When I was in 4th grade, I loved McDonald's Happy Meals. They were my favorite thing to eat. My mom would take me to McDonalds every time I behaved good or got good grades. It was my favorite reward. Yes I would eat the chicken nuggets and fries but I loved those toys I would get at the bottom of the red box. I would also look at the outside of the box to see what new toys would come. I never realized how my food was being created.
In the documentary Food Inc. we were able to see how our food is being created. We can see how farmers give our food to factories and they then give it to our providers.
The first McDonalds restaurant had many workers and their food was cheap. When the owners came up with a new idea of how the workers would work it helped reduce the cost of food. The owners came up with an idea that similar to how factories worked.
Of the food being produced in American 8 out of 10 paties are being controlled by four big companies. Tyson, JBS, Cargill, and National Beef. Tyson is the biggest food company. Brands names and labels can be misleading because some labels have a farm as the picture and the product has never even been to a farm in all its life. Labels on food can also state "raised humanly" when they were locked up and never allowed to see the light as shown in the movie. Industrial cheap food can be "dishonest" because that doesn't it include the environmental, societal, and health cost. The enviornmental cost is the impact in the enviornment. The societal cost is the impact in the society. The health cost is the health problems you can get.
In 1950 chickens took a long time to grow, they had normal size breasts. Over the time the chickens were injected hormones which helped make the chicken breast bigger. This helped the people that bring our food to the supermarkets or restaurants because now people could get more meat for less.
During the movie Food Inc. the producers tried to interview a farmer that provides crops for Tyson. Tyson didn't let the people interview the farmer because they didn't want people to know the truth the how they treat their chickens.
In the movie according to the USDA which is the U.S. Department of Agriculture a farm owned by a man named Joel Salatin is "unsanitary" which means it's dirty and unhealthy. The USDA say it's "unsanitary" because when the cows go and eat the grass they also fertilize it at the same time. That means that when they eat they poo and that gives the plants nutrients. The USDA also called the farm "unsanitary" because of the way they clean and kill there chickens. He uses regular knives and other kitchen utensils. Unlike factories that use other things to kill them.
The government orders farmers to grow corn cheap. They are paying to overproduce make the value go down. One of the reasons they need a lot of corn is farmers can feed their animals corn and its cheaper than grass.Corn is so important its used in ketchup, cheese, coke, potato chips, meat, bread, and many more products. Problems that have started because animals are eating corn is they get E. Coli. E.Coli is a a type of germ that if people eat it , it can cause problems with your kidney or other parts of your body. People can get this germ through their meat.Young kids or elders can also die from that.
Kevin Kowalcyk died in 2001 because he ate a hamburger that had E. Coli. His parents talked to the people that check if the meats we eat don't have diseases and it took them 27 days to recall the meat because it had E. Coli. That means that they want that certain type of meat back because its infected. Factories put ammonia which is a liquid used in house cleaning supplies to their meats to wash down the E. Coli. They then put the washed meats together and call it pink slime.
The cheapest food is fast food because they are made of corn. Like corn is over cropped its cheap and mostly all the food is made of that. When people don't have a lot of money people have to get fast food because they are the cheapest. Fast foods can cause obesity and type 2 diabetes. Cheap food
is high in fats, salt, and cholesterols.
Many meat packing plants get many of their workers because of NAFTA. NAFTA stands for the North American Free Trade Act which allows immigrants workers to come help in factories. Food companies are protected by the veggie liabel law. It states that no one can criticize that company or there products. If someone does than you will have to pay the company.