. I only eat poultry that came from a farm that practices animal husbandry. It cost way more but it’s worth knowing I’m not eating a tortured chicken or a hen full of steroids. I don’t eat fast food what so ever. I’m not perfect I’ve maybe grabbed a McDonald’s coffee or a Dunkin Donuts ice coffee, but not once have I ever eaten a full meal from McDonald’s or Dunkin Donuts after what I’ve learned during class. I am working towards cutting McDonald’s and other fast food off completely, that means not even a coffee. Personally I feel though this class has affected me a lot because I’ve stood up at night feeling bad for the animals. I’ve also told all my friends about it. Most importantly I think it was the video’s that impacted me the most and whenever I sit and reply clips in my head I get sick to my stomach. My professor mad me crazy (loll). I am happy although to know that there a places like local family farm, Chipotle and places like Polly Face farm, which are truly organic. They treat animals with the respect they deserve.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

assignment three


A Murderers Mind

Confined Animal Factory Operations (CAFO’S) are exactly what they’re called, a factory filled with confined domestic animals. It’s corrupt, harmful and wrong. We all know that when we eat beacon, it came from a pig that was once alive and then killed. When we eat steak, it came from a cow that was later on killed. CAFO’S process aren’t just killings. They torture and murder these innocent animals. There are many reasons to why the mind of the managers, worker’s and animal’s in the CAFO’S are exactly like a murder case. Managers plan, workers are the action and animals are the victims.
Managers in a CAFO’S slaughterhouse are responsible for certain things. They are the eyes of the top bosses, supervise the workers and make sure that their goal of a certain amount of slaughtering is reached. Managers have a great influence on the workers. A manager can be compared to a murderer in the sense that they allow many things to happened. As though killing animals isn’t tough enough they make it tougher. Gail A. Eisnitz the author of “Slaughterhouse”, gives a deep detailed description when he states from one of his many interviewee’s “If an employee complained, a supervisor would put him on a much harder job-usually in the hide room, where they’d have to take hides off the rail, spread them out and put salt on them. It’s a terrible job. Instead of firing someone who complains, he’d put them down there and they’d quit pretty quickly” (Eisnitz 47). Managers allow brutality and cruelty. They do not tolerate weakness or complaints. Managers priority is to make sure as much slaughtering are done. Based on David Imhoff author and editor of “The CAFO Reader: tragedy of industrial animal factories” I’ve came to the conclusion that origin of this type of mentality comes from people like the French philosopher Rene Descartes, who assures us that “ all of nature existed as a toolbox for human industry. Animals, Descartes wrote, are ‘soulless automata’: merely complex machines, because they do not possess consciousness, they cannot feel pain or suffer. Their cries and writhing are simple reflexes. Under the banner of such modernist thought, livestock, raised for both food and clothing, eventually became soulless commodities on the assembly lines of a global industrial revolution.” Yet in comparison people like Robert Higgs, who demonstrates the same form of mentality, though on slavery. Higg’s argues, “Slavery is natural. People differ, and we must expect that those who are superior in a certain way—for example, in intelligence, morality, knowledge, technological prowess, or capacity for fighting—will make themselves the masters of those who are inferior in this regard”. A major part of our country came from slavery. We now know how evil, disgusting and horrible slavery was. Slavery came with no freedom, murder and rape. Who’s to say our food industry isn’t the same. The only difference is animals can’t speak up, and managers will continue to enforce such murder.
Workers in the CAFO’S slaughter the animals on a daily bases. They are paid minimum wage and work long hours. According to Imhoff “Most of the workers are African American or Hispanic, commonly immigrants and even children. Eisnitz interviewed former workers Betty Jane and her daughter; Betty witnessed Hispanic immigrant children working in slaughterhouses. Betty confirms “One little boy couldn’t speak English, and they gave him a smock big enough for a six-foot tall man. He couldn’t work with his hands in the sleeves so I rolled them up and put rubber bands on them. His little arms were about this big… ‘Making a circle with her thumb and forefinger the size of a silver dollar”(Eisnitz 262). Also according to Betty reasons why most