In the grainy video of his deposition, the farmer hunches over the desk in front of him. He intermittently rubs his downcast forehead with a weathered hand. Moe Parr’s posture emulates defeat and heartbreak.

In this scene from the documentary, Food Inc., Monsanto lawyers berate the aged and demoralized farmer with a litany of question about bank reports and business relations. This moment serves as an appropriate analogy for the dynamics between farmers and corporations and the control corporations exact over the conventional farming industry.

Over ninety percent of the soybeans in the U.S. contain Monsanto’s patent gene and, in the above scene, the multinational corporation is suing Parr for saving soybean seeds. Even though the seeds Parr is saving are not Monsanto soybeans, Parr is still dragged through the legal process for merely influencing or “inducing” other farmers to save seed. According to the documentary, a team of Monsanto investigators roams the country monitoring and prosecuting farmers for saving seed and violating patent infringement.

“I can remember when the first prohibitions against seed saving came into being,” says Troy Roush, Vice President of American Corn Growers Association, in an interview in the documentary, “Most farmers were just absolutely disgusted with the whole concept. It’s been interesting over the course of 11 years to watch us go from utter contempt for the notion that we can’t save our own seed to acceptance.”

Corporations have a clout and reach so pervasive and powerful that they can destroy a farmer’s life with a set of charges completely detached from truth. Parr was forced to settle out of court because he couldn’t afford his legal bills.

“I am finished,” Parr’s slow country drawl plays over the footage of his interrogation with the lawyers.

For years, debates over food production and regulation in America have drifted into the national conversation. Documentaries, op-eds, studies, articles and books present arguments defending or condemning conventional farming processes and organic alternatives. Critics of conventional farming repeatedly deconstruct the processes and the environment of the industry while highlighting safety oversights, risks of food contamination and the systemic spread of food-related illnesses. The regular outbreaks of E. coli and listeria provide an example of that as they continue to claim headlines and steal lives. But parallel to discussions over the nutritional value and health risks of mass-produced food, the exploitation of the workers and animals involved in the industry is another jarring facet of this matter.

The video footage surfing the internet of baby chicks being thrown into machines or pigs being electrocuted or cows being beaten is often fodder enough to convert people to vegetarianism or convince them to shop at local farmers’ markets. But in addition to the unsightly abuse of animals, these corporations also exploit humans. This is revealed in the working conditions in slaughterhouses, notorious for being physically dangerous and emotionally exhausting. According to the food justice organization, Food Empowerment Project, of the 500,000 people working in these meat-processing facilities, many are undocumented workers or people of color from low-income communities. Most of these workers are “at-will” employees, meaning the threat of immediately termination from a supervisor is always present.

“Supervisors use a variety of intimidation tactics to suppress workers’ concerns and make it clear that other people are always available to replace them. As a result, workers are conditioned to accept a hazardous and demeaning work environment if they want to remain employed,” the Food Empowerment Project website reads.

Marion Nestle mentions in her book, “Food Politics,” that large corporations often employ illegal immigrants specifically because they are unlikely to vie for better working conditions or wages. The industry strategically constructs an employee demographic of immigrants, teenagers and other often ignored people groups because they are less likely to know their rights and more willing to endure minimum wages with no benefits or chances for pay raises.

Corruption between corporations and government agencies also makes them involved in establishing the very regulations that are supposed to leash and monitor them. Corporations often determine, or at least influence, the rules and government agencies fall in line. Without real accountability and consequences, these corporations repeatedly prove irresponsible with health and safety measures while solely perseverating on their own profit. They can introduce new methods of production that risk the safety of people and animals, but weld enough money and shady connections to silence pushback.

In the abovementioned documentary, there is a scene where the jolly and portly chicken farmer, Vince Edwards drives the documentarians to his farm. Proud of the production of his poultry, Edwards seems eager to showcase his coups to the camera crew. But his employer, Tyson, steps in before and informs Edwards he is not allowed to show the inner workings of his own farm. Edwards give a sheepish shrug and a toothy grin. He doesn’t know why he can’t. But those are his orders. Moments like this again illustrate the reach and power of these corporations.

While company authorities intimidated Edwards’ enthusiasm to showcase his coups, Carole Morison said she felt compelled to speak on the topic. “I understand why farmers don’t want to talk because the company can do what it wants to do as far as pay goes since they control everything. But it has just gotten to the point that it is not right what is going on,” said the chicken farmer. “This isn’t farming. This is mass production like as assembly line in a factory,” she continued as she toured the documentarians through her coups, expressing disgust at the conditions.

That scene shows bloated chickens pumped up on drugs to fatten them up and to increase profits. Their bulging bodies are deformed with tumors of extra and abnormal fat from the antibiotics. Their spindly legs cannot support their extreme weight so their short lives are mostly sedentary.

Some corporations require that the chickens be kept in huts that are completely enclosed. So in addition to crammed courters and malformed bodies, these animals are also sentenced to a life of pitch black. Morison refused to enclose her open-windowed coup. The film reported that her contract with Perdue was later voided for her actions.

Amid the critiques and negativity though, Blake Hurst heralds conventional farming practices in his article, “Organic Illusions.” In fact, he frames the current conditions as not repressive but as almost liberating for the workforce. With experience and insight as an actual farmer, Hurst harkens back to the olden days emphasizing that conditions today are less physically draining on workers and demand less labor from them.

“Those of us who grew up with a hoe in our hand have absolutely no nostalgia for days gone by,” Hurst remarks, “People love to talk about traditional agriculture, but I’ve noticed that their willingness to embrace the land is often mostly metaphorical.”

Hurst also believes that conventional farming methods serve an even more grandiose purpose for humanity. In a world without the pesticides and slaughterhouses that make farming easier and more efficient, Hurst notes that more people would be sweating and slaving in fields right now. But, now those people are enable to be elsewhere in the world becoming playwrights and philosophers and doctors.

But the reality of the socioeconomics of food industry workers, a collection of mostly disenfranchised laborers working meager wages and often in unsafe conditions, dulls the romanticism which Hurst paints. Although fewer people may be hoeing potato fields right now, many are being exploited and abused by corporations. And while unemployment has almost returned to pre-Great Recession rates, jobs are always welcomed in the States. So Hurst’s lofty argument that contemporary farming liberates more people from the monotony of farm work to find more artist or altruistic endeavors seems to fall flat as well.

In a Consumer Reports article analyzing conventional farming methods and how there is contamination and oversight in that process, some of the potential sicknesses animals can contract were listed. The article reads, “Regulatory loopholes could allow mad cow infection, if present, to make its way into cattle feed; drugs used in chickens could raise human exposure to arsenic or antibiotic-resistant bacteria; farmed fish could harbor PCBs and dioxins.”

This catalog of health risks present to animals (and the humans that consume them) points to these procedures not being the cleanest and healthiest means of farming. These diseases evoke a picture of these animals’ condition as clearly insufficient. No longer does the image of American farming conjure up a scene of healthy animals in green pastures. But now the snapshot of farming equates to hordes of animal bodies, pumped up on drugs or standing in feces or crammed in cages and pens. And although the condition of farmers and workers is different, many argue is just a different manifestation of abuse.

1.) The idea of a “writer’s project” is sort of like a thesis, but more expanded with more exchange and breath. Instead of summing up the writer’s whole collection of work with one statement or idea, the idea of a project tracks the process of communication and thought to encompass the whole idea with its uses and shortcomings. My own “project” is to show examples and moments of abuse and exploitation of farmers, workers and animals. These moments collectively help to inform my “thesis” that corporations are the abusers with unmatched and unrestrained power and influence.

2.)  I was actually sick during the day the class completed this workshop. But I found all the charts we made during class to be very helpful in writing my article. I was able to pull detailed and specific information from multiple sources and see how the projects in several sources parallel or contradicted each other. This was extremely helpful when synthesizing my own project. Several themes had been reiterated in different ways and I was able to construct my own narrative from that.

3.)  My understanding of synthesis is that is it the understanding of a writer’s project and being able to mesh multiple projects or perspectives together to construct a dominate message or to communicate an idea. I do this is my own piece when I use the different insights from the Food Empowerment Project and Nestle’s book to discuss the injustice of the socioeconomics of farmers and labors. I do this in another way when I pieced together Nestle or Hurst show different opinions about that same topic.

4.) I learned to collect different sources together to prove one concise point that was solidly backed up and convincing.

5.) The main idea started with inspiration. I was so disturbed after watching Food Inc. that I knew I wanted to talk about the human side of the issue. How cruel people are treated. I started with emotion and refine it to be a concise argument. I jotted down in my notebook how jarring the scenes from the documentary were and then I revisited those notes and created the narrative aspect of my article, like the anecdote with Morison and Edwards and Parr.

 

6.) The way I write in general sort of lacks organization or method. I just sit down and try to become inspired and just kind of feel when the piece is making sense or not. I write and then edit and refine and edit and refine. I think in my first drafts though, my piece was academic and wordy and as I edited I tried to water all that down and make it more conversational. Here is a paragraph from my first draft and then the final version that show this transition: ” Hurst harkens back to the olden days showing that although conditions aren’t ideal now, they might be less physically draining and involved for farmers and workers. He says conventional farming gives time and space to people that would have spent hours in a field to become playwrights and philosophers and doctors. But in her book, “Resisting Food Safety,” Marion Nestle mentions that the food industry hires mostly immigrants and teenagers at meager wages.”

“Amid the critiques and negativity though, Blake Hurst heralds conventional farming practices in his article, “Organic Illusions.” In fact, he frames the current conditions as not repressive but as almost liberating for the workforce. With experience and insight as an actual farmer, Hurst harkens back to the olden days emphasizing that conditions today are less physically draining on workers and demand less labor from them.”

I think in the second example, my point and language are more concise and direct.

 

 

7.)In discussing the work conditions of laborers in the industrial farming industry, I used Nestle and another outside source (the Food Empowerment Project website) to show how arduous working conditions in farming are today. But I also included Hurst and his positive outlook on how modern methods of farming actually benefit the workers. I did this to add balance and give two opinions on the matter.

