We cannot start taking down animal agriculture from the farm, we have to begin where it benefits from the most, and that is school lunch programs, grazing subsidies and the United States' Department of Agriculture's nutritional guidelines.
The school programs use 60% of it's funding on FATTY meat and dairy products as opposed to 5% on fruits and vegetables. Before science discovered that fatty, subsidized foods did to children, it made sense to offer cheap food, but now there is no excuse. This leads to many unhealthy food choices in the future, as well as child obesity...
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Class Assignment: Animal Welfare Statutes (pgs 317-319)
Laws that protect animal welfare are almost non-existent on a Federal level. The most notable federal law for animal welfare is the Animal Welfare Act, which only protects animals that have direct contact with humans such as animals in circuses, zoos, and those that are owned or research or testing. Farms, pet stores and hobby breeders are not covered in the act.
The Humane Slaughter Act only protects the animal of the time of slaughter, but it isn't concerned with the treatment of the animal before its death. This act is limitedly enforced because of the over 9 billion of animals that are slaughtered annually. 95% of these slaughtered animals are chickens which are not covered by the act because they are not mammals and therefore not considered animals.
Factory farms convinced states to add common factory exceptions (CFE’s) to make legal animal abuse. This justified the way animals are treated. They are more concerned with their own benefits rather than the animal’s welfare. New Jersey public organizations, including ones for food safety and animal cruelty, challenged these CFE amendments saying they were inhumane and unreasonable; courts agreed. The New Jersey Supreme Court said that this argument wouldn’t hold up in any other states because humane treatment isn’t required.
In states that do have anti-cruelty laws, that do not contain CFEs, enforcement is rare. Local governments are the only ones who can enforce these laws, but due to limited resources and priorities of animal welfare cases, little enforcement and few prosecutions is actually done.
The Humane Slaughter Act only protects the animal of the time of slaughter, but it isn't concerned with the treatment of the animal before its death. This act is limitedly enforced because of the over 9 billion of animals that are slaughtered annually. 95% of these slaughtered animals are chickens which are not covered by the act because they are not mammals and therefore not considered animals.
Factory farms convinced states to add common factory exceptions (CFE’s) to make legal animal abuse. This justified the way animals are treated. They are more concerned with their own benefits rather than the animal’s welfare. New Jersey public organizations, including ones for food safety and animal cruelty, challenged these CFE amendments saying they were inhumane and unreasonable; courts agreed. The New Jersey Supreme Court said that this argument wouldn’t hold up in any other states because humane treatment isn’t required.
In states that do have anti-cruelty laws, that do not contain CFEs, enforcement is rare. Local governments are the only ones who can enforce these laws, but due to limited resources and priorities of animal welfare cases, little enforcement and few prosecutions is actually done.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Research Activity
For human life: "Factory farm production is intensifying worldwide, and rates of new infectious diseases are rising. Of particular concern is the rapid rise of antibiotic-resistant microbes, an inevitable consequence of the widespread use of antibiotics as feed additives in industrial livestock operations...antibiotic resistance is a clear and present danger, already killing thousands of people in the United States each year" (Sayre 77).
This quote says that antibiotic resistance is rising with the use of antibiotics as feed additives in CAFOs. This is useful in my essay because it shows factory farms wasting so many useful vaccines to keep animals from dying because of the conditions they are subjected to, and how the antibiotics make them unusual.
For animal life: "...Factory farms are terrific incubators for disease. The stress of factory farm conditions weakens animals' immune systems; ammonia from accumulated waste burns lungs and makes them more susceptible to infection; the lack of sunlight and fresh air--as well as the genetic uniformity of industrial farm animal populations--facilitates the spread of pathogens" (Sayre 78).
Factory farms are a perfect place for diseases to run rampant amongst living creatures- The stress of overcrowding and the dirty conditions leaves animals vulnerable to get diseases. This quote is good because it provides an example as to why factory farms are bad for animals.
