In class we covered the food industry and how the average person does not even look to where their food comes from, who makes their food, and if it is dangerous to consume or safe to consume. Since watching the Food Inc. documentary my life has been interrupted in a large way. I can not eat any meat product without thinking of a poor cow that doesn't even get to eat grass, or a chicken that has such large breasts it can't walk.
As many of you, I am a college student whom can not afford anything outside the realm of Ramen, pb&j, bread, and milk. That's my grocery shopping, with the exception on the occasional fish and purchase of Jimmy Johns, Sub Way, or McDonalds. Here is my problem. I look at anything with meat and I think of Tyson or Smithfield and it makes me sick. II don't eat much meat anyways, but damn I need some source of protein other than pb&j! Now, I don't have the money for the ethical meat, so I might as well not eat meat at all rather than feel guilty. As I have now announced to my friends, every time we eat, that this chicken or whatever meat (it just happens more with chicken, because I am sad about the chickens the most from the documentary) is more than likely probably unethical to the animal, and thus wrong to eat. I also mention in such a dramatic fashion that it will probably make us all grow 4 breasts and probably soon die from diabetes or food poisoning, so might as well call your mom and dad and tell them you've been called home.
I realize my thinking is dramatic and flippant with this, but that is honestly how I see it. Ever since that documentary I've been meat ruined. I've known this to happen with documentaries before, such as 'How hot dogs are made.', since I haven't eaten a hot dog in 5 years, I guess documentaries affect me decently strong. What really gets to me though is that people don't really care. My friends think it is horrible what is being done to the animals, but they don't change their eating habits, because they haven't seen it so it must not be that bad. This class has eye opened me to this food business that seems to be heartless and scary. I wish things would change and people would open their eyes and see this for what it is, but I mean... let's be honest, if gay people can't the proper rights they deserve, how are animals EVER going to get the proper treatment? That is a blog for a different time.
Farmers sell meat to people all the time. Many people get together and buy an animal at market value and then pay a butcher to cut it and package it. You have to buy more at once but you can keep it for months in the freezer and the cost comes out lower than a store which pays middle man (person) to wrap it in appealing plastics and you get much more choice in source.
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