8.)  Initially, my lede was dry and wordy. And in the passive voice. The first two sentences in my first draft were: “For years, debates over food production and regulation in America have drifted into the national conversation. Documentaries, op-eds, studies, articles and books have constructed arguments defending or condemning conventional farming processes or organic alternatives.” I tried to be creative, but it was sort of dull and dispassionate. After reading the article in class about ledes, I decided to do something more interesting and something I thought would grip the reader. I got good feedback from my peers during groups edits, so I just revised and used that: In the grainy video of his deposition, the farmer hunches over the desk in front of him. He intermittently rubs his downcast forehead with a weathered hand. Moe Parr’s posture emulates defeat and heartbreak.

In this scene from the documentary, Food Inc., Monsanto lawyers berate the aged and demoralized farmer with a litany of question about bank reports and business relations. This moment serves as an appropriate analogy for the dynamics between farmers and corporations and the control corporations exact over the conventional farming industry.

 

9.) I would like to improve my writing overall with a more developed vocabulary and concise way of communicating my intent. I want my writing to be fluid and punchy. I don’t just want to provide information, but to provide narrative and evoke emotion. Basically, I want to become a more powerful writer.

The food industry is one of the most overlooked industries there is. The safety and regulation of the food is in the hands of big businesses that dominate certain areas of the industry. The consumer knows what the big businesses want them to know and it is very hard to find answers to questions as simple as where their food is produced. Anything that goes wrong is blamed on the consumer. The lack of knowledge and government regulation raises many concerns within the industry, and more needs to be done to make the system more transparent. The everyday human has countless things to worry about, wondering if their food is safe should not be one of them.

 

Food is defined as any nutritional substance that people or animals eat or drink in order to maintain life and growth. This means that food is a necessity. Often when it comes to food, people go grocery shopping, order in, or go out to dinner whenever they feel slightly hungry. A lot of times people get food not even because they are hungry but because they are bored and it is something to do. It is natural to want to eat food because a person spends so much of their life doing it.

However, it is very uncommon for people when deciding where to eat or what to buy, to consider where that restaurant or supermarket, gets their meat and produce from. Rarely do people when ordering a salad ask where the lettuce or tomatoes are from, or what the diet of the cow that became their hamburger was. People do not question their food and assume that since they need it to survive, it is safe.

Marion Nestle, a nutrition and public health professor at New York University, sums this up completely in Part One of her book Food Politics, when she says that most people view food poisoning as an “uncomfortable inconvenience” and “random bad luck” rather than “industry and government indifference and outright obstructionism.” They simply do not feel well for a day or two and then go about their lives like nothing happened.

She is entirely right when she says that people do not take food poisoning seriously and it is a serious problem. The numbers of cases of food poisoning cannot be completely accurate because a lot of times people do not report them. Since it is seen as not a big deal, many people will just not return to the restaurant that gave it to them, or will stay away from whatever food made them ill. Nestle states, “The most authoritative estimate of the yearly number of cases of foodborne disease in the United States defies belief: 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, 5,000 deaths.” Foodborne illnesses are nothing to be taken lightly. Bacteria such as salmonella and E. Coli can have serious negative effects on the human body and may even be life threatening.

Food Inc., a documentary by Robert Kenner and Eric Schlosser, featuring Michael Pollan, shows some of the corruption within the food system. The journalists interview a woman whose life was personally affected by the damage done by E. Coli. Barbara Kowalcyk’s whole world came crashing down after a vacation she went on with her family. While away, her two-year-old son, Kevin, consumed a hamburger that was contaminated with E. Coli 0157:H7. Blood was found in his stool and his kidneys started to fail. This little boy went from being perfectly healthy to passing away in just twelve days. Kowalyck is a Food Safety Advocate and was fighting for what happened to her son. She would schedule appointments with government agencies such as the USDA, but they would only see her for about five to ten minutes. Nothing was ever done by the government in regard of her son, and the meat company was never held responsible.

One thing every part of the food industry has in common is that they fail to take responsibility when something goes wrong. This is present in every step of the farm to fork process. Nestle puts it simply when she says, “producers blame processors for foodborne illness, and processors blame producers; government regulators blame both, and everyone blames the consumers.” The lack of taking responsibility is the first thing that needs to change in order for bigger changes to be made. In an article written my Michael Moss of New York Times, Food Companies Are Placing the Onus for Food Safety on Consumers, Moss informs readers about how big companies try to dodge taking the blame in any way they can. In 2007, a product of ConAgra Foods, frozen pot pies, contaminated about 15,000 people with salmonella. The company tested the ingredients to find out what exactly caused the illness in so many people, however, they could not pinpoint which of the ingredients was responsible. Instead of doing more tests and finding out exactly where the food that goes into their products comes from, ConAgra decided to avoid all accountability by making anything that happens the consumers fault. The company wrote food safety instructions on the pot pie packaging saying, “Internal temperature needs to reach 165 degrees Fahrenheit as measured by a food thermometer in several spots.” Therefore if a person gets sick because the actual pot pie was contaminated with bacteria, the company can argue that the consumer did not follow the instructions and heat the product right. This was also seen when General Mills had recalled about five million frozen pizzas in 2007. The instructions on the box now suggest to “avoid microwaves and cook only with conventional ovens.” Other major companies including Nestlé, and The Blackstone Group are also guilty of shifting the burden to consumers. These food giants make up most of the brands that fill the shelves of supermarkets, yet they are “unable to guarantee the safety of their ingredients.”

The food industry is a very delicate system and should have more government regulation. Although agencies such as the FDA and USDA exist, they are not as thorough as they could and should be. It is very easy for good ingredients to get contaminated at some point in the production process, as seen in the article You Are What They Eat. Starting at the farm, it is important that the animals are fed and taken care of properly. What is most important is that they eat feed that is safe and uncontaminated. Consumer Reports exposes what items go into the feeds that farmers give to cattle, chickens, and fish. While the feeds consisted of some disturbing things, such as poultry litter, feathers, feces, bone meal, and waste from coops, they were all FDA approved and said to contain nutritional benefits to the animals. With this array of ingredients it is incredibly easy for the feeds to get contaminated, “simply by being stored in the wrong bin.” When meat from contaminated animals is produced and sold throughout the world, it can do a lot of damage to a lot of people. This is why it is important that everyone at each stage of the process must take responsibility for his or her actions.

There are constant debates about the nutritional value of organic farming versus conventional farming. Organic is believed to be better nutritionally because it does not contain chemical pesticides. Blake Hurst raises some concerns in his article “Organic Illusions”, by questioning that declaration. Hurst, who is a third-generation farmer, explains how easy it is for pesticides from neighboring conventional farms to drift and pollute organic farms. Products are labeled organic due to the producer’s claim of following organic procedures. “No testing is done to check the veracity of these claims,” according to Hurst. If organic foods are not really what they are said to be, this is another way for businesses to take advantage of the consumer. Organic products are often more expensive because they are produced in a more natural way. If the products are not actually produced by organic procedures, the consumer is once again in the dark and held subjective to the food system.

This is another issue within the food system that could easily be fixed with more government regulation. People should not have to guess or be unsure if their spinach is actually organic or if the chicken they are planning on making for dinner was stored improperly and now contains bacteria. More emphasis needs to be put on food safety practices and big businesses should not be allowed to find loop polls out of taking responsibility for the foodborne illnesses that arise from their products. In the words of Barbara Kowalcyk, “We put faith into our government to protect us and we’re not being protected.”

Food safety is a very important issue and more people need to become aware of it. By laying back and being uninformed about the severity of foodborne illnesses and the effects that bacteria’s such as salmonella and E.Coli can have on individuals and their families, people are prolonging the changes that the food industry, and more importantly, the consumers, desperately need.

 

Reflection

• Describe your understanding of the “writer’s project”? How were you able to identify the texts’ “project”? Discuss your own “project” as it pertains to this particular blog article.

The writers project is the main point that the author is trying to get across in his or her piece. You can identify it in a piece because it is the main claim the author makes and what other parts of the piece are trying to support. My project in this piece was to show people that there is a lack of government regulation in the food industry and that there are many issues that arise because of that.

• Describe your completion of the “Sorting it Out” workshop? What sections were most beneficial to the development of your ideas—and why? Discuss how this workshop assisted in development of draft and/or assignment organization?

The workshop was beneficial because it made it easy to see what the main point of each piece was and how they related to each other. Also listing important themes and people in each made it helpful to not forget anything important that you wanted to include.

• Describe your understanding of synthesis. What is its importance? How did it manifest within your drafts and/or final blog article? Provide examples.

Synthesis is when you analyze multiple texts and then relate them to each other. You talk about each piece, but you do not summarize them, and you make connections using direct quotes and important ideas. I got a better understanding of synthesis after Amy showed us her paragraph from the four quotes of the VMAs. I tried to do that in my piece, using direct quotes that really supported what I was arguing in a major way.

• Describe your own accomplishment (ofsomething) during this unit.

During this unit I think I became better at arguing one thing and sticking to it. In past papers I have written, sometimes I would jump all over the place and argue multiple things at one time. With this paper I think I really stuck to my main argument and used the sources to support it very well.

• Discuss the evolution of the main idea. Where did you begin (include the example) and show its progress (again, include example) throughout the drafting/revision process. To what do you attribute its evolution?

When I began this project, I was a little overwhelmed because there were so many sources that portrayed so many different aspects of the food system. My main idea was rather broad at first but what still mostly about how many people do not know where their food comes from and the secrecy of the system. As I wrote my first draft, I focused a lot on who hold the power in the system and how big businesses such as Monsanto, contribute to the lack of knowledge of the consumer. When I sat down to write my final paper, I sort of combined the two but focused more on how more government regulation could fix both of these issues. Each source we had to use gave examples of issues that could be fixed with more government involvement.

• Discuss what organizational strategies you implemented in order to structure this blog article. Provide examples from a section(s) of an earlier draft and other excerpts in later drafts to support your response.

For my blog article I started off with trying to inform people about how serious foodborne illnesses can be and why it is important to be informed about the issues. I then took arguments from each source that supported why more people need to be more concerned when it comes to their food and how more regulation could fix these problems.

•  Provide an example of the final draft where you successfully synthesize 3 texts in a concise and direct manner. Discuss how this evolved throughout the drafting process for you.