For environment: "Confined livestock operations in the United States produce three times as much waste each year as our country's entire human population--and yet all that manure is much more loosely regulated and handled than human waste. Antibiotic-resistant microbes, as well as the antibiotics themselves, are now widely present as environmental contaminants, with unknown consequences for everything from soil microorganisms to people" (Sayre 79-80).
For government apathy towards regulations: "The pending approval of an antibiotic called cefquinome to treat respiratory diseases in cattle offered a recent test case. Cefquinome is similar to cefepime, a last-resort antibiotic used to treat serious infections in people.The FDA's Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association, recommended against approval, warning that using cefquinome for animals would almost certainly render cefepime less effective for humans. But the FDA has apparently caved to industry pressure, claiming it lacks the authority to deny the drug companies' request" (Sayre 82).
Sayre, Laura. "The Hidden Link Between Factory Farms and Human Illness". Mother Earth News Feb./Mar. 2009: p76-83, 8p. Print.
This quote says that antibiotic resistance is rising with the use of antibiotics as feed additives in CAFOs. This is useful in my essay because it shows factory farms wasting so many useful vaccines to keep animals from dying because of the conditions they are subjected to, and how the antibiotics make them unusual.
For animal life: "...Factory farms are terrific incubators for disease. The stress of factory farm conditions weakens animals' immune systems; ammonia from accumulated waste burns lungs and makes them more susceptible to infection; the lack of sunlight and fresh air--as well as the genetic uniformity of industrial farm animal populations--facilitates the spread of pathogens" (Sayre 78).
Factory farms are a perfect place for diseases to run rampant amongst living creatures- The stress of overcrowding and the dirty conditions leaves animals vulnerable to get diseases. This quote is good because it provides an example as to why factory farms are bad for animals.
For environment: "Confined livestock operations in the United States produce three times as much waste each year as our country's entire human population--and yet all that manure is much more loosely regulated and handled than human waste. Antibiotic-resistant microbes, as well as the antibiotics themselves, are now widely present as environmental contaminants, with unknown consequences for everything from soil microorganisms to people" (Sayre 79-80).
For government apathy towards regulations: "The pending approval of an antibiotic called cefquinome to treat respiratory diseases in cattle offered a recent test case. Cefquinome is similar to cefepime, a last-resort antibiotic used to treat serious infections in people.The FDA's Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association, recommended against approval, warning that using cefquinome for animals would almost certainly render cefepime less effective for humans. But the FDA has apparently caved to industry pressure, claiming it lacks the authority to deny the drug companies' request" (Sayre 82).
Sayre, Laura. "The Hidden Link Between Factory Farms and Human Illness". Mother Earth News Feb./Mar. 2009: p76-83, 8p. Print.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Blog Five: The CAFO System Thesis Statement
The CAFO system has no regard for human and animal life; it doesn’t care for the safety and rights of the living creatures involved in the process of “making” food. The CAFO system barely holds a distinction between humans and the animals in these factory farms- where workers are held in a slightly more “respectable”, for a lack of a better term, position due to their ability to slaughter the animals. Although it is not even that notable, and as one worker confessed to Robert Kenner the director of the movie “Food INC.”, “They have the same mentality towards workers as they do towards the hogs… You know, the hog, they don't really have to worry about their comfort because they're temporary. They're gonna be killed. And they have the same viewpoint to the worker. You're not worried about the longevity of the worker because, to them everything has an end.” It wouldn’t come as a surprise to hear that this was how all workers in such an environment felt, and this is the fault of supervisors responsible for their safety. Workers are dispensable because the employees are usually illegal immigrants and/or de-skilled, meaning they are trained to do only one task therefore can be replaced quite easily. Supervisors have no regard for the safety and rights of living creatures. This factory system in turn has consequences that affect the health of our life. Factory farms condone the behavior of many humans to abuse animals' right to a painless death, and these poor creatures are subjected to abuses from their birth to death. Animals are taken for granted, they are just protein products and can therefore be starved and beaten because the justification is that they exist solely for our consumption. People who have to work under these conditions are often desensitized to the working conditions, and abuse these animals because they feel no remorse since they are treated just as these animals are. The ecosystem is constantly affected by our decisions and it is being destroyed by the people that provide us with meat. All the animals in factory farms, plus the workers that refuse to take care of animals leads to a very polluted environment. This is because animal wastes are not disposed of or efficiently gotten rid of. We choose to be a nation that promotes the abuse of animals and humans, as well as our ecosystem without even knowing it. Our naivety had lead us to a world where eating meat has turned us into uncaring and basically barbaric human beings.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Blog Four: Farm to Fridge
In the video "Farm to Fridge", Mercy for Animals takes us behind the scenes of what happens at slaughterhouses, so we may experience the horrors that animals being raised and slaughtered under a factory farm atmosphere have to to suffer through. Pigs, cattle, and poultry including turkeys are all denied basic natural needs, they don't have enough space to live in, they hardly see the light of day, never mind have the right to a decent and painless death.
