Essay about Food Inc

Submitted By karino90
Words: 1054
Pages: 5

Ugly Truth
From the country I come, the United States of America is known as the land of fast food. However, fast food is not the only problem concerning about food in this land. After seeing a filmmaker, Food Inc., about the food production system of the United States I dare to ask: Is just the fast food what can harm our health? The answer of this question is no. People and scientists have devoted years to “improve” the growth of crops and cattle to offer the population enough food. But, what all this implies? This implies the use of genetically modified crops and animals. Technology has taken control over the food, and this fact is not good progress for human beings, animals, nor environment.
There has been a change during the past fifty years in American food. Industries have created the image of producing and selling fresh food produced and reared in farms. They even label their products with pictures of farms and farmers. But they are not showing the truth. A few years ago, the United States was full of farms. Nowadays there are no more farms at all. Factories have replaced the farms. How did it happen? All this story of food industry started with fast food; when McDonald brothers came with the revolutionary idea of bring factory food to restaurants. They started selling food with the same flavor, and they made the food monotonous. So, industries took place over the farms and it has become a business where the only beneficiaries are the owner of four big companies like Monsato, a multinational agricultural technology corporation, that control the market in an 80 percent. The only interest of the companies is just make money, and it means produce more and more food without observing the consequences.
Scientists say that the use of technology in food is the only way to feed a country every day more populated. However, of what avail is it if it makes people get sick? Food Inc. presented a very sad case of a little boy named Kevin. He died due to a hemorrhagic E. coli twelve days after he ate a hamburger. All this happened because of the lack of care from the food companies. After Kevin’s death, his mom tried to make industries be aware of the effects that the genetic modified ingredients have when they applied them in the food. She tried to set down “Kevin’s Law” which demanded to the companies to make clean products. Nevertheless, it was rejected and the solution the companies found was to put ammonia in the hamburger meet to kill the E. coli, which means more chemicals in the food. Besides this example, there was another presented. This one was about a family that has to deal with economy and healthy food. For poor families there is no option. For them, trying to get healthy food is more expensive than just buy fast food. So, they have to take the cheaper and it makes them get diabetes.
The environment and the animals suffer from this food system of the United States. Companies are interested in make the animals grow faster because it makes more money. But it violates the animal right. They are living beings too. According to Food Inc. factories do not allow chickens to see the light. They grow them in chicken houses without windows. So, chickens get very fat such they cannot keep their own weight. Also, it was said that is very normal that chicken s die. Therefore, what all these told us about the moral of the companies? They do not treat animals as living beings; they treat them as raw material made to fatten and then died. And, how do all these animals get fatter than others grown normally? It is because industries feed them with corn. They change the normal diet of the animals. Food Inc. mentioned that 30 percent of the United States land is planted with corn. There are not just chickens who suffer this, cows and hogs as well. It is inhuman the way they treat them.
There is a lost in the integrity of food system. Animals are not the only ones abused in