“Marion Nestle, a nutrition and public health professor at New York University, sums this up completely in Part One of her book Food Politics, when she says that most people view food poisoning as an “uncomfortable inconvenience” and “random bad luck” rather than “industry and government indifference and outright obstructionism.” They simply do not feel well for a day or two and then go about their lives like nothing happened.” In the next paragraph I then talk about Food Inc. and how the little boy, Kevin, was affected by a foodborne illness. I also then talk about my outside source, which deals with how big companies are trying to not be held accountable for illnesses by making it the consumer’s responsibility.

• Discuss the evolution of the ‘lede’ in earlier drafts and its final version (provide examples of each): where did you begin, what feedback did you receive, and how did it end up in final blog article?

In my earlier drafts I did not even include a lede. I did not know what he term was or how it would affect my paper. In my later drafts I worked on making a lede that was informative and concise but also creative enough to get the reader to want to continue reading my paper. In my final blog post, I tried to relate to the everyday person and grab their attention, while stating facts about how little people know about the food system.

• Name a specific writing/researching/revision goal you’d like to work on during the next Unit projects.

I would like to work more on my writing and making it stand out. I want people to want to read what I have to write about and make it more fun, creative, and informative, rather than just dry and informative.

We trust what we are putting in our body because anything unhealthy, sanitized or even deathly would obviously be break a lot of rules in the food industry and would be stopped by the government, right? Of course, There are tons of strict regulations that protect what we are eating and how its produced? Nope. The Government and Food Industry aren’t as trust worthy as we hope to believe.

The food industry has changed tremendously in the last 60 years. From farms, local and small companies to large, corrupt corporations that mass produces chemically enhanced foods. Our country has no clue what is happening behind the mouth watering meats and healthy looking vegetables. Even sometimes “organic foods” are misleading and most people don’t even want to know.

Each year, over 70 million people are effected by a food borne illness, and this number is just rising. Even young children are being affected by this harmful diseases.  Robert Kenner, Food Inc. introduces the story of Kevin Kowalcyk, a young boy who died after eating only one hamburger on his way home from vacation. For years, Kevin’s mother and family has shared their story and fought the food industry’s to pass important regulation laws but it continues to be a constant battle. You would think the death of an innocent child would be enough to stop these food companies from sliding through regulations.

In one of the strongest industry’s, shouldn’t the government, medical world and corporations be heavily involved in stopping these food borne illness’s? Food companies don’t even have to have a recall a product they know is causing sickness, but many do just for the image. Its very uncommon that the government and even doctors step in unless hundreds get ill or there are multiple deaths. Mostly because its too much effort to have evidence that a certain food caused a death. Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics, and Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at NYU, states “USDA has 7,000 inspectors or so, and they over see 6,000 meat, poultry and egg establishments and 130 importers that slaughter and process 89 million pigs, 37 million cattle and 7 billion chickens and turkeys, not to mention the 25 billion pounds of been and 7 billion pounds of ground beef each year… The demands on the FDA are even more unreasonable. About 700 FDA inspectors must oversee 30,000 food manufacturers and processors, 10,000 warehouses, 785,000 commercial and institutional food establishments, 128,000 grocery and convenience stores, and 1.5 million vending operations.” We hope that professionals, like food inspectors are making sure these companies aren’t getting away with unhealthy and harmful practices of food processing, but we can’t when we don’t even have enough of them to go around.

Food Inc., an extremely effective way of opening the world to the corrupt and unhealthy food industry, takes the viewer right to the source, showing the conditions these animals are living in. They are packed into small, tight, feces ridden dark shacks, eating pounds of chemically packed foods, which leads straight to where we don’t want them; our bodies. Many don’t think or care about what the animals are eating, but according to Consumer Reports, You are What They Eat. Cows, are being fed corn which creates a fatter cow and more beef which yes, may save money for the company and farmers, but packs the animals with bacteria.  This bacteria is extremely harmful to not only their bodies but then to us. The bacteria found in their feces are often mixed in to our meat supply because of the busy and over packed slaughter houses. These cows should be fed what nature made them to eat, grass, And only grass.

It isn’t only the animals being treated poorly but the workers as well. Carole, a farmer introduced in Food Inc, states, “Having no say in your business is degrading, its like you are a slave to the company.” These large corporations break many labor and job laws as well, overworking their employees in harmful and unhealthy conditions. Robert Kenner and his film Food Inc, opens our eyes to way the food industry takes over everything, “It looks like there is diversity in supermarkets but its really just a few companies” Journalist, Michael Pollen states making us realize what we thought of as small, local and healthy brands are owned by huge corporations like Kellogg, Tyson, and Pepsi. Michael Pollen also speaks about the harmful and genetically modified foods we are eating “There is no seasons in the American supermarket. Now there are tomatoes all year round, grown halfway around the world, picked when it was green, and ripened with ethylene gas. Although it looks like a tomato, its kind of a notional tomato. I mean it’s the idea of a tomato” Yes, maybe it is nice to be able to eat your favorite fruit or vegetable all year round, but it is anything but natural.

Organic Illusions, written by Blake Hurst shines a light on the organic food industry as well. Although Organic foods are the better path to take, its still hard to trust a company that we don’t know much about. “Organic foods are labeled as organic because producers certify that they’ve followed organic procedures. No testing is done to check the veracity of these claims.” Although Hurst does not provide much evidence about these problems and the studies included had little numbers and dates, it still gets the job done of making the public question what we are putting inside our bodies.

Knowing the harmful qualities of the food you are eating, and the lack of regulation among he food industry, do you feel the need to change the way you go about finding the right food? You should. In order to stop these companies from taking over this country and to decrease the number of deaths from food borne illness, the majority has to take a stand and not support the corruption happening in the industry.

 

Reflection Questions

• Describe your understanding of the “writer’s project”? How were you able to identify the texts’ “project”? Discuss your own “project” as it pertains to this particular blog article.

The writers project was very helpful in the process of writing my own blog post. Looking at each text, I asked myself, “What are they trying to do?”  and “What are they using to do this.” My Writing project is similar to the texts we read in class, which was to make the reader question what they were eating. I used evidence and excerpts from multiple texts to show my knowledge on the subject from reading these multiple articles and to back up my statements.

 

• Describe your completion of the “Sorting it Out” workshop? What sections were most beneficial to the development of your ideas—and why? Discuss how this workshop assisted in development of draft and/or assignment organization?

“Sorting it out” was very helpful, in well, Sorting it all out. After reading multiple texts over the unit, it was helpful to go back and find the specific and important main things that made up the article. It was able to clear up and distinguish each article from its own and was very helpful when it came to writing about each text in my blog post.

• Describe your understanding of synthesis. What is its importance? How did it manifest within your drafts and/or final blog article? Provide examples.

Synthesis is the combining of multiple ideas and elements to make up a theory. This was important to think about when working with multiple texts, like Food Inc., organic Illusions, Food Politics etc. It was hard at first to be able to synthesize so many ideas into one article but I feel like I was successful by the final.

• Describe your own accomplishment (ofsomething) during this unit.

I believe my strength in my blog post was how I was able to swiftly move from one example from a text to another. I feel like sometimes It can be awkward to read a quote from one article and move to another example but I think I did well at making it clear and natural.

 

• Discuss the evolution of the main idea. Where did you begin (include the example) and show its progress (again, include example) throughout the drafting/revision process. To what do you attribute its evolution?

 

My main idea was talking about the text and their writing projects, I talked about what each article did well at and why. Throughout the drafts I added more specific information from each article so the reader was learning things about the food industry and not the articles themselves.

• Discuss what organizational strategies you implemented in order to structure this blog article. Provide examples from a section(s) of an earlier draft and other excerpts in later drafts to support your response.

Looking back I noticed the evolution of my closing. Have always had trouble with closing statements and have a habit of ending my papers on a quick and unfinished note. My first draft I ended with talking about organic illusions, “Although Hurst does not provide much evidence about these problems and the studies included had little numbers and dates, it still gets the job done of making the public question what we are putting inside our bodies.” I then added on and used a full closing statement to sum up the post “Knowing the harmful qualities of the food you are eating, and the lack of regulation among he food industry, do you feel the need to change the way you go about finding the right food? You should. In order to stop these companies from taking over this country and to decrease the number of deaths from food borne illness, the majority has to take a stand and not support the corruption happening in the industry.”

 

• Provide an example of the final draft where you successfully synthesize 3 texts in a concise and direct manner. Discuss how this evolved throughout the drafting process for you.

I think this was a strong use of synthesis. “Food Inc., an extremely effective way of opening the world to the corrupt and unhealthy food industry, takes the viewer right to the source, showing the conditions these animals are living in. They are packed into small, tight, feces ridden dark shacks, eating pounds of chemically packed foods, which leads straight to where we don’t want them; our bodies. Many don’t think or care about what the animals are eating, but according to Consumer Reports, You are What they eat.” I then move into talking about the Consumer Reports article.

 

• Discuss the evolution of the ‘lede’ in earlier drafts and its final version (provide examples of each): where did you begin, what feedback did you receive, and how did it end up in final blog article?

I cannot find my original draft with my opening but I do know My lede evolved tremendously. Before doing the lede workshop my opening wasn’t as strong and captivating. It was very wordy and boring. I believe using questions in my lede, make you want to keep reading.

• Name a specific writing/researching/revision goal you’d like to work on during the next Unit projects.

 

I think I need to work on diving deeper into information. I tend to stay pretty specific and stick getting the message across instead of developing and giving lots of information on a certain topic. I think its important to be able to dive deeper, especially on research articles.

 

The food industry is one of the most important yet controversial industries in modern capitalism. Established by a few big name brands, the food industry is comprised of big businesses trying to make the biggest bang for their buck. However, the methods used in order to ensure efficiency and create the cheapest possible product, comes with a price. We have discovered in class that food industry uses unsanitary and dishonest techniques in order to maximize their profit. With the recent exposure towards to methods that they normally keep behind the scenes, the food industry has been taking hits from people and companies that value healthy foods and a healthy environment. There is conflict between being healthy, and promoting health and well-being, and supporting the capitalistic business methods that exploit the system by practicing unsanitary and dishonest methods, but, yield the most in profit and efficiency. The question that I would like to bring up is: should the food industry be a part of the capitalistic system, or should a new structure be implemented that eliminates dishonesty to the public?