Poultry, chickens in specific, are destined for cruel deaths regardless of gender. Males are brought to their deaths within hours of birth, from grinders to suffocation, their lack of growth and inability to lay eggs makes them unprofitable and therefore useless. Females are subjected to abuses for much longer. Their breaks are sawed off using heat blades ( without any anesthetic) which can cause acute to chronic pain. When ready to be slaughtered, they are hung upside down from shackles by their fragile legs and out through a hot bath that leaves them paralyzed, a blade then cuts their necks and lets blood pour out of their bodies.
Dairy cows suffer through mutilations and amputations without pain killers as well. Their living conditions are terrible, Diseases run rampant in dirty, confined factory farms. Calves are taken away from their mothers and killed so humans could have milk. Spent dairy cows are sent to slaughter early in their lives once they can't produce anymore milk. Unreliable stunning practices at slaughterhouses cause cows to have their necks cut and limbs cut off while still alive and conscious.
Pigs have gestation creates only barely large enough to hold their bodies. Once piglets are born they are castrated, again without pain killers. If piglets are too weak to survive or take too long to grow they are killed by slamming their heads on the floor. Once pigs are market weight, they are hung upside down and have their throats slit. Improper stunning cause pigs to have throats cut while still conscious.
All of these abuses are horrific, all these animals are degraded, and for what, only our food? It is not necessary for these animals to be treated in this manner. They are living creatures, and if they are raised to provide us nutrition, we should strive to give them the best quality is life possible. This video can help my video project by giving us information about factory farming we didn't know, and can now pass down to the students we will be surveying. Specifically, in my group, we can include these methods of slaughter as being part of the "processing" process. And what it would take to make this food to be considered organic and ultimately safe for everyone.
Poultry, chickens in specific, are destined for cruel deaths regardless of gender. Males are brought to their deaths within hours of birth, from grinders to suffocation, their lack of growth and inability to lay eggs makes them unprofitable and therefore useless. Females are subjected to abuses for much longer. Their breaks are sawed off using heat blades ( without any anesthetic) which can cause acute to chronic pain. When ready to be slaughtered, they are hung upside down from shackles by their fragile legs and out through a hot bath that leaves them paralyzed, a blade then cuts their necks and lets blood pour out of their bodies.
Dairy cows suffer through mutilations and amputations without pain killers as well. Their living conditions are terrible, Diseases run rampant in dirty, confined factory farms. Calves are taken away from their mothers and killed so humans could have milk. Spent dairy cows are sent to slaughter early in their lives once they can't produce anymore milk. Unreliable stunning practices at slaughterhouses cause cows to have their necks cut and limbs cut off while still alive and conscious.
Pigs have gestation creates only barely large enough to hold their bodies. Once piglets are born they are castrated, again without pain killers. If piglets are too weak to survive or take too long to grow they are killed by slamming their heads on the floor. Once pigs are market weight, they are hung upside down and have their throats slit. Improper stunning cause pigs to have throats cut while still conscious.