immigrants are preferred to work in slaughterhouses are because they aren’t allowed to speak up, they have no right. If you thought I was exaggerating when I claim these workers are murderers well you thought wrong. They literally are former violent criminal offenders. Some even still wear they’re jail clothes to work. Betty Jane adds, “ Most of them are in jail for rape, murder, robbery, you name it. There was one prisoner I worked with, I found that he had murdered one woman, raped and murdered another. I read about it in the Bladen journal after he escaped-after he walked away from the plant one day”(Eisnitz 263) This is the reason why there so much cruelty in this industry. A system that can allow murderers to slaughter animals is a careless system. Joel Salatin owner/farmer of Polyface Farms in Virginia, who feeds his livestock grass, the way nature intended. Couldn’t speak my mind any more perfect about the way this system and these workers disrespected and murdered our food system. Salatin accuses “ A culture that can use a pig as a pile of plastic inanimate structure, to be manipulated by whatever creative design that human can force on that critter will probably view individuals with in its community and other cultures in the nation with the same type of distain, and disrespect, and controlling type mentality” (Salatin food Inc.). I fully agree with Salatin argument. We consume these animals, its in the fast food restaurants its in our supermarkets. We can’t run from where our food comes from. A system allowing child labor, murder, slavery as the root of our food system. Is a system I see as carless.
Do animals really have feelings? The way innocent animals are treated in the CAFO’s you would believe they were just objects. According to Julianna Kettlewell, a science reporter for BBC news, “ animals should not be dismissed as simple automatons – cows take pleasure in solving problems and sheep’s can form deep relationships.” It’s a great example of how humans aren’t the only ones that think thoughts and feel feeling. According to our food system they act on the complete opposite. CAFO’S treat their animals as If they were objects. The have no remorse and no conscious towards what they do to these innocent animals. A great example is when Eisnitz interviews a former supervisor, Billy Corbet, of a CAFO, who states, “you can get frustrated when your moving a cattle along, sometime you have to prod them a lot. But some of the drivers like to burn the hell out of them. The five or six hot shots [electric pods] by the lead-up chutes are hooked directly to a 110-volt outlet. Run them along the floor metal grates and they split sparks like a welding machine. Some drivers would beat cattle with hotshots until they were so wild and panicky you couldn’t do a thing with them, right up to into the knocking box, then they’d just stand there and laugh” (Eisnitz 46). Gaining pleasure out of someone else’s pain is the reaction of a psycho killer in my opinion. What interested me the most was when Eisnitz interview’s this young man named Tommy Vladak. Who has 9 years of experience in food industry. Reading his interview, Vladak gained pleaser from viciously slaughtering hogs. He states the adrenaline he would gain by sticking hog’s with electric shocks, made him feel like he can go ten rounds with mike Tyson and whooped his ass (Eisnitz 66). As much power hunger as Vladak took in his job there was an incident that really stuck out. Vladaks interview he describes one memory that will forever stay with him. “There was one night I’ll never forget as long as I live, a female hog was coming through the chutes. She got away and the supervisor said ‘Stick that bitch!’ I grabbed her and flipped her over. She looked up at me. It was like she was saying, ‘Yeah I know it’s your job just do it.’ That was the first time I ever looked into a live hogs eyes. And I stuck her” (Eisnitz 74). It shows how many feelings an animal can have, even though humans might have power over innocent animals we should treat them with the respect they deserve. After all they are the reason why we survive.
There should be a stop all types of murder whether its with humans or animals. The way our food is processed isn’t the way nature intended and there should be a stop. Food industry has a big issue in realizing whether it’s reflexes or do domestic animals actually have a soul? Is this feeding the world or is it really plain old murder?



Bibliography

Eisnitz A. Gail. Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane treatment inside the U.S Meat Industry. 59 John Glenn Drive Amherst, New York 14228-2197: Prometheus Books, 1997. Humane Farming Association.

Imhoff, Daniel. The CAFO Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories. Los Angeles, California. Watershed Media, 2012. Foundation for Deep Ecology.