The intricate factor that a food company has versus, let’s say, a software company, is the fact that every human needs to eat. There is a large percentage of the population that does not have access to fresh and wholesome food, and therefore, taking away opportunities for people to be healthy. They are stuck buying cheaper products such as soda and fast-food, and are unable to control their diet due to economic issues. Organic companies are usually smaller establishments, and/or controlled by larger businesses. Due to the rigged system of capitalism, the smaller, health-branded companies’ products are marketed at a significantly higher cost. This is due to the fact that the larger food companies have the power, money, and resources to have cheaper prices, and run the smaller industries out of commision. In the movie Food Inc., a family explains how they are caught between buying quality food due to the high cost of medication for his diabetes, an illness that is correlated to what you eat and your body’s health. Paradoxically, purchasing high cost medication over healthy foods results the continuation of the family’s state of bad health. This cycle continues over and over again to people who suffer from poverty. Everyone should be able to have access to live a healthy life; it should not be determined by your economic standing.

Food companies, such Tyson, have mastered a system that yields the most efficiency for their product. They are able to mass produce food at a fast rate for the lowest possible cost. Customers are grateful for these low prices, and continue to purchase their products. The companies are doing their job, and we as consumers love the affordability of their product. But, ethically, is it right to  support companies and their dishonest methods? There are two schools of thought. One, that we, as the customer, are not at fault. We have the final say in what we purchase, and that the cruel methods have no effect on our lives or the product, so why should we be complaining about the efficient and low prices of the food. Hurst, writer of Organic Illusions, explains that “plants and animals aren’t the least bit interested in the story the farmer has to tell. They don’t care about his sense of social justice, the size of his farm, or the business model that he has chosen. Plants don’t respond by growing better if the farmer is local, and pigs don’t care much about the methods used in the production of their daily ration. If those inputs that animals and plants require to grow are present, plants and animals respond in pretty similar ways. That means that when organic and/or conventional farmers provide the environment necessary for growth, plants and animals respond.” It is argued that anthropomorphism only limits ourselves as humans. However, we should not only practice for the sake of the environment and livestock, but for the sake of our own health. The other, that we as the customer have the power to change this seemingly rigged system, so why should we sit back and accept the cruel methods of the industry. The only way to make change is to change. While the food industry may be unsanitary and cruel to animals, they are still technically producing food legally through government regulation. The issue is not necessarily about their food production, but the amount of power and influence they have on smaller and less established organizations. We have the power to change if we really want to, but it has to be a collective effort in order to make a stance against the establishment. Are we willing to pay a little extra money for a more organic product?

From a capitalistic perspective, the organic and healthier food industries would have to somehow combat the already established companies low priced products. From a liberal, almost socialistic perspective, the government would have to more gain control over the industry as a whole.  Barry Yeoman, author of the Organic Food Paradox, writes “if there was ever a time when consumer demand could support organic farmers like the Bowerses, that moment is now. Americans have grown savvy to the health and environmental benefits of foods produced without chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Organic food sales grew 7.7 percent in 2010 to $28.6 billion, more than ten times the growth rate for all food. Organics now command a 4 percent share of the total food market, up from 1.6 percent a decade ago.” This increase in growth is only the beginning for the organic revolution.

The increase of competition in the food industry will cause the power that the food industry holds to be re-distributed to the people. The people should hold the power in what they want to purchase, and WHAT they are purchasing. However, should food be handled by businesses, or the government? As humans, I believe that everyone should have the ability to obtain a healthy meal. The fact that people are unable to eat healthy and then become unhealthy due to economic issues is not right. People end up getting caught in this cycle of lack of health and are stuck contributing to the system. I believe that the structure of how we grow and produce our food needs to progressively change to support the health of everyone.

 In 1906, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, a novel that exposed the food industry in a light that would gain attention politically through socialistic commentary.  He described these meat factories as “dingy,” “whose labyrinthine passages defied a breath of fresh air to penetrate them, and there were rivers of hot blood and carloads of moist flesh,” that “smelt like the craters of hell.” Rightfully so, Teddy Roosevelt established the Federal Meat Inspection Act, and other regulations to make sure the food industry was following a set of guidelines to ensure a quality product. This was the first of many acts and bills that involved the food industry. Nestle explains that “prior to the 1800s, the U.S. government took no responsibility for food safety.” Government regulation was the first step in ensuring a wholesome product, but businesses were still able to exploit the system in order to make prices cheaper. There needs to be a balance between the amount of freedom farmers have and the amount of control the government has on the product.

We are at a time in history where we the people have the power to determine how our future will turn out. With an rapid increase in technology and innovation we are at the crossroads of the future of the American system. It is the beginning of new reforms and lifestyles that will change the American standard, and it is in the palm of our hands. The food industry has been a crucial part of our society for over a century, and has had tremendous impacts on our nation economically and socially. With recent buzz over the rise of organic foods and the dishonesty and unsanitary methods of the industrial food industry, it is clear to see that the current system has flaws to the operation. I believe that the food industry should consist of a balance of government regulation, and free market capitalism. I think the key to achieving a healthier and a more quality food system is to put the government in charge of growing and agriculture, and to have independent businesses be in charge of processing and distributing the food. If this were the case, it would eliminate the dishonesty between the people and the product. The government would have full control over the quality and ensure the product is healthy. Businesses would have full control over what they do with the product, in terms of marketing and distributing, and spark competition amongst the various brands. This system would eliminate the unfair advantage these huge corporations have, and allow the success of the business to be determined by their ability to BE a business. The business aspect of the food industry should not have to do with the growth and quality of the food — that part should be equal to guaranteed quality. There are many unfair systems that spark controversy in America, and there are many different angles and perspectives you can take on them. But at the end of the day, the most important thing to think about is the future and well being of humanity as a whole.

 

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

 

1. My understanding of the writers project is to successfully engage the reader with both the sources and your own personal voice. To do this you must understand the and tone of the articles and ideally have a conversation between the sources and your audience. My writers project was to bring up the controversy and different angles of the situation that is the food industry
2. I think the most beneficial section was the organizational section of the texts. Sometimes it is hard to pin-point a theme of a passage and i found this very helpful for organizing my thoughts.
3. Synthesis is very important to break down the themes and messages of passages you are quoting. By synthesizing the texts, you are able to take the message the author is saying and use it for your own argument.
4. I feel like I did a good job talking about the full picture in this essay. It is very important when claiming an argument to see all of the different angles and perspectives.
5. I began my essay talking about the controversy of the food industry. I then discussed the issues and concerns that people had with the industry. I finally wrapped up my claim with a personalized statement in which i thought would be the best solution.
6. I wanted to provide different angles in my essay. I started out discussing the big picture “There is a large percentage of the population that does not have access to fresh and wholesome food, and therefore, taking away opportunities for people to be healthy”, and then narrowed it down with sources from the individual departments (Organic, Capitalistic, Government) and how they contribute to the problem.
7. In my final draft, I used sources from Organic Illusions, The Jungle, and, The Paradox of Organic Foods. In the beginning I had different sources but as my idea and message got clearer, I used these texts to support my argument.
8. My original lede was “ There is controversy between the organic and industrial food industry,” but then I evolved my idea to be “There is conflict between being healthy, and promoting health and well-being, and supporting the capitalistic business methods that exploit the system by practicing unsanitary and dishonest methods, but, yield the most in profit and efficiency.” I added specifics in my argument to make the message clearer to the reader.
9. For the next unit project I would like to take a less conventional stance on an argument and practice making claims from all angles.

If corporations are legally people, then why are they not susceptible to food borne illnesses and death like the rest of us? Corporations in the big food industry have been controlling federal regulations to raise profits at the expense of public health because why would corporations care about something that can not affect them?

The industrial farming industry is vast and complicated. There are legal, political, environmental, and social issues that are all interconnected and many proponents on either side of the debate between conventional farming versus organic farming. Conventional farming is big, efficient and influenced by factories more than the idea of a rural farm in Middle America. Organic farming on the other hand has the ability to change the way we perceive where we get our food from and the process it takes to get to us.

There are many players in the industrial farming industry. But maybe there are not as many as there used to be. As little as 40 years ago the top five beef packers controlled about 25% of the market. Today, the top four control over 80% of the same market. As shown in Food, Inc. there were thousands of functioning slaughterhouses. Today there are only 13 in the United States.

Perhaps one of the largest players in the food industry would be Monsanto, who back in the 1950s was a chemical company that produced things like DDT and agent orange. Robert Kenner, director of Food, Inc., believes that large corporations such as Monsanto have created a monopoly on the majority of the food industry in the United States. Because of this, regulations and food safety have become secondary to the bottom line of these corporations and people, like Tom Roush who was sued by Monsanto because of patent infringement, are suffering because of it.

These large scale agriculture corporations are able to control regulations through lobbying the government. As Mariam Nestle said in her book “Resisting Food Safety,” there has been a “historic closeness of working relationships among congressional agriculture committees, federal regulatory agencies, and food producers.”

As we saw in the Bush administration the head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Lester M. Crawford Jr., was also the former executive VP of the National Food Processors Association and the chief of staff at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), James F. Fitzgerald, was the former chief lobbyist for the beef industry in Washington.

With all the food borne illness in the United States you would think that Congress or the federal government would intervene at some point. However there are people like David Bossman, recent CEO of the American Feed Industry Association, who lobbied to congress that “… you can eat meat with confidence not only because it is safe, but it is getting safer with all the things that industry is doing.” Notice that he did not say what the government was doing to make meat safer but what the industry was doing. Consumer Reports would argue in “You Are What They Eat,” that the lack of regulation within this industry is what has created this major problem within our feed stock. They argue that the antibiotics we feed animals and the actual feed both pose major health risks to the American people especially if there is no one to regulate it.

In 1972, the FDA conducted 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006, the FDA conducted only 9,164. One might be able to argue that this decrease in the number of federal safety inspections would lead to a higher incidence of outbreak of major food borne illnesses like salmonella and E. coli 0157h7.

The USDA once was able to test for those types of bacteria in processing plants and if a facility repeatedly failed tests the government had the authority to shut it down. That is until meat and poultry associations sued the government and the USDA lost that power.

In the article by Consumer reports, people like Carol Tucker-Foreman, argue “Rules protecting the feed supply aren’t as strong as they should be, and the FDA enforcement has been more wishful thinking then reality. Contaminated animal feed can result in contaminated food, putting the public health at risk.”

It is also argued that these major food industries have created condensed living conditions for animals and have huge processing plants for meat which increase their risk for viruses, diseases and cross contamination. The largest in the world, in Tar Heel, N.C, is Smithfield Hog Processing Plant where approximately 32,000 hogs are killed every day. This increased risk of infection and disease leads conventional farms to imbed antibiotics within the chicken or cow feed to reduce this risk.

The conditions that are described are the same as the conditions represented in Food Inc,. Carol Doberstein lost her contract with a major chicken distributor because she refused to create a completely blacked out environment for her chickens.

Another farmer described in Food Inc. was Paul Salitin who displayed his methods of farming to far less likely to have any incidents of food borne illness despite his open air work environment.

Maybe his methodology of wholesome organic foods and food processing is the way to go.

People like Blake Hurst would disagree with this idea of what organic farming is. In his article “Organic Illusions” he cites a study by Stanford that concludes the idea of organic farming is not actually safer nor is there any extra nutritional value to be gained from it. He says that there was actually a higher percentage of E. coli in organic foods than in conventionally farmed foods.

Hurst does not think the idea of organic farming is based in science saying “we are not having a debate over science, because that science is settled. We’re having a debate about processes, narratives, and good intentions, and maybe even about style.”

Hurst believes in telling a story. And in his article he is trying to portray organics as a phase and something that is unrealistic to the average farmer. It is interesting that at the beginning of his article he acknowledges that Stanford, the only source he uses, has actually received large donations from Cargill, who is a major food company that ranked 12 on the Fortune 500.

“My message is this: Our food system is broken. It’s not serving consumers and it’s not serving farmers,” says Pollan in a debate with Hurst. While the National Corn Growers Association calls his views “naïve and dangerous,” there are many followers of Pollan who are beginning to understand the ideal of shopping locally for organic food.

Hurst on the other hand, in the same debate with Pollan said, “I don’t think it’s realistic to feed 6 billion people with no technology. We can’t do it. We have to have access to commercial fertilizer, pesticides, and we need to have access to genetically modified seed. He objects to all these things.”

Either way we look at it the current “Food Empire” here in the United States is whack and things need to change not only on a federal level but also on a state and local level. People need to start caring about what goes into their food and the process it takes for food to reach the general public. If we live in a democracy the number citizens surely dwarf the number of corporations, and the safety of the many outweighs the financial safety of the few.

Bernie Sanders: Monsanto and the FDA (6/17/1994)

Yes, we’d all like to know what is in our food. At the moment, we do not have a way to track our meals from the animal it came from to its packaging at the supermarket, and we’ll likely have to wait decades before we see any improvement on that front. However, with the elections coming up later this year, now would be a perfect time to address what the government is doing to make sure we all eat pathogen-free meals.

Who is on Our Side?

The debate on what we should put in our food is one that has been occurring since before many of us were even born. Humans have been eating for… well, just about as long as we’ve been around, and the argument over what we should and can eat cannot be traced back to a single source.

For just as long as we’ve been discussing our food, the question of who holds power, not only related to what we eat, but to our lives in general has been discussed. Long ago we created organized government in order to help us answer these important questions. Nowadays, we wonder if the government we helped create is really on our side in choosing what we should eat. Although discussing what we should put in our food is a meaningful debate, we should be addressing how the government needs to take further steps to convince us that they are concerned with our health.

We are the scientists who conduct research on various foods. We are the article writers who report the findings of our own kind. One could even argue that we are the people that choose what we should and shouldn’t eat. There is one problem in this debate, though. We’ve segregated ourselves into different groups lobbying for the abolition of different foods others of us may have enjoyed. This tear in our society has blurred the lines of who “we” are. Who is looking out for our best interests? Who is in the food business for selfish reasons? This new school of debate is relatively new compared to what we’ve been used to.

The Food Dispute

Since the dawn of the food debate, it has been a fairly black/white argument against the major food corporations. Companies like McDonald’s have been feeding us unhealthy food since its inception in 1940. Critics argue that McDonald’s does not care for our health, and is only in the market to make money. In the 2008 American documentary Food Inc., major corporations like Monsanto Company, Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods, and Perdue Farms are asked to be interviewed on what methods they use to manufacture our food. Every single one of them declined an interview.

While people on the other side of this debate agree that these companies are nowhere near innocent, they retort that it is up to us as individuals what we want to feed us and our children. This disagreement has led to the debate on organic vs. non-organic means of production.  Thousands of people have argued, with experts like Blake Hurst and Food Inc.‘s own Michael Pollan leading each side of the debate.

People like Pollan and Hurst have been arguing on the use of antibiotics and different chemicals in our food for the better part of a decade now. In their article You Are What They Eat, Consumer Reports offers a viewpoint on the argument. They raise the question “If all animals were raised organically – on feed lacking pesticides, animal byproducts, and antibiotics – would our food supply be safer?” responding “Yes, in some ways. There would be less risk of mad cow disease, little or no arsenic in chicken, and fewer bacteria able to resist antibiotics. But there’s no guarantee that organic feed is free of garden-variety bacteria, including salmonella.” Consumer Reports takes a mildly impartial stance on the issue, at least compared to experts Blake Hurst and Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health Marion Nestle.

Hurst, one of the most vocal supporters of the non-organic side of the argument has made his point very clear over the past 10 years. 4 years ago he published his article, Organic Illusions to reiterate his conclusions. He believes that “Plants and animals aren’t the least bit interested in the story the farmer has to tell. They don’t care about his sense of social justice, the size of his farm, or the business model that he has chosen…That means that when organic and/or conventional farmers provide the environment necessary for growth, plants and animals respond. It would be a shock if this did not occur, and it shouldn’t really be a story at all.”

A very controversial opinion to hold, indeed. Hurst’s ideals are met with opposition from many people like Nestle, who believe that “The use of antibiotics in animal agriculture affects food-borne illness in ways that are especially troubling. Growers treat infected animals with antibiotics, of course, but they sometimes give antibiotics to whole herds or flocks as a preventative measure.” Nestle argues that giving antibiotics to entire herds can make bacteria like salmonella grow resistant, and survive the cleaning process of the meat.  The problem is that there are simply too many variables that can influence bacteria in our food. In many cases of breakouts of illness, the point at which the food became infected is almost never known. This debate will therefore continue into the foreseeable future, perhaps for long after we are gone. Therefore, this article is not written to address the issue of what we should put into our food, but who we can trust to make sure we do not fall ill.

The Government and Our Food

Although the experts mentioned disagree adamantly on how we should process our food, they all agree on one point: our government may not have our best interests in their warm hearts. We can all agree that we must put a certain amount of trust into our government. Hurst mentions that “It is the position of the critics that you just can’t trust the government on these issues, which may indeed be the case. But the question arises: How can you trust the same government to enforce organic rules or guarantee the safety or organic pesticides? Or to approve the pharmaceuticals you rely upon to cure your illnesses?” The short answer? We can’t. Well, not to the extent that we do.

According to Consumer Reports many investigations “[Raise] concerns that the federal government isn’t doing enough to protect the feed supply and that as a result, the food we eat may not be as safe as it could be.” Nestle shares the same opinion, stating that “We will see that food-borne illness is more than a biological problem; it is strongly affected by the interests of stakeholders in the food system – the food industry, government (agencies, Congress, and the White House), and consumers.”

Roberto A. Ferdman of The Washington Post also addresses issues of FDA and USDA oversight in his interview with Bill Marler, a lawyer specializing in food-borne illness. When asked to speak about his “few major frustrations with food safety in the United States,” Marler solemnly explains that “On the FDA’s side, which is 80 percent of our other food supplies and imports, there’s a skeleton crew of inspectors,” and that “Most of the food-borne illness outbreaks that [Marler has] been involved in over the past 20 or 30 years, most of the manufacturing facilities have never had an FDA inspector in them.”

So, everyone is in agreement that the government is not doing as much as they can to monitor the safety of the food we are eating and feeding to our children. Instances have occurred in the past decade where organic and non-organic foods alike have cause food-borne illnesses in people. Why not address the oversight of both foods instead of uselessly discussing which food we should eat? It seems concerning that not only are members of the government not regulating the food we eat properly, but also are making money from these big name companies. The candidates running for office cannot answer questions on steps they will take to ensure that our food is safe if they are not asked. It is up to us, the people eating these meals to bring it up. After all, when is the last time you heard of a government official suffering from the effects of E. coli?

 

Reflection Questions

Unit I / 10%

Using the homework, in-class workshops, revision workshops, etc.

 

• Describe your understanding of the “writer’s project”? How were you able to identify the texts’ “project”? Discuss your own “project” as it pertains to this particular blog article.

The thorough analysis of the texts before we began writing definitely helped me better understand the “writer’s project.” Analysis helped me look at this organic vs. non-organic debate in a more objective manner. Deeply analyzing what strategies these different writers implemented into their pieces helped with my own final piece immensely. Also, looking deeply into the ideas presented in these sources helped me find a topic that they all discussed and work on synthesizing all of their ideas to discuss my “project.”

• Describe your completion of the “Sorting it Out” workshop? What sections were most beneficial to the development of your ideas—and why? Discuss how this workshop assisted in development of draft and/or assignment organization?

The sorting it out workshop was probably the most useful tool in helping me write my blog article. The very meticulous organization was something I was never used to. I always used to grab ideas from hundreds of notes I had taken on different pieces, but this workshop helped very much in synthesizing specific ideas from each article. In particular, looking for similar words in article assisted me very much in locating related passages. It was then easy to pick out quotes from pieces that were related and synthesizing them into my piece.  

• Describe your understanding of synthesis. What is its importance? How did it manifest within your drafts and/or final blog article? Provide examples.

Synthesis to me is an accurate and fair way of incorporating sources into an argument one is trying to make in order to further strengthen ones argument and, by extension, piece in general. This strategy helped me a great deal when trying to mention the sources we had worked on. For example, I used Nestle and Hurst’s very opposing points to bring into light the heated debate that has been occurring for many years now in the food industry.

• Describe your own accomplishment (ofsomething) during this unit.

This unit not only taught me to consider what I should and shouldn’t eat, but also helped me grow as a writer. I realized halfway through discussing the sources in class that choosing points addressed in two different sources and comparing them is a very effective way of really understanding what it is that these writers/directors are trying to accomplish by making the pieces they make.

• Discuss the evolution of the main idea. Where did you begin (include the example) and show its progress (again, include example) throughout the drafting/revision process. To what do you attribute its evolution?

I began with an event that I thought was interesting and would generate a ton of controversy from the very people we’ve discussed in class (outbreak in Chipotle) to the topic of government oversight and power in the food industry. I made this shift because speculating what the experts we’ve discussed would think about an outbreak seemed less effective to me than writing about something these experts have all actually discussed in their pieces.

• Discuss what organizational strategies you implemented in order to structure this blog article. Provide examples from a section(s) of an earlier draft and other excerpts in later drafts to support your response.

Splitting the article into different sections with titles was most effective in organizing my piece. It helped me determine when I should start making transition sentences and when I should start wrapping up an argument I had been working on. For example, the passage “Although the experts mentioned disagree adamantly on how we should process our food, they all agree on one point: our government may not have our best interests in their warm hearts,” uses the topics discussed in the previous section to strengthen points made in the coming section.

• Provide an example of the final draft where you successfully synthesize 3 texts in a concise and direct manner. Discuss how this evolved throughout the drafting process for you.

The entirety of the “Food Dispute” section is spent analyzing different opinions held by experts we have discussed. The following section then synthesizes an argument every source we have read makes, displaying how it should be a topic of discussion.

• Discuss the evolution of the ‘lede’ in earlier drafts and its final version (provide examples of each): where did you begin, what feedback did you receive, and how did it end up in final blog article?

In earlier drafts, I was not even aware that we would have to incorporate a lede. When we discussed what a lede is and examples of it in different articles, I realized that a lede is something I had read in almost every article I’ve ever read, but didn’t know there was a name for it. Making the lede concise was quite a task, and gave me new appreciation for the meticulousness of writers.

9.) Name a specific writing/researching/revision goal you’d like to work on during the next Unit projects.

I would like to seek out more help from the on campus writing helpers. I know that as writers we tend to miss mistakes we make, and that other people are more likely to catch both spelling/grammar and writing mistakes we make. I’ve also always been generally weak on revision and wish to spend more time revising my work.

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.

We as a human race and as a society have evolved and grown over time, so changes happening dramatically and some happening slowly. Every facet of human life has changed since the dawn of time. The food we eat know is much different than what our forefathers ate for the past hundreds and thousands of years, what’s startling is that “the way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000”(Food Inc.). As a result of this the human body is struggling to adapt to the rapidly changing diet. Subsequently, humans are paying a high toll and the government does not seem to be doing anything to fix this.

Often times the journey that our food takes may seem simple taking it from the farm to our table, it is much more complex than that. The food arrives to our tables after it makes its way through a complex network of farms, slaughterhouses, transport systems, processing plants, and then finally to the grocery stores where we buy our food. In addition to all of this there is also a bureaucratic environment that complicates the process of getting the food from the farm to our tables even more difficult.

Being that the process of getting the food from the farm to the table involves so many different people, organizations, and processes there is a litany of experts on the topic. Each expert has their own knowledge on their individual area of expertise in the process. As a result of this, every expert has their own story to tell, or a set list of responses they can reply to interview questions that their company permits them to say. Subsequently these responses paint two polar opposite pictures of what actually goes on during the process of getting the food from the farm to the kitchen table. As a result of this, the journey is shrouded in secrecy that often results in the deceit of the customer, that could either leaving them feeling satisfied with their meal or feeling ill from the results of negligently handled food.

While the text argues that there needs to be more government regulations in regards to the handling of the food we eat, my own view is that the government does not have enough resources to do so, nor the power to do so because of the lobbying done by the industrial food complex. The United States government relies upon two agencies to thoroughly inspect the food that we as consumers eat. These two agencies are the United States Department of Agriculture(USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration(FDA). The USDA is tasked with inspecting and regulating the meats being processed at the slaughterhouses, the carcasses of animals, as well as poultry. Whereas the FDA is responsible for regulating drugs consumed by both humans and animals, tobacco, the safe and responsible transportation of food, and the additives that are put into food. Though these two agencies have different responsibilities, they are faced with the same issue, a stunning lack of resources to effectively complete the task they are given. The federal government employs about “700 FDA inspectors [who] must oversee 30,000 food manufacturers and processors, 20,000 warehouses, 785,000 commercial and institutional food establishments, 128,000 grocery and convenience stores, and 1.5 million vending operations”(Nestle). Similarly to this account, the USDA “has 7,000 inspectors or so, and they oversee 6,000 meat, poultry, and egg establishments –and– that slaughter and process 89 million pigs, 37 million cattle, and 7 billion chickens and turkeys, not to mention the 25 billion pounds of beef and 7 billion pounds of ground beef produced each year”(Nestle). Due to the tremendous responsibility that these organizations are tasked with, food that is not fit for human consumption often slips through the proverbial cracks and onto the dinner table.

Throughout the process of getting the food from the farm to the table, it becomes exposed to certain substances that can cause detrimental effects on human health. One particular foodborne illness that is common is the E. Coli virus. E. Coli bacteria is found in the digestive tracts of livestock, it becomes exposed to the consumer when the bacteria laden manure is used to fertilize crops. Though there is no way to eradicate the E. Coli bacteria found in the digestive tract of livestock, there is a way to reduce the chance of having food tainted by the bacteria, and that is the growing system utilized by the farmer. According to Blake Hurst there are two farming systems, those being the conventional approach and the organic approach. The conventional approach involves the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers in order to help the plant grow and remain healthy. On the other hand, the organic method does not use such strong pesticides and fertilizers in favor of organic alternatives. After detailing the differences between the different farming methods he then goes on to say “organic foods were considerably less likely than conventional foods to have pesticide residues, although organic foods were higher in e. coli”(Hurst).

The issue of food safety recently garnered national attention when the popular fast food restaurant Chipotle recently had an E. Coli outbreak in some of their locations. The Center for Disease Control found that there were two different outbreaks of E. Coli. The first outbreak was much larger than the second one and “55 people in 11 states”(NPR) whereas the second outbreak “infected 5 people in Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Dakota”(NPR). Another thing that contributes to the issue of food safety is the food that livestock consumes before being slaughtered. In a report published by Consumer Report it was found that “10 percent to 30 percent of feed can differ radically from what cows and poultry would eat in their natural habitat”(Consumer Report). The purpose of doing so is that a farmer can fatten up their livestock in the most rapid and cost effective manner. However, this does come at a price, the difference in dietary substanance often has adverse health effects on the animal which in turn leads to the increased of foodborne illness on the consumer’s end.

Due to the attention that this food safety crisis caused, there has been an increased call for the government to step in and introduce stricter regulations regarding the safety of the food that we consume. As previously the government already employs two food regulatory agencies, those being the FDA and the USDA, however, they do not have the resources to effectively protect the general public. Though the government has tried to increase its regulatory power, special interest groups and the large agricultural companies lobby and try to prevent the federal government from being able to enact harsher regulations and legislation. The 2008 documentary regarding the U.S. agricultural system, Food Inc., reveals that during the Bush administration several of his appointed leaders were part of the special interest groups who would have suffered had tougher regulations been enacted. For example, the head of the FDA during his presidency, Lester M. Crawford Jr. was the former executive vice president of the National Food Processors Association. In addition to this, the appointed chief of  USDA James F. Fitzgerald was the former chief lobbyist for the beef industry in Washington. Coinciding with this, in 1998 meat and poultry associations used their influence by suing the USDA into stripping them of their power to shut down food processing plants if they repeatedly failed microbial testing done by the USDA.

Clearly the journey our food takes from the farm to our table is far more complex than what it seems. The journey displays the complex relationship between the industrial food complex, government regulatory agencies, and the special interest groups who are trying to get their agenda pushed to the forefront of public attention.

Now after reading this you may find yourself asking if what you can do to try and solve the issue at hand. Though there are many things we as consumers can do, the most effective one will be what we choose to do with our money. By refusing to buy certain products or choosing to opt with a more organic choices we are able to show the major food corporations that control American agriculture that we demand change. Cutting into these companies’ bottom line will certainly attract their attention and garner change in their policies and actions.

Works Cited:

Nestle, Marian. “Resisting Food Safety.” (n.d.): 1-19. Print.

Hurst, Blake. “Organic Illusions – AEI.” AEI. N.p., 1 Oct. 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2016.

Kennedy, Merrit. “E. Coli Outbreaks At Chipotle Restaurants ‘Appear To Be Over,’ CDC Says.” NPR. NPR, 01 Feb. 2016. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.

You Are What They Eat. Rep. N.p.: Consumer Report, n.d. Print.

Food, Inc. Movie One, 2008. DVD.

Reflection Questions:

1. The “Writer’s Project” essentially argues that the traditional way of interpreting a piece solely by its thesis isn’t exactly the best way of going about and doing that. It argues that a better way of doing so is to consider the aims, methods, and materials that the author used throughout their piece.. I was able to identify the text’s “project” by carefully annotating the text and discussing its findings with the rest of the class. By listening to the findings of my peers I was able to see another perspective on the same material. My “project” was to inform the audience about the dangers of the American agricultural and how governmental oversight is largely at the root of the problem.
2. I believe that the “Sorting it Out” workshop was highly beneficial towards helping me complete the project. By completing it I was able to organize my thought into a rudimentary draft before I went about doing the leg work of writing the preliminary draft. The section that helped me out the most was Section E. In this section I had to take the summary of the sources and then utilize them in the terms of my own project. Through doing this I had an even better idea on how I will formulate my piece and in what I order I will utilize all of the sources.

3.From what I understand, I believe that synthesis involves analyzing all the given pieces in order to determine what stance they have on a particular issue. This is crucial because if I wasn’t able to tie all of the sources together in a clear and logical manner, my argument would crumble and cause me to lose the reader’s attention. The synthesis process manifested in my final draft because I was able to connect all of my sources in a clear and concise manner in order to form a stronger argument in the piece that I wrote.

