Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

food inc review essay

Satisfactory Essays
366 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
food inc review essay
Food Inc Extra Credit
Food Inc is a documentary about the state of the food industry within the United States. It was a very in depth look at the farming industry that most people don’t get a chance to see. Most people don’t really think about where the food comes from or how it was farmed. This documentary gave a clear insight into how our food is really produced. When you think of farming, you may think of an area of land which is devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food, but in this documentary we learned that most of our food is actually produced in mega factories. Since there is such a high demand for processed food these days, farmers are artificially growing their crops.
The film introduces us to an overcrowded chicken farm in Kentucky and clarifies the fact that chickens have doubled in size since the 1950’s. Chickens today are genetically modified to have larger breasts in order to respond to the demands of the consumer’s preference for white meat. The chickens grow at such a rate that their bones and organs can’t keep up with the rapid weight gain. The chickens aren’t able to walk around since their legs cannot carry the weight.
Health and safety regulations of the food, the animals, the workers on the assembly lines, and of the consumers who will be eating the food is often overlooked by the companies in an effort to provide cheap food regardless of the negative consequences. Animals at factory farms stand ankle deep in their manure for long periods of time meaning that if one cow has E. Coli, the other animals can easily be infected with it which will then be passed on to the consumer when ingested.
Overall, I believe that this documentary was a major eye opener for me to pay more attention to the type of food that I consume and to also take the proper precautions when preparing food at home. I have learnt the importance of properly reading food labels prior to purchasing food in order to be fully aware of what I am putting into my body.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Over the last few decades farming animals for food has grown and evolved into a highly efficient, streamlined industry known as factory farming. Factory farms are owned and operated by big corporations, and despite the fact they make up only a small percentage of farms in the United States, they are responsible for most of the meat and eggs we consume here (Sierra Club, 2005). In factory farming, baby piglets are castrated without anesthesia and thrown into a pen, where they huddle in a corner writhing in pain. Egg laying chickens are crammed four or five to a cage (45x50cm) for their entire lives. They cannot spread their wings or stretch out in any way, and they never see daylight. To prevent them from pecking at one another, their beaks are brutally burnt or sliced to a stub. To produce veal, newborn calves are confined in small crates and restrained to allow a minimum of movement until they are slaughtered at just five months old. Factory farmed animals are treated like non-living commodities, suffering horrendous cruelties to produce the maximum profit at the least amount of cost. In recent years public awareness about factory farming conditions has grown, and so have concerns over animal cruelty and public health. The general public should not tolerate animal cruelty in the factory farming industry because it is extremely inhumane to animals and it represents a growing health hazard for human beings; instead, consumers should put pressure on the industry to change the way animals are treated and to ensure farms do not pose a threat to public health.…

    • 2009 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    food inc

    • 598 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Food, Inc is a film that lets people in on the food production in American. The film opens up in a grocery store, which has pictures of farmers giving you the idea that the food you are going to purchase is farm raised. However the film calls it a pastoral fantasy. Even though people would like to believe that their food is coming from a farm where that animal is raised the correct way that is not always the case. This film dug into certain aspects of food giving you the ins and outs on how all types of food is produced.…

    • 598 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The film, Food, Inc., argues that our food system has been corrupted by corporate interests; as a result, we are put in danger by very items that should guarantee our survival. We should reclaim our right to health by eating more locally produced organic food and ensuring all people have access to such food. The film wants the viewers to think negatively of the business of mass production of the foods that we eat on a daily basis. The logical fallacies allow the film to capture the attention and emotions of its audience by giving a reason for their concerns, but without any legitimate statistics or facts to back up their claims. The use of these logical fallacies in the film help strengthen its arguments by making the audience feel as if the corporations are exploiting the farmers and their traditions, causing families to go through avoidable obstacles, and making the companies and government look like the “bad guys” in this web that is called the food industry. However, the reality is that the food industry isn’t as evil as depicted by the fallacious arguments in the film.…

    • 1923 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The United States has grown so much in the food industry from the past. One of the industries which accounts for most of the market in the US is the meat packing industry. The top 5 meat industries controlled 25% of the market back in 1970, and now that number has risen to an outstanding 80% of the market (“100 Days of Real Food”). This is indeed a great accomplishment for our country; however what is the secret behind these companies success? The answer is simple; Make and sell cheap food products and end up getting enormous income! When companies use this method, the food that they are selling is not of best quality and is always unhealthy for the consumers. Michael Pollan a food expert says, “Cows are not designed by evolution to eat corn. They’re designed by evolution to eat grass. And the only reason we feed them corn is because corn is really cheap and corn makes them fat quickly … The industrial food system is always looking for greater efficiency. But each new step in efficiency leads to problems. If you take feedlot cattle off their corn diet, give them grass or five days, they will shed eighty percent of the E. coli in their gut” (Foodincmovie). There have been many cases where children have died just by eating food that has been processed by the food industries. Barbara Kowalcyk, a woman whose 2-year old son went from a perfectly healthy boy to...…