Higgs, Robert. Ten Reasons Why Not to Abolish Slavery. Dec 2009. [Print]. Volume: 59. Issue: 10. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past/ten-reasons-not-to-abolish-slavery/

Kenner, Robert. Food INC. [film]. 2008. United States. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnfE721NKDw

Kettlewell, Julianna. Farm Animals Need Emotional TLC. 18 Mar 2005. [Print]. BBC News.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4360947.stm

Twitter!!

https://twitter.com/#!/iiixcatcherrrrr

Saturday, May 5, 2012

blog 4



Dr. David Kessler raises an interesting yet reasonable point in his article “The End of Over Eating”. What is more mind bottling is there are great similarities between Kessler’s article and the CAFO system, which I’ve talked much about in my blogs. This passage will describe the link between Kessler and CAFO’s system.
Basically Kessler’s writes about the connection between how a human brain works, especially the neurological response to pleaser, and the main ingredients in certain junk foods that trigger pleasure to a human. This causes an unhealthy way of eating called “Over eating”. Personally I always had this issue with certain junk food that I craved, it never made sense to me until now.  A point the Kessler made in his article that really stood out was when he states “Foods high in fat, salt and sugar alter the brain's chemistry in ways that compel people to overeat. ‘Much of the scientific research around overeating has been physiology -- what's going on in our body,’ he said. ‘The real question is what's going on in our brain’” (Kessler). Kessler changes your perspective from looking at what you eat to why you crave the things you eat.
Which brings me to the CAFO system. “The Cafo Reader: Tragedy of the food industry” by David Imhoff is a book I’ve mentioned a lot in most of my blogs. David Imhoff describes where most meat comes from, how its made and the effects of this mal-practice. Essentially it’s a corrupt business filled with filth, torture and insanity, which is transferred into our meat. Same meat we consume, mostly fast food restaurants and cheap supermarket poultry.  The link between Imhoff book and Kessler’s article is where Imhoff assures us “Americans obtain enormous amounts of meat and poultry on a daily basis so it’s logical to create a system that can feed a billion of us in the shortest amount of time. Since the 1920’s when scientist discovered adding vitamins A and D to the food the give these animals will help them keep the animals inside for a full year, able to channel their energy so they can grow faster. Ever since then mortality and diseases have been growing faster as well. These outbreaks weren’t only caused from confinement, livestock’s are given regular doses of antibiotics too grow faster, pasture was replaced by grains, and farmers turned to technology (synthetic fertilizers, toxic pesticides and herbicides)” (Imhoff 70). In fewer word, that unhealthy meat designed by the CAFO system which most fast food’s consume from and the reason why our brains are addicted to them, links us to the un-natural way they are made.
The ingredient’s we put in our body affects the way our mind works. The similarities between both Kessler and Imhoff are astonishing and very interesting to look into.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Blog 2





In my recent blog I informed you on a book I am reading, “The CAFO Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories” by Daniel Imhoff. I’ve been looking for information on industrial animal factories and I came across this video clip on YouTube.com called “Farm to Fridge” by Mercy for Animals, which was traumatizing to watch. People need to be informed about the slavery this system is embracing. The torture that these animals are put through is heartless, intense and sickening to see. It’s only by actually seeing the circumstances these innocent animals live in is where you think twice about what foods your buying and what you should be eating. Both the video clip and readings from the CAFO system give immense information of the slavery, controlling and emotionally dead industrial system we’ve been accepting.

Poultry/Eggs:
 We all know what a McChicken is and we probably all ate chicken nuggets once before. Though we don’t know where our chicken came from. According to Mercy for Animals, Slaughter plants birds are killed by being hung upside down from there legs on moving shackles, then dragged through an electric vaunt of water that paralyzes them but still leaves them conscious. Pulled across a blade that slices their throats while blood drips down in a bin (From Farm to Fridge).
The way our chicken is slaughtered in these industrial factories is highly unnatural. In this clip I watched a male worker in rain boots, viciously stomp on a chickens head over and over again. Another male worker pulled and twisted a chicken’s head to make its neck crack, the poor chicken was thrown on the floor and you could see it still moving. This practice is done daily, this is the factory’s way of getting rid of sick or injured chickens.
Birds are NOT walking around in a beautiful farm. Every chicken, turkey as well as every other animal are kept in crates unable to move and denied basic behavioral and natural needs. “Male baby chicks cannot lay eggs so they are killed within hours of being born. They are thrown in grinding machines while still alive. Another way workers get ride of male chicks is by throwing them in trash bins and later smothering or suffocating them. Female chicks aren’t left off so easy either. The have a destiny filled with cruelty and torture” (From Farm to Fridge). I watched baby chicks get their beaks cut off with a hot blade; this mutilation is called “de-beaking”. This technique is needed due to over crowded living conditions. It’s a mutilation that causes chronic pain. In the video you watch a little chick with half a beak left and the pain in her eyes. There are long assembly lines filled with chicken hens stuffed inside a small cage. Fact: 95% of egg laying hens spend their lives confide in tiny wire cages (From Farm to Fridge).