4. One accomplishment that I felt that I achieved during this unit was learning how to blend persuasive and research writing. Through the blog format of this piece it is crucial to attract the reader’s attention through persuasive means, in addition to providing them with carefully researched facts in order to reinforce the claims made throughout it. In addition to this, I also learned what a lede is, and how to construct one. This is an important skill to know because a lede allows for me to attract the reader into reading the piece that I have written.
5. At first I wasn’t entirely sure what the main idea of my piece would be. After doing some of the workshops in class I was able to come up three main ideas, they were “While it seems that Organic food is healthier for the consumer, it does come at an increased risk of foodborne illnesses.”, “Although Monsonto produces seeds that do grow faster and provide cheaper seeds, they unfairly target farmers who do not use their product”, and “While the text argues that there needs to be more government regulations in regards to the handling of the food we eat, my own view is that the government does not have enough resources to do so, nor the power to do so because of the lobbying done by the industrial food complex”. Throughout the drafting process and peer review I was able to get a stronger idea on what idea I wanted to use, I decided that I could write the stronger argument with the third main idea that I came up with. I can attribute the evolution of my main idea to the workshops that were done in class and through peer review.
6. In order to structure this article I wanted to be able to connect the “project” of each piece together in a logical and coherent manner. Earlier in the drafting process I didn’t have my interpretations of each piece in any order, I simply just took what each piece was arguing and explained it. After doing so I began to connect them with my interpretation of them and how they can be tied together and how they tie together with my version of the ‘Writers Project”
7. In order to make this piece flow I needed to synthesize all of the sources I used in a logical manner. In order to do so I had to first have a clear idea on how I can connect them all. I decided to write my paper on how foodborne illnesses are becoming increasingly dangerous to society due to the lack of government action. Since not all of the articles played a direct hand in contributing in this argument I had to pick out the pieces that did. For example Blake Hurst’s piece didn’t mention government oversight, however it did mention the prevalence of foodborne illness in the American farm system. This then evolved into me being able to tie all of the sources together in order to make my argument stronger, as demonstrated in the essay above.
8. After being introduced to the concept of a lede I wasn’t entirely sure how to create an effective one. The first draft of my lede was too lengthy and didn’t have any of attention grabbing features that were in the examples on the lede and synthesis workshop activity. After receiving some peer review I decided to introduce a quote in it from one of the sources that I found to be particularly interesting. To be fair my lede did become more lengthy than the average lede, I think that the extra wordage was necessary to attract the reader’s attention and summarize what they will be reading about in the piece.

9. In the next Unit projects I want to be able to write stronger and more effective ledes. Being that this unit was the first time I was introduced to ledes, I feel that with even more experience and practice I can grab the reader’s attention and motivate them to read my work.

Do you know the true cost of your food? Most of us think it’s only a few dollars at the grocery store, but what if you knew the many effects the food industry has on your health and wellness?

Our food production technology is at its height, but that technology is used to grow the profits of the poorly regulated food industry rather than focus on improving public health and wellness. While there are two different agencies watching over our food supply, their duties are intertwined in a way that makes both of them borderline ineffective.

Marion Nestle points out in Resisting Food Safety that the FDA regulates everything but meat, but even then their duties only end at the slaughterhouse. This means a fairly small agency monitors all of our food, drugs, and even our meat all the way up until it is killed.

At the same time, the much larger USDA only monitors animals post-death. The way that the duties are split between the two agencies is mind-bending, and shows the convoluted way our food is taken care of. It also shows how easily and often oversight happens regarding our food.

For example, at one point Nestle mentions, “The law specified that the department’s (USDA’s) authority began at the slaughterhouse. USDA inspectors had no right to recall meat once it left the plant. If USDA inspectors believed that a packing plant was producing tainted meat, their only recourse was to deny further inspection, in effect forcing the plant to close.”

The USDA is not able to prevent outbreaks, and if an outbreak does happen, they don’t have the authority to recall the product. This is a clear problem, since their only real course of action is to stop doing their job and shut down a plant in that way. Nestle also points out that the original legislature for the food industry was created to protect the animals, indicating one reason the agencies may have so many issues.

One solution to this problem was mentioned in Food Inc. Kevin’s mom tells the story of how she lost her son, and then mentions Kevin’s Law, which would have forced the USDA to establish performance standards to decrease pathogens in our food, as well as allow the USDA to shut down plants. Kevin’s law was never passed, however Obama did pass the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in 2011 which upheld some of Kevin’s law.

Because of the FSMA, the USDA now has authority to issue mandatory recalls if the party responsible for an outbreak refuses to issue a recall. The act also called for increased training of officials, more infrastructure and capacity of food safety programs, along with many other stipulations created in order to increase food safety.

As demonstrated by Kevin’s story and the passage of the FSMA, the most common problems brought to light about the food industry are food borne pathogens. Harmful bacteria such as e. coli, listeria, and salmonella are byproducts of our highly industrialized food production system.

Food-borne pathogens are the byproducts of the feces and blood covering our slaughterhouses and animal coups. These diseases are allowed to spread to our food through various means and can cause mass outbreaks throughout the country.

Rather than maintaining a clean environment for the animals and solving the problem at the root, the food industry came up with different way to combat the pathogens. In Food Inc. we were shown that there are small amounts of ammonia mixed into ground beef to try and kill E. Coli. The documentary also talks about how animals are given antibiotics, even if they are not sick, to try and prevent diseases.

Blake Hurst in Organic Illusions tells us that the FDA says harmful chemicals such as ammonia have been shown to not be harmful in small doses; however, he does not mention that there is still a real threat of antibiotic resistance. The antibiotics given to our food are spread to humans when they eat it, this then causes bacteria to build up a resistance to antibiotics, creating much more harmful pathogens.

 

Another side of government oversight is shown in You Are What They Eat, which drives home the point that our food may not be what we believe it should be, and there is not much being done about it. For instance, parts of very sick downer cows are approved to be part of animal feed, as long as they are not fed to other cows.

These cows can then be fed to pigs, chickens and fish, which can be eventually fed back to cows, causing a possible spread of the prions that cause mad cow disease. Even the restriction of not feeding downer cows to other cows is lax. For instance, “More than four years after the feed ban took effect, the FDA still hadn’t acted promptly to compel firms to keep prohibited proteins out of cattle feed and to label animal feed that cannot be fed to cattle’”(You are What They Eat).

If the FDA is not taking steps to ensure that mad cow disease is not being spread, are they truly doing what they are supposed to do?

Another consequence of the ever-growing food industry may be an environmental one. According to Cassandra Brooks in Consequences of Increased Global Meat Consumption, the worldwide consumption of livestock will double by 2020. Because of this huge increase, the food industry has increasing profits, and is ignoring the many effects they are causing on public health, wellness, and even the environment.

 

Livestock production has become extremely industrialized in order to meet the demand, and it is taking a toll on the environment. According to the Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative, “Livestock Production accounts for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, including 9 percent carbon dioxide and 37 percent of methane gas emissions worldwide” (Cassandra Brooks).

Global warming and climate change mainly affect farming communities; the United States experiences some of this backlash, but it is mostly felt in other countries, such as Ethiopia, which rely on farming to survive. Global warming also affects places such as California and Central America, which are the sources of most of our produce. By creating so many greenhouse gas emissions, the livestock industry may be harming the other parts of our food production system, as well as creating worsening poverty and hunger in areas such as Ethiopia.

While global warming is not the focus of this article, it does bring to question the true consequences of our food industry. The food industry has caused many small farmers to go out of business, or switch to industrial farming, which they may despise. Industrialized food production is also responsible for a rise in food-borne pathogens and deaths from these pathogens.

Another consequence may be the rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes. When our food is processed, there are certain ingredients put in such as high fructose corn syrup, which is harder for our bodies to process than simple sugars. This creates a spike in insulin, causing a feeling of hunger more quickly, even though a person may not truly need more food.

Food Inc. shows this phenomenon when introducing a lower class family that has to feed themselves. Rather than buy fruit and healthier foods in the grocery store, the family eats at McDonald’s most days because they can afford it, and it doesn’t take too much time out of their busy schedule.

Because of their inability to buy nutritious food, the whole family is overweight or obese, and now has to budget in diabetes medication for the father.

What we should be asking the food industry is, should they really be risking the health and lives of family in order to make a larger profit? Why is addictive fast food so cheap when less dangerous food is too expensive for many people in America?

After realizing these consequences, it may seem that organic foods are the obvious choice, however, many people cannot afford to buy organic food, even though according to You Are What They Eat, Organic food is only 20-30% more expensive.

Now you should (hopefully) be wondering how we can solve these issues, and improve our lives and health. The best way to do that is to learn more about the food industry and use your new knowledge to make informed decisions about what you buy. If everyone focuses on buying sustainable food, the food industry will be forced to change, and maybe within the next few decades our current way of food production will have gone the way of the tobacco industry.

 

Reflection Questions:

• Describe your understanding of the “writer’s project”? How were you able to identify the texts’ “project”? Discuss your own “project” as it pertains to this particular blog article.

 

The writer’s project is the point they are trying to make in their writing. When I was reading each article I just asked myself “Why are they writing this?” in order to determine their project. My own project is to raise awareness of the food industry, and what it’s doing to consumers.

 

• Describe your completion of the “Sorting it Out” workshop? What sections were most beneficial to the development of your ideas—and why? Discuss how this workshop assisted in development of draft and/or assignment organization?

 

Completing the “Sorting it Out” workshop really allowed me to organize my thoughts. Part C was the most beneficial to me to see the overview of each text and the project each writer had. It helped with my organization because I was able to gather my opinions on each text and work them into a draft.

 

• Describe your understanding of synthesis. What is its importance? How did it manifest within your drafts and/or final blog article? Provide examples.

 

Synthesis is combining different texts in a way that they can work together, either as complements or as contradictions. It’s important because it allows you to see different sides of an argument and put them together. Basically my whole article was a synthesis, I took the different articles and put them together in a way that allowed me to draw my own conclusions.

 

• Describe your own accomplishment (ofsomething) during this unit.

I was able to take multiple texts that were seemingly only related by their topic, and turn them into something cohesive. If it had been up to me, I would have started with more cohesive texts and it would have been much easier, but this let me push myself.

 

• Discuss the evolution of the main idea. Where did you begin (include the example) and show its progress (again, include example) throughout the drafting/revision process. To what do you attribute its evolution?

