In every day life, we eat around three meals a day, and how often can we say that we truly have thought about how our food was produced or how the process was regulated? Most people don’t consider where their food comes from or who looks over it and that is a problem. Food borne illness kill around 5,000 people a year. That is just the number of casualties, the number of people effected by food born illness yearly is around 76 million, which is an extremely serious number that touches all of us Americans.

     There are handful of government agencies that look over the United State’s food production. The two primary agencies being the USDA and the FDA. Both agencies look over some of the same areas, however, they also regulate different aspects. In “ Resisting Food Safety” by Marion Nestle some of these guidelines are described. Nestle states that the FDA regulates: “ All foods (except meat, poultry, and processed eggs), they do regulate animal drugs and feeds” (Nestle, Pg56) The article also states the USDA’s regulations as: “ Meat, poultry, processed eggs, safety of eggs, egg products, inspects corn, fruits, vegetables, protects animals and plants from disease, and conducts research on food safety.”(Nestle, pg.56) The USDA regulates much more because there are various branches found inside of the USDA such as the FSIS, AMS, GIPSA, APHIS, and ARS. Even though the FDA and USDA are separate agencies, there is a very thin line between what they regulate. That statement sounds confusing  but Nestle provides good examples to support how feeble and vague the guidelines are. Nestle shows a graph that describes the regulations as: “ The USDA regulates hot dogs in pastry roll, and the FDA regulates Hot dogs in rolls. The USDA regulates soups with more than 2% meat and poultry, and the FDA regulates soups with less than 2% of meat and poultry. The USDA regulates corn dogs, the FDA regulates bagel dogs.” (Nestle, pG 57) These regulations are unlikely to be dangerous, however, it shows how 1% too much of meat and poultry can change the jurisdiction of the inspection which involves a terrifying amount of complexity and it seems highly unnecessary. The goal is to make sure that people are safe while eating, but that goal gets obstructed when the regulators get caught up in arguing about what should be surrounding a hot dog.

     To make things even worse, the USDA has only 7,000 inspectors that regulate 6,000 meat, poultry, an egg establishments and 130 importers. These importers slaughter hundreds of millions of animals and produce billions of pounds of meat that need to be inspected by the scrawny team of 7,000. Another figure to prove how insanely low the USDA’s number of employees is falls in the poultry plants. The poultry plants slaughter 90 birds per minute meaning that every USDA inspector needs to inspect a staggering 35 birds per minute. How on earth is someone expected to check an entire bird in less than 2 seconds? Its absolutely absurd to say the least. It is hard to believe but the FDA’s demands are worse. The FDA has only 700 employees that inspect 30,000 food manufacturers, 20,000 warehouses, 785,000 food establishments and 1.5 million vending operations. If one were to calculate with the vending operations alone it would lead to every inspector having to check 2,142 vending operations by themselves, without any other aspects of the FDA’s responsibilities involved. These numbers are not only unreasonable but impossible. These kinds of figures lead people to ask why we have so few employees regulating something so important. These agencies are in charge of the safety of the American people in terms of the food that they consume and the fact that the two most important divisions have less than 8,000 employees is completely disgusting. For a matter as serious as the health of hundreds of millions there should be at least tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of employees regulating our safety in the food industry.

     The problem of food safety grows even deeper when it comes to the employees working in the processing plants. In “Resisting Food Safety” Nestle discusses a statement from Eric Schlosser, one of the head producers of Food Inc. by stating: “Much of the actual work in the food industry—in agriculture, slaughterhouses, processing plants, and places where food is served—is carried out by immigrants, teenager, and other groups payed at minimum wage. (Nestle, Pg 31) This statement is very concerning and in Food Inc.(Produced by Eric Schlosser provider of info for the previous quote), a documentary on the food industry, the topic of immigrant workers in the meat industry is brought up. At Smithfield, one of the nations leading meat producers, thousands of immigrants are hired a year to work on the production line. The immigration of these people started in response to 1.5 million Mexican farmers being put out of work in due to the drug wars combined with the farmers realizing that their careers wouldn’t support their families due to a lack of income. These workers are brought to the US to work for these huge corporations and the only way to stay here is if they maintain these jobs. Their families, healthcare, and housing all rely on their jobs and the corporations hiring them know that and will exploit them because of it. A Smithfield worker was quoted in Food Inc saying: “The people at Smithfield know you cant live without the job so they hold it over you.” (Smithfield Worker, Food Inc.) These major companies give these people an ultimatum with only one outcome and thats to work for them or lose everything. Corporations like Smithfield also have very disturbing standards when it comes to this immigration. To start off, immigration is illegal, however, these corporations still immigrate workers in to the United Sates which is very corrupt. To worsen things, these companies also sign deals with The Department of Immigration to deport a set number of employees daily by giving them addresses and names. For example, Smithfield deports 15 employees a day. These double standards are unethical and wrong without a doubt but the real question is why aren’t agencies such as the USDA or FDA doing anything about it? How are they allowing illegal immigration and even worse, how are they letting these immigrants handle our food? This whole system is very corrupt. In Food Inc Eric Schlosser articulates: “ Government turned a blind eye on companies bringing in immigrants.”( Eric Schlosser, Food Inc.) We are not completely sure why the government does this, maybe it has to do with the amount of power that these corporations have and it also might have to do with the fact that these workers can be exploited and payed little to no money, nevertheless, it’s still messed up. Immigration is a very sticky situation and it needs to be cleaned up for the sake of the people being exploited, and for the health of the American people because of the responsibility that these corporations place on these immigrants to handle and process our food.