Dairy/ Beef:
 The majority of dairy cows are kept confined. They are kept in tight spaces with only enough space to move their heads. Cows that are injured or sick are called “downers”. Instead of taking a cow to veterinarian cows are left to slowly die and suffer from their injuries (From Farm to Fridge). This is the factory’s way of getting rid of sick and injured cows. Baby calves are dragged away from their mothers and violently killed.

I watched a worker walk in and grab a baby calve form his neck with his bare hands while he was drinking on from his mothers utters. It’s so sick to think this is what’s done just so humans can drink milk. At a fraction of their natural life span so-called spent, dairy cows are plotted on to transport trucks and sent to slaughterhouses (From Farm to Fridge).
Beef comes from hanging a cow upside down while a worker slices his throat open and watches all the blood gush down into a bin. In the video Mercy for animal’s representatives states that “Unreliable stunning practices at slaughter houses commend cattle’s to getting their throats cut, limbs hacked off all while still alive.
Pork
I watched a pregnant sow laying down in a narrow metal stall smaller then her body, unable to move and barely enough space to breath. This is where they lay during their entire 4-month pregnancy. I watched a newborn piglet being thrown to a worker, the worker with no remorse caries the piglet upside down, cuts his skin open, without hesitation rips out his testicles and cuts off his tail. You can hear the baby piglet screaming in pain, squirming around trying to get away. The factory’s way of getting rid of sick or injured piglets is being slammed to the ground, head first.
To think that this is allowed, that this is our food system. These are animals, with emotions not reflexes. The view that society, CAFO, and the workers perceive these animals is the same way the Nazi perceived the Jews. Slavery is defined by “A civil relationship in which one person has absolute power over the life, fortune, and liberty.” That’s exactly what this system is based on.  We all are blind to it.
The passages in Slaughterhouse by Gail A. Eisintz are quite intense but very informative. I read this narrative that really struck my attention. An Industrial Farm worker, Tommy Vladak explains his position and astonishing moments while slaughtering hogs. As corrupted as it seems this is a man that took much pride in his job. Tommy surprises me when he states, “There was one night I’ll never forget as long as I live..  A little female hog was coming through the chutes. She got away and the supervisor said ‘Stick that bitch!’ I grabbed her and flipped her over. She looked up at me. It was like she was saying ‘Yeah I know it’s your job, do it.’ That was the first time I ever looked at a live hogs eyes. And stuck her” (Slaughterhouse 74).
Whether it was Tommy going insane, or whether it was his inner voice. It’s the fact that he felt something for the first time. About most of these workers are emotionally damaged. They learn just like society learns to see these animals as nothing less then nutrition. I can agree that we live off of dairy, poultry, and pork. But I cannot agree that the techniques used in the factory farms are the healthiest nor right way to do kill them.
Its slavery, it’s controlling and it’s emotion-less what we’ve been allowing innocent animals go through. Imagine showing a 7yr old child a slaughtering video such as “from farm to fridge”. I could bet all the money I have that child will not view meat the same ever again. But why are we willing to allow this? Why can a child see the simple difference between right and wrong but an adult can care-less? These are questions you need to ask your self. Look into society with different views. Don’t believe what you given to you. Get answers. Get information. 

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Peer review with tutor!


