Thesis:
Many of the dominant social practices in our society-practices that define a "normal" life-on further investigation turn out to involve nightmarish and industrial atrocities.
Major Claim:
The food industry has negatively influenced our dominant social practices regarding food that we assumed to be 'normal.'
Supporting Claim #1:
The food industry abuses and takes advantage of the overproduction of corn.
Evidence: Farmers forced to produce more corn to make a living.
"A farm family needs a certain amount of cash flow every year to support itself, and if the price of corn falls, the only way to stay even is to sell more corn." -Omnivore's Dilemma page 53-54
Evidence:Our food is not as diverse as we believe
"The great edifice of variety and choice that is an American supermarket turns out to rest on a remarkably narrow biological foundation comprised of a tiny group of plants..."-Page 18 of Omnivore's Dilemma
Evidence: Feeding corn to animals that should be eating grass.
"Switching a cow from grass to grain is so disturbing to the animal’s digestive system that it can kill the animal if not done gradually and if the animal is not continually fed antibiotics. These animals are designed to forage, but we make them eat grain, primarily corn, in order to make them as fat as possible as fast as possible." -What About Grass-fed Beef?
http://www.johnrobbins.info/blog/grass-fed-beef/
Evidence: Giving different names to corn to confuse the consumers what's in our food
The following is a list:
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pdf/foodinc/foodinc_corn_derived_handout.pdf
Supporting Claim #2:
The food industry values massive production over the health of the people and animals when paying closer attention to the treatment of our meat.
Evidence:Feed lot animals live in their manures.
"Then there's the deep pile of manure on which I stand, in which 534 sleeps. We don't know much about the hormones in it-where they will end up, or what they might do once they get there-but we do know something about the bacteria, which can find their way from the manure on the ground to his hide and from their into our hamburgers."-page 81 Omnivore's Dilemma
Evidence:Animals are forced to eat corn which is unnatural.
"Here, hundreds of millions of food animals that once lived on family farms and ranches are gathered together in great commissaries, where they consume as much of the mounting pile of surplus corn as they can digest, turning it into meat. Enlisting the cow in this undertaking has required particularly heroic efforts, since the cow is by nature not a corn eater. But Nature abhors a surplus, and the corn must be consumed." -Page 64 of Omnivore's Dilemma
"Here the drugs are plainly being used to treat sick animals, yet the animals probably wouldn’t be sick if not for the diet of grain we feed them.” -page 79
Evidence:Burgers are made from multiple cow meat.
"When the results came back, the lab reported at least four cows had been found in each patty -- and sometimes as many as eight. "Unfortunately, I don't think customers realize what goes into a single hamburger," Sarah Klein of the Center for Public Interest told "GMA." "I think we have a fantasy it's still coming from a single cow."-Keep your meat safe from E.Coli
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/meat-safe-ecoli-dr-richard-besser-tips/story?id=9029942
Evidence:Our food contains deadly chemicals.
"Ammonia kills E. Coli."-(Food Inc Film)
(But, ammonia is harmful for the human body)
"Even in low concentrations, inhaling ammonia or getting the solution on your skin can cause burning, fainting, or death, so always use caution when handling this chemical." -What is Ammonia?
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-ammonia.htm
Work Cited:
Corn-derived ingredients
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pdf/foodinc/foodinc_corn_derived_handout.pdf
Food Inc. Film
Keep your meat safe from E.Coli
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/meat-safe-ecoli-dr-richard-besser-tips/story?id=9029942
Omnivore's Dilemma By: Michael Pollen
What about grass-fed beef?
http://www.johnrobbins.info/blog/grass-fed-beef/
What is Ammonia?
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-ammonia.htm
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