    • 355 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Food Inc. is an informative and revealing documentary film, aimed to expose the dirty truth of the industrial food industry in America. Directed by Robert Kenner and produced by Michael Pollan, this film informs the American people exactly what they are eating and how it’s affecting them, by painting a more realistic picture of the food industry, than that of an agricultural society. With the use compelling images, such as cattle being raised in grassless, manure infested fields with industrial factories in the background, and stories and interviews from farmers, government officials and victims throughout the film, Food Inc. reveals the horrifying…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Best Essays

    Michael Pollan in 2006, published a work that has to some degree changed the way that people eat, or at the very least attempted to change the way that we think about the food we eat. (Shea 54) Pollan demonstrates through fundamentally modern rhetoric the relationship that people, and more specifically American’s have with food and how very distant we are from it. ("History, Old Favorites in" B08) To some degree Pollan, others like him and internationally challenging food shortages and even worse food born illnesses and scares are changing the way that food is understood with regard to an international and national food traceability and accountability movement. (Popper 365) Pollan challenges the “industrial food chain” looking at ingredients, finished food products and other issues to try to source out the distance between man and his or her food. His investment in the idea goes much further as he explores through rhetoric several scenarios regarding obtaining and cooking meals. Those scenarios including attempting to show American’s a better way, or at least shock us out of our food stupor by first enjoying a meal from McDonalds (sourcing it almost exclusively to corn an overused and bizarre food product and petroleum products), producing a meal from a famous “organic” food retailer, challenging this niche industry. The third meal is a meal made from only items found on a utopian Virginian farm, and then Pollan produces a meal from only foraging. Through all these scenarios he explores, from a very basic standpoint, all the inaccuracies, misrepresentations and challenges that our food industry places on the ethic of living on the earth and sharing it with others.…

    • 2818 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Food, Inc. starts with a whimsical song consisting of strings and other orchestral instruments and immediately displays a bright, green camera shot panning across rolling, lush hills. It does not take more than a minute before the song transitions into an, almost devious tune that suggests there is much more beneath the surface. While this transition plays out the narrator, Eric Schlosser, explains how supermarkets deceive buyers using pictures of farms, animals, and green pastures on their packaging and displays but “the industry doesn’t want you to know the truth about what you are eating because if you knew, you might not want to eat it”. Schlosser is an investigative reporter with a…

    • 1116 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Food Inc. Case Study

    • 1504 Words
    • 5 Pages

    1. How has technology been applied to the food production process? Give/describe at least 3 examples.…

    • 1504 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    This acquisition is false, the factory farmers do not get paid unless they are treating the animals with care. One of the reasons why someone pursues farming is because they have the desire to be with animals. According to David Leyonhjelm, the factory farms are more humane than the small scale farms. If the animals were not being treated with the proper care, then the animals would drop like flies. The livestock in the factory farms is protected from wind, snow, rain, heat and cold, and safe from the wild animals. Placing the animals in the factory farms allows the breeding process to be less stressful and the farmers will be able to take care and protect the young animals. While they are being protected in the warehouses, the animals are given a constant balanced diet and they are provided with plenty of fresh water. Factory farms are there to protect the livestock and still treat them with care while providing quality meat and dairy for the consumers. The last thing the factories want to do is cause the livestock discomfort, stress, and diseases. The factory farms are equipped with technology and farmers that can do everything they can to ensure they lead a stress and disease-free…

    • 1990 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the book “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan, you will discover an abundance of information about what food is, what is considered food now, and how we are affected by this transformation of the western diet. The idea of how to eat well has been distorted many times by the industry and scientists throughout the United States. Essentially anything that has been man-made in a lab or factory is not something that your body should be ingesting. Pollan suggests that we are not being thoughtful about what we are eating and the consequences are becoming quite clear as we look at how our health has altered across the entire country.…

    • 1397 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Food Inc Response Paper

    • 308 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Food Inc is a documentary about the state of the food industry within the United States. was a very in depth look at the farming industry that not a lot of people get to see. There were a few moments and certain topics that stood out to me. This paper will explain my reaction to the film and its contents.…

    • 308 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Factory Farm

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Our society is showered with happy animals living on a farm where the cows graze in lush green fields and the chickens have the run of the barnyard. This free-roaming image of an animal living out their days in sunny fields is far from reality. A majority of the animals that are raised for food live miserable lives in confined, dark, overcrowded facilities, commonly called "factory farms."…

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    2. Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council says in the film, “In a way, we’re not producing chickens, we’re producing food.” What does this statement mean? Do you agree or disagree with it? How might this perspective affect the way that chickens are raised?…

    • 2051 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Film Analysis: Food Inc.

    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The situation of contamination also affects the welfare of the animals. The animals are kept together in small cages that have no sunlight or even windows. The densely populated animals and the limited movement causes the increase of disease. Factory farming also uses antibiotics for all of their livestock. It was used to make the animals grow quicker and prevent diseases. The unhealthy conditions of factory farming not only affected the animals but afterward it affected the people (Beyond Factory Farming). This was also another cause of the death of the little boy in the…

    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    they are stunned to soften the hides for skinning. As a result, a botched slaughter…

    • 581 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays