Food Inc.

[Mofarmgirl]

So...I know this has been around a while, and I'm also aware of and sickened by the things they do to produce our food supply. BUT..I put off watching food inc, afraid that I wouldn't eat store bought food ever again. My mom talked me into watching it with her tonight...really wish I hadn't. All I can stress is this, eat local as much as possible!
We're going to do more digging to find out where local butchers get their meat and then of course we have enough of our own chickens for processing and eggs. Its not only disgusting how contaminated our food is, but the treatment of these poor animals before slaughter is just as bad. If you haven't watched it, be brave and do so.
Seed saving and purchase of heirloom seeds is also important. I don't know about you all, but I want no genetically modified food on my plate if I can help it!

 

[violetsky]

I can't watch that kind of thing. I'm against big business across the board. The food industry to produce the quanities needed for
this over populated planet has to cut corners. Work towards self-sufficiency.

 

[acid_chipmunk]

Be aware that the company that produced that only showed you what they wanted you to see. They didn't show you all of the farms where people love and respect the animals that they have from birth to slaughter. There are many people on this forum who are farmers and don't treat their animals that way, Katy being one of the first that springs to mind. You can find places that mistreat their animals anywhere, including close to you, but I can garantee that you will find many, many more places that treat them humanely.


The old adage "there are two sides to every story" comes to mind with this. They produced this to scare people and make money.

 

[schellie69]

I agree not all farmers treat their animals badly my uncle is a farmer and he does graze his beef stock. I do think that sometimes they show the worse cases to scare people. I also have found out that just because a seed is hybrid does not make it bad it is just 2 different types of the same veggie, like white and yellow corn. Do more research I also ask people to check out the farm that is local you might be surprised that what you think is a great thing isn't.

 

[Katy]

Quote:
There are many threads on here already about this and other movies like it.

I will say this as a farmer and livestock producer....don't believe everything you see in a movie. If they showed how it really is on 99.9% of the farms it would be boring and they'd never sell a ticket or a copy of it on DVD. Sensationalism that creates paranoia sells....the truth doesn't.

 

[Mofarmgirl]

I didn't mean to offend the farmers out there, I come from a long line of farmers. I'm sure that there are plenty of farmers who treat their animals well, (we always have)which is why I mentioned that we need to look around and find the ones who do instead of giving more money to the big corporations for substandard, unsafe food. The stuff that they put in fastfood barely qualifies as meat.

 

[BarefootMom]

Quote:
I wan't offended-- I also come from a long line of farmers and we treat our animals very well-- it is the big commercial "farmers" that don't in most cases. The "farmers" only care about the cash they are bringing in and not the animals. It is sad. My husband and I watched it a year ago-the main reason we started raising our own chickens. I wrote a 10 page paper for my college English class on saving the family farm. My teacher gave me a 100% and asked to read it in front of the class. It made a HUGE impact on some of the students I think. We have started to eat more healthy and have increased the amount of veggies in the gardens.

We have always raised beef and my parents used to raise hogs. I live in a big "turkey barn area" and I hate it. They are not clean at all, in fact one operation ran by Cargill was just shut down and quantined because of bird flu!! (That was 6 miles from me!!)

I wish more people were aware of what actually goes into their food. Especially kids. My nephew (whom my parents are raising now) didn't know what anything was until he came to live here. His mom was raised on the farm too but didn't tell him anything. He is 6. My 3 yr old knows what a hamburger and what bacon is. My nephew was tramautized when he asked why we were loading our steer into the trailer...he answer was to take him to the lockerplant and make hamburgers and steaks out of him! He got over it, but it clearly upset him for a little while. I think it is just sad. He didn't believe me that milk actually came from cows and that you could drink it straight from a cow---until I took him to our neighbors dairy farm..

okay I need to quit rambling, but I wish there were a way to teach everyone about this stuff. In my opinion they need to be teaching the kids this stuff before teaching them to use computers and everything else.

 

[greytmommy]

Quote:
This....over and over again....THIS!

 

[greytmommy]

I used to work in agricultural bioengineering. (please dont judge me based on spelling! I am pretty smart, but for some reason I CANNOT spell worth a darn!!! haha!)

and I am not personally against GMO's. But what i hate is that we (as a world population) are in a situation that it is needed. Sigh. I agree that a LOT of these large food industry problems could be fixed if people 1. became more self-sufficant and 2. didnt OVER consume so much! We have to produce more of everything b/c the large countries (US being one of the big ones) OVERuse. kwim?

 

[Laurajean]

Let's not forget that The Factory Farming Industry and ACTUAL Farms are very different things. Small scale or private family farms need not be offended at the spotlight on large scale FACTORY farm conditions because they aren't even comparable. Apples and Oranges. It would be like a Pharmacy owner getting offended when people complain about street drug dealers. Yeah, both sell pills, but the ethics and practices involved are not at all the same. The large scale factory farms are not even farms by the traditional definition, they're more factories. When farming gets to this level of mass quantity, the details, knowing the animals, hand raising them, etc is often (but not always) lost. My father was a farmer, slaughtered and sold meat, etc, and he is repulsed by some of the factory farm conditions he hears about. He isn't offended, because he knows that doesn't portray HIS farming at all. Like I said, two very different practices.

The main problem for the consumer arises when they want to know where their meat comes from. Few large scale factory farms will let the consumer see the facilities while running & processing, or are simply too far away for the consumer to visit. Therefore, many people prefer to buy from small scale farmers, where they know the owners, or where the owners have a local reputation, etc.

I don't think the majority of people who watch these documentaries actually think local small FARMS are this way, I think they are repulsed at what happens when the meat industry becomes too "factory" oriented, with the lack of quality in product and care for livestock that often results from mass production.

If you take the animals out of the factory farm vs. actual farm scenario for a moment, it's easy to compare. Say you buy hand-made gemstone bracelets from a small craftsman. They're quality natural gemstones, on sturdy cording, with quality lobster-claw clasps. And yes, they're more expensive than mass produced jewelry because of this small scale quality. Now lets say the business grows and sells out to a large corporation, who takes over jewelry production for millions of people instead of thousands. Now it isn't a person or two, hand making the bracelets, but instead a factory. The gemstones are too expensive, so they replace the stones with simulated versions. The leather cording is too expensive also, and doesn't feed through the stringing machine as easily, so the leather cording is now switched to cheaper, thinner nylon. And those lobster-claw clasps are now ordered wholesale, they're smaller and less sturdy. But the result is that you can buy these bracelets much cheaper than you could when the owner was still on a small scale level. This is pretty basic, you could use a thousand examples of small scale production versus large scale.

The problem comes when we go back to the fact that the product is ANIMALS, and MEAT. Unlike beaded bracelets, we now have two much more serious concerns: Animal welfare and our health consuming the meat. Suddenly short cuts in production seem iffy, when it comes to us consuming that meat. And the lack of personal attention actually affects animal well-being. People in general like to think of these animals as being personally cared for before slaughter. It's not as simple as the type of beads used in a bracelet when the product changes to animals, and the resulting meat. It becomes much more personal, on an ethical level and a food safety level.

So bottom line, in my opinion: Are there many factory "farms" that have appalling conditions both for the animals and the resulting meat? Yes. Are there factory farms that have ethical standards and clean facilities? Yes. Is it easy to find out which is which? Not really. Is it healthier, give a better peace of mind, and supportive to local business to buy from small scale farms? Yes. As with the bracelets, the resulting cost is usually higher, but some choose to pay more for the peace of mind of buying locally.

In any case, I still maintain that factory farms are really not actual farms at all, so local small scale farmers need not even be offended. If anything, they should be offended at the use of the word "farm" in factory farming.