All of these abuses are horrific, all these animals are degraded, and for what, only our food? It is not necessary for these animals to be treated in this manner. They are living creatures, and if they are raised to provide us nutrition, we should strive to give them the best quality is life possible. This video can help my video project by giving us information about factory farming we didn't know, and can now pass down to the students we will be surveying. Specifically, in my group, we can include these methods of slaughter as being part of the "processing" process. And what it would take to make this food to be considered organic and ultimately safe for everyone.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Blog Three: the end of overeating
According to David A. Kessler, the doctor behind the book, The End of Overeating, Americans are getting bigger and bigger, the food we put in ourselves is what is making us eat, the chemicals that are in these foods and the feelings we get after eating stimulate us to want these types of foods over and over again.
For thousands of years, the human body weight has remained relatively stable, consumption was only as high as the body could burn off, but in 1980 that changed. Researchers found that the number of overweight Americans increased dramatically. "For decades, American adults gained a couple of pounds between the ages of twenty and forty and then lost a couple of pounds in their sixties and seventies" (Kessler 4). This has changed now and about 20 million Americans, all races and genders are now overweight. These weight changes are reflecting the gains that took place during childhood and adolescence. Also the heaviest people gain disproportionately more weight than the rest. Researches have tried to find an explanation for this overeating, but it couldn't just be due to having food more readily available, there had to be another reason.
People get fat because they over eat and everything consumed is underestimated. Scientists believed that humans had biological mechanisms to balance the calories we consume and the calories that are burned, and this was supposed to control body weight. Although this is true, it is not the only thing that determine food intake.The part of the brain that chooses to be rewarded also plays a huge part in the way we eat, or what we choose to eat.
Although the reward system in humans develops a motivation to act, and developed to keep us alive it also generates an emotional response drives a behavior. In this case, food activates the reward system stimulates us to keep eating and eating.
Food palatibility, the capacity for food to stimulate appetite and prompt more eating, is due to a combination of sugar, fat and salt. These chemicals cause a stimulation that act as incentives for us to eat, and they also are responsible for a preference of some food over others.
Everyone has a bliss point, that is the greatest pleasure from sugar, fat and salt content. The higher the sugar the more pleasurable until the bliss point is reached and then the experience decreases. Salt bliss point is determined on the food, and how much salt is wanted on that type of food. When the mix of these three factors is right, it becomes a stimuli for eating.
Supermarket diets, diets based on what is easily purchased at a store, are also responsible for the overeating, since there is a lot of variety of highly palatable food, and this in turn produces "dietary obesity". This is because a wide variety of food that is high in sugar, fat, and salt cause us to eat in excessive amounts, past reaching our caloric intake needs and even if we aren't hungry. An experiment done on rats proves that this type of food can be as addictive as cocaine.
Other features also exert a powerful influence on our desire for more food. These are quantity, concentration, and variety.The more of something someone gets, the more they want. The more concentration of the rewarding ingredients a food has the more desirable it is. And then the more variety, the different kinds of foods and where they are consumed increases the stimulation. All of these factors motivate us in pursuit of the stimulus.
All these factors amp up neurons in the brain, and it prompts the strongest emotional response for pleasure. "The neurons in the brain that are stimulated by taste and other properties of highly palatable food are part of the opioid circuitry, which is the body's primary pleasure system. The 'opioids' are also known as endorphins, are chemicals produced in the brain that rewarding effects similar to drugs such as morphine and heroin" (Kessler 37) This means that food that is highly palatable, that means high in fat, sugar and salt is capable of being as addictive as a drug. This addiction that is finally stimulated by taste, promotes a reward system that can relieve pain or stress and calm us down. It is a cycle, where eating palatable food activates opioids and this in turn increases the consumption of highly palatable foods; our body is a victim due to its genetic makeup.