I grew up in Paraguay a country where it’s normal to raise then later on kill your dinner in order to survive. I was always a little troubled by the idea of animals being killed because I’m an animal lover, though I became accustomed to it because I knew my food was raised in a free environment as well healthy. I would’ve never known that food bought in the United States would be a far cry from that lifestyle in Paraguay. The root to where our food comes/raised from is the CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) system. This is a system that our world depends on, so you’d think they’d make sure its clean and healthy right? Wrong. The CAFO system is not only unclean and UN healthy, CAFO is pure animal torture, harmful to their workers and us the consumers, also polluting the earth.
Reading “The CAFO Reader: the tragedy of industrial animal factories”, by Daniel Imhoff helped me gain knowledge of the food we eat daily. Its in our supermarkets it in society and its in our fridge. CAFO is where all our livestock is raised. This isn’t a farm-based environment where there’s animal husbandry and chickens, cows, pigs, turkeys and their baby’s are running around free. It’s a factory, with machines, pesticides and millions of workers. Conventional wisdom has it that at least four domestic animals are raised for every person on the planet. In the United States alone, nearly 10 billion domesticated livestock ¾mostly chickens, pigs, and cows¾ are raised and SLAUGHTERED annually (immhoff  xii). These animals we consume are under unnatural conditions, breathing little air and never able to see sunlight. Chickens naturally are fed corn, cows eat grass, and pigs are feed apples but in this industrial lifestyle these innocent animals are fed a high-calorie grain-based diet (sometimes including reclaimed animal manure, ground-up fish, or recycled animal parts) designed to maximize growth and weight gain in the shortest amount of time (imhoff xiv).  Seems that everything about this industry is anything but natural, they alter each and every one of these animals to fit and conform in this horrible environment. According to Imhoff, chick’s beaks can be partially seared off so they cannot fatally strike another. The tails of piglets are “docked” to instill “avoidance behavior” inside a stall crammed with hogs… The CAFO industry argues that while such practices may seem cruel to some, they are done to benefit the health and welfare of the animals and to provide an abundant and safe food supply for a hungry planet. While CAFO is wrong when they claim that their cruel actions are done with good intentions and for the health of the animal, CAFO is only right that it feeds a hungry planet (Imhoff xv). It’s affordable and every fast food restaurant are selling it
We are absorbing animals that are constructed too grow under unnatural size’s and under unnatural terms, most of us have no insight of what it leads too. Obesity and high blood cholesterol levels are among the leading risk factors for heart disease. Both of these conditions are associated with heavy meat consumption (Imhoff 70). Americans are dyeing of these conditions; the truth of it all is what’s been hidden. Americans obtain enormous amounts of meat and poultry on a daily basis so it’s logical to create a system that can feed a billion of us in the shortest amount of time. Since the 1920’s when scientist discovered adding vitamins A and D to the food the give these animals will help them keep the animals inside for a full year, able to channel their energy so they can grow faster. Ever since then mortality and diseases have been growing faster as well. These outbreaks weren’t only caused from confinement, livestock’s are given regular doses of antibiotics too grow faster, pasture was replaced by grains, and farmers turned to technology (synthetic fertilizers, toxic pesticides and herbicides) (Imhoff xiv). This method’s that they so call “diet” is also the cause of mad cow disease. Researchers state that this intense meat consumption are linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and certain types of cancers (Imhoff 64). They’ve replaced moral ethics with efficiency, feeding cattle’s animal proteins from other infected cows and sheep. This is practice the only recently has been banned by the U.S food and drug administration (Rollin 8). Not only are we consuming diseases but so are the people working in farm factories. These are life-threatening jobs. Imhoff reports that CAFO workers suffer from numerous medical conditions, including repetitive motion injuries and respiratory illness associated with poor air quality. CAFO workers experience respiratory disease such as chronic bronchitis and occupational asthma (Imhoff 70). Many people are blind to the CAFO industry furthermore what its doing to everyone.
CAFO system not only damages our health its damaging our earth. Slaughtering millions of animals a day may cause things to get messy. There are waste, sick animal’s and contaminated left overs that this system would need to get ride of. CAFO’s strategy is to truck them off-site, rather than recycling their waste into fertilizer. Lagoons and holding ponds are the main resources where all waste is dumped. “Nearly 60% of the world’s freshwater resources are diverted for agriculture, which of at least a third goes to animal productions… World Watch Institute estimates that the livestock sector could be responsible for as much as 50% of all climate-changing emissions making it the most critical influential factor in global warming” (Imhoff 79).  This system is so opposite of responsible and natural that it’s ruining our atmosphere. Everything they dump is contaminated with green house gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous dioxide and in result there is now 400 dead zones spread thought this whole entire world (Imhoff 64).

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Helpfull website

http://www.organicconsumers.org/btc/BuyingGuide.cfm

Check it outt!!!!