     Another problem with agencies such as the FDA, is their lack of enforcement and quickness. In “You are what they eat” by Consumer Reports, Fred Angulo, chief of the CDC’s food borne and diarrheal branch is quoted saying: “ It would help to have a “farm to fork” surveillance system such as those in Europe that looks for contamination in feed, animals, the marketplace, and humans.” (Fred Angulo, You are what they eat, pg.28) This idea would require a system for feed processing that would be very similar to animal processing with built in procedures to prevent contamination. Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine says: “the agency is engaged in the discussion with the feed industry” (Sundlof, You are what they eat, pg 28)This shows how the FDA was considering the idea, however, an FDA spokeswoman at the time added to that by calling the system a “priority, but it may not be fully implemented until 2007.” (FDA spokeswoman, You are what they eat, pg28) This issue was published in 2005, meaning that the system would be put into place 2 full years later. If this system is working so well in other continents and if it’s a so called “priority” then the system should be in place within months. In Food Inc. we also see a lack of urgency with the case of 2 year old Kevin. In the documentary a boy named Kevin was killed by E-Coli at the strikingly young age of 2 by eating tainted processed meat. The story is utterly heartbreaking but the part that really stuck out to me was the way that the FDA handled the situation. Kevin had already died, leaving his family in agony and after tons of complaints and yelling out, the FDA called a voluntary recall after 16 days. This product not only took the life of a young boy but it was also able to run rampant around the country infecting more and more people for over 2 whole weeks. Kevin’s mother explained in the film that she wanted nobody else to go through what her family had to and that’s why she begged that the FDA call for a recall. It appears that the FDA has the ideas and tools that they need to create change for the health of the American people, however, they don’t enforce these changes in a timely manner leaving more people vulnerable to food borne illnesses such as E-Coli that killed baby Kevin.

     America needs to address the problems at hand in regards to food safety. We need to ask questions, we need to think about what we’re eating every time we eat. We can’t keep putting our health in the hands of the FDA and USDA while they focus on pointless regulations, have a lack of employees, cave in when it comes to corruption, and while they lack force in creating change when an issue rises that can either benefit or hurt the people of America. The food industry is only owned by a handful of corporations, however, the people who give them their power is the consumer or in other words all of us Americans. We can change the system as one and we can make sure that these agencies in charge protect our safety efficiently and properly when it comes to the food we eat by speaking out or refusing to buy these products.

1. It took me a while to understand the writers project but after a little I was able to comprehend more. I was able to identify the text’s projects by catching their main themes and trying to see what the underlying messages were. My project was to shed light on the food industry’s regulatory agencies and how they don’t properly protect our people. I tried to make it adamant that we need to unite as one and realize that we can make change as the consumer who holds all the power.
2. I really enjoyed the section of the Sorting it out workshop when we drew 3 texts together using that system of arrows. It was very helpful in bringing my ideas together and grouping them based on their similarities. This system overall helped me gather my thoughts and properly organize my article.
3. I understand that synthesizing is to combine ideas to fit a certain theory. In writing it is very important that you organize all of your points in a comprehendible manner that all fits together in the end. I looked through the various texts that I was going to use and I synthesized my ideas into one main point while connecting each text to another one by one.
4. I feel that I was able to accomplish a real understanding of my problem and I feel that I connected with this issue on a personal level which helped me write in more depth.
5. I began by criticizing agencies such as the FDA  and USDA for not properly regulating our food, from there I was able to dig deeper and get very specific details and figures to back my claim up. While writing the draft I was able to stay on track with the main focus but I was also able to incorporate the corruption and immigration issue that I hadn’t originally planned to include. I was able to connect “Resisting Food Safety” and Food Inc. to show how corrupt the system is which I was proud of since I had never thought of it before.
6. I organized the article by having the intro be an inviting and interesting lede with a question and some interesting stats in an attempt to grab the readers interest. From there I had a section where I talked about the agencies in charge and how they get caught up in confusing regulation standards that distract them from the real problem. I then went into a very numerical section where I talked about the lack of employees and how disgusting it is that less than 10,000 people regulate our safety. I then went to the immigration topic, and followed it up with a section on the lack of enforcement by these agencies. I summed it up at the end and talked about how we hold all he power as the consumer and that we can demand that these agencies change for the better.
7. I synthesized “Resisting Food Safety”, “You are what they eat”, and Food Inc. by stringing together their info on the agencies. “Resisting Food Safety” and “You are what they eat” were especially easy because they focused heavily on these agencies. Food Inc came into play with the whole immigration topic that was created in the drafting process. These 3 texts come together slowly but in the end they work out well in supporting each other.
8. I ended up keeping the same lede that I started with. I believe that the first sentence being a question really draws the reader in. I also think that the inclusion of various statistics that relate to the reader can help as well so i kept those aspects.
9. During the next Units I’d like to write to the best of my ability and make sure that I research even more than I did for this Unit to makes sure that I have as much information as possible.