For thousands of years, the human body weight has remained relatively stable, consumption was only as high as the body could burn off, but in 1980 that changed. Researchers found that the number of overweight Americans increased dramatically. "For decades, American adults gained a couple of pounds between the ages of twenty and forty and then lost a couple of pounds in their sixties and seventies" (Kessler 4). This has changed now and about 20 million Americans, all races and genders are now overweight. These weight changes are reflecting the gains that took place during childhood and adolescence. Also the heaviest people gain disproportionately more weight than the rest. Researches have tried to find an explanation for this overeating, but it couldn't just be due to having food more readily available, there had to be another reason.
People get fat because they over eat and everything consumed is underestimated. Scientists believed that humans had biological mechanisms to balance the calories we consume and the calories that are burned, and this was supposed to control body weight. Although this is true, it is not the only thing that determine food intake.The part of the brain that chooses to be rewarded also plays a huge part in the way we eat, or what we choose to eat.
Although the reward system in humans develops a motivation to act, and developed to keep us alive it also generates an emotional response drives a behavior. In this case, food activates the reward system stimulates us to keep eating and eating.
Food palatibility, the capacity for food to stimulate appetite and prompt more eating, is due to a combination of sugar, fat and salt. These chemicals cause a stimulation that act as incentives for us to eat, and they also are responsible for a preference of some food over others.
Everyone has a bliss point, that is the greatest pleasure from sugar, fat and salt content. The higher the sugar the more pleasurable until the bliss point is reached and then the experience decreases. Salt bliss point is determined on the food, and how much salt is wanted on that type of food. When the mix of these three factors is right, it becomes a stimuli for eating.
Supermarket diets, diets based on what is easily purchased at a store, are also responsible for the overeating, since there is a lot of variety of highly palatable food, and this in turn produces "dietary obesity". This is because a wide variety of food that is high in sugar, fat, and salt cause us to eat in excessive amounts, past reaching our caloric intake needs and even if we aren't hungry. An experiment done on rats proves that this type of food can be as addictive as cocaine.
Other features also exert a powerful influence on our desire for more food. These are quantity, concentration, and variety.The more of something someone gets, the more they want. The more concentration of the rewarding ingredients a food has the more desirable it is. And then the more variety, the different kinds of foods and where they are consumed increases the stimulation. All of these factors motivate us in pursuit of the stimulus.
All these factors amp up neurons in the brain, and it prompts the strongest emotional response for pleasure. "The neurons in the brain that are stimulated by taste and other properties of highly palatable food are part of the opioid circuitry, which is the body's primary pleasure system. The 'opioids' are also known as endorphins, are chemicals produced in the brain that rewarding effects similar to drugs such as morphine and heroin" (Kessler 37) This means that food that is highly palatable, that means high in fat, sugar and salt is capable of being as addictive as a drug. This addiction that is finally stimulated by taste, promotes a reward system that can relieve pain or stress and calm us down. It is a cycle, where eating palatable food activates opioids and this in turn increases the consumption of highly palatable foods; our body is a victim due to its genetic makeup.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Blog Two: Contradictions in the Text.
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser is a book that reveals truths that the food industry never wanted us to find out about, from how food is grown to how food is prepared, and what exactly the companies think of us. In the chapter "Your Trusted Friends," Schlosser introduces the fact that immigrants are hired to help the high demand for work in the United States agricultural sector. This is contradictory to the very conservative views of the leaders of corporations, whose political party is building a wall to keep Mexicans out of the U.S. In the chapter, "Cogs in the Great Machine," business executives publicly deny knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, however they are setting up vans to drive down to Mexico and collect workers for these corporations. "If they've got a pulse, we'll take an application," jokes a meatpacking executive but there is always a truth to a lie, and this is also true for this joke (Schlosser, 157). Corporations do not care about legal status, they are just looking for the cheapest labor and will do anything to find it, especially if they find someone who can not retaliate against them, no wall is going to stop them from hiring these people.
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