 

I already knew what my main idea was when I started writing, so it has remained constant throughout the process. For example, this paragraph has stayed the same through pretty much every draft:

“Although our food production technology is at its height, that technology may be used to grow the profits of the poorly regulated food industry, rather than focus on improving public health and wellness. While there are two different agencies watching over our food supply, their duties are intertwined in a way that makes both of them borderline ineffective.”

 

 

• Discuss what organizational strategies you implemented in order to structure this blog article. Provide examples from a section(s) of an earlier draft and other excerpts in later drafts to support your response.

 

When I was writing this, I basically just started writing, and from there saw what my main points were. I then copy and pasted paragraphs that went together until it formed an organized paper.

 

For example I started with the below paragraph, and then split it up and merged parts with other paragraphs in order to form a stronger argument:

Food Inc., You are what they eat, and Resisting Food Safety all say that the food industry is careless in the way they are treating the bacteria, and the government is not doing much to help. In Resisting Food Safety, Nestle points out that the original legislature for food production was created to protect the animals.  In Food Inc. Kevin’s mom tells the story of how she lost her son, and then mentions Kevin’s Law, which would have forced the USDA to establish performance standards to decrease pathogens in our food, as well as allow the USDA to shut down plants. Kevin’s law was never passed, however Obama did pass the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in 2011 which upheld some of Kevin’s law. This gave the government slightly more control over what goes into our food, but it still may not be enough.

 

 

 

• Provide an example of the final draft where you successfully synthesize 3 texts in a concise and direct manner. Discuss how this evolved throughout the drafting process for you.

 

“Marion Nestle points out in Resisting Food Safety that the FDA regulates everything but meat, but even then their duties only end at the slaughterhouse. This means a fairly small agency monitors all of our food, drugs, and even our meat all the way up until it is killed.”

“One solution to this problem was mentioned in Food Inc. Kevin’s mom tells the story of how she lost her son, and then mentions Kevin’s Law, which would have forced the USDA to establish performance standards to decrease pathogens in our food, as well as allow the USDA to shut down plants. Kevin’s law was never passed, however…”

 

“Another side of government oversight is shown in You Are What They Eat, which drives home the point that our food may not be what we believe it should be, and there is not much being done about it. For instance, parts of very sick downer cows are approved to be part of animal feed, as long as they are not fed to other cows.”

These three texts are the most relevant to my article, they each dealt with government oversight and how that affects our health. At first my synthesis was all summary, but throughout the draft process, I was able to take the summary and analyze it (the paragraphs between each of these)

 

 

 

• Discuss the evolution of the ‘lede’ in earlier drafts and its final version (provide examples of each): where did you begin, what feedback did you receive, and how did it end up in final blog article?

 

I started with: Although our food production technology is at its height, that technology may be used to grow the profits of the poorly regulated food industry, rather than focus on improving public health and wellness.

From there I knew it wasn’t catchy enough so I came up with: Do you know the true cost of your food? While it may only be a few dollars at the grocery store, in reality your food comes from a poorly regulated industry that is wreaking havoc on the environment and putting your health, and the health of everyone around you at risk.

But the peer review made me realize that my lede was not as strong as I wanted, so I changed it to what it is now:

Do you know the true cost of your food? Most of us think it’s only a few dollars at the grocery store, but what if you knew the many effects the food industry has on your health and wellness?

 

 

 

• Name a specific writing/researching/revision goal you’d like to work on during the next Unit projects.

 

I would like to work on overall cohesiveness. I feel like my article jumps around a bit more than it should. It follows my thought process, but I think it would be stronger if I were able to relate and analyze everything even more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my opinion, the greatest movie of all time is Remember the Titansm nothing else quite captures the essence of Northern Virginia football, which is where im from, while also inspiring me to try my hardest through adversity. One of the most iconic scenes in the entire movie happens during the montage of training camp where Coach boone goes “Everything we gonna do is changing. We are change. We’re gonna change the way we run. We’re gonna change the way we eat. We’re gonna change the way we block. We’re gonna change the way we tackle. We’re gonna change the way we win.” This scene is so important to the rest of the movie because it shows how important change is to being the best you can be. Coach Boone’s message really resonates because if you don’t change with the times, you will become left in the dust by your competition and stuck with a losing record. While Coach Boone may have been talking about football here, this sentiment of change goes right along with the corruption of our modern government and the ineptness of the FDA. Marian Nestle talks about the lack of institutional regulation in her piece, “Resisting Food Safety,” Nestle argues that the lack of institutional control on the food industry has allowed the large food corporations to become too big to fail, to go along with their endless power in Congress. Nestle highlights the amount of lobbying that the food industry does in congress to prove her argument. Robert Kenner’s documentary, Food Inc. takes a first hand look into the world of the meat corporations in an attempt to show how evil and backwards their methods for producing food are. Blake Hurst in his Organic Illusions piece, has the dissenting point of view, that a Stanford food study proved that the conventional, modern, farming methods are not only moral, but also the healthiest way to prepare our meat. Hurst does believe though, that the government can not be trusted either way to do its job correctly. The Consumer Report, You Are What They Eat, that shines a light on the new corn feed supply used by modern meat corporations, tries its best to be non-partisan in its method, but ends up proving that the huge food corporations really do not care what they put in our food, as long as it continues to make a profit. The Washington Post took an in depth look into the food additives that are being put into our food and found that in general, the FDA doesn’t even know of the presence of newer chemicals. These articles all argue and discuss different issues and benefits of the modern food industry, but all five of these articles come to the exact same conclusion, that the US FDA is not doing enough to properly regulate what goes into our food.

 

Nestle argues throughout the article that government lobbying is the culprit behind the complete lack of control for the current food industry. Early on in her piece she writes “Food producers resist the attempts of government agencies to institute control measures, and major food industries oppose pathogen control measures by every means at their disposal. (Nestle)” This lack of control has led to a food industry that no longer has to worry about being given sanctions for contaminated food and it has created a culture of lies and deceit all in the favor of making a bigger profit margin. The biggest issue with capitalism, is that without regulation, companies will try their darn hardest to achieve the largest profit margin possible. They do not care about morality, its all in the name of making more money. Nestle later says “Attempts to give federal agencies the right to enforce food safety regulations have been blocked repeatedly by food producers and their supporters in Congress.” Nestle’s argument that the influence of big money in congress has inhibited the regulatory agencies is absolutely correct. By not separating big business and Congress, the government has allowed itself to become corrupted to the whims of the huge corporations who are dodging the rules to gain more money.

Carol Tucker Foreman, The Director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America, had a very pointed opinion towards the current FDA regulations about the feed used for cows. She says “Rules protecting the feed supply aren’t as strong as they should be, and the FDA enforcement has been more wishful thinking than reality. Contaminated animal feed can result in contaminated food, putting the public health at risk.” Consumer reports in general is a mainly unbiased information piece, but their tidbits about the risk towards unregulated animal feed show the limits to our government. Plus, if it can be proven that this feed supply is significantly worse for you than old-fashioned grass, then the government could have a big scandal at their hands. It would be proven that corruption in the government is actually affecting their decision making, proving that the influence of big business has corrupted our government. Consumer reports opened their report by saying “Our investigation raises concerns that the Federal Government isn’t doing enough to protect the feed supply and that as a result, the food we eat may not be as safe as it could be.”

While Blake Hurst in general has conflicting viewpoints with the rest of these projects, the one thing that he agrees is the biggest problem in the modern food industry, is the unreliability of the government to safely regulate out food. He points this out by saying “But the question arises: How can you trust the same government to enforce organic rules or guarantee the safety of organic pesticides? Or to approve the pharmaceuticals you rely upon to cure your illnesses? (Hurst)” Hurst is very distrusting of the government, despite the fact that the government is supporting his way of farming. He statement here is contradictory to the rest of his argument since in general he is using the governmentally funded study, to prove that conventional farming is just as safe as organic farming. Hurst also uses the British government to back up his opinion by saying “The British version of the Food and Drug Administration commissioned a study in 2009 with results strikingly similar to Stanford’s. This is not surprising to most farmers, who have to deal with what is, rather than what someone might wish.” Hurst’s distrust of the American government continues since he feels like he must use the British FDA to sound credible. Ironically, Hurst is still showing that the government can’t be trusted to accurately and uninhibitedly prove that conventional farming is safe.

The most damning piece of evidence against the current regulatory system occurs in Food Inc. when the Title card shows “In 1972, the FDA conducted approximately 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006, the FDA conducted 9,164.” This fact truly highlights how far the government has gone from trying to regulate our food. All four projects are arguing different things about the food industry, but the one theme throughout all four, is that the US government is too weak on the food industry because of the lobbying and influence of big money companies buying their way to freedom. Eric Schlessar can see that the big business has infected Congress when he says.  “These companies fight, tooth and nail, against labeling. The fast food industry fought against giving you the calorie information. They fought against telling you if there is trans-fat in your food. The meat packing industry for years prevented country-of-origin labeling. They fought not to label genetically modified foods; and now 70% of processed food in the supermarket has some genetically modified ingredient.” The food industry is on of the most powerful corporations in America because without them, the entire country could starve. This power has given them the ability to change our food to make it cheaper to produce but unhealthy to eat. No other corporation has this kind of bargaining power, so food corporations have been allowed to run amok with little to no regulation.

The FDA appears to be increasingly more corrupt as the years go by, highlighted by the Washington Post article which discusses the new chemicals being put into our food. When the FDA deputy commissioner was asked about the FDA oversight into these new chemicals, he said “We simply do not have the information to vouch for the safety of many of these chemicals” His willingness to give up this type of information is remarkable because it shows how inept the FDA is at regulating one of the fastest changing markets in the economy. By admitting that he doesn’t know what is going into our food, Michael Taylor (The commissioner), has shown us just how useless the FDA has become. The only reason the FDA exists is to keep us safe, and if they can’t do that, then there really is no point to having them exist.

Our current system needs to change if we are to adapt to the fast changing world around us. Not only do we, as a nation, need to create a divide between the big money corporations and our Congress, we also need to get rid of the corrupt culture that surrounds the US government. If, and only if, we do those things will I be able to continue to have confidence that the food I eat, will not make me sick. It is our duty as a country to change the culture of the Congress. Just like in Remember the titans, if Coach Boone hadn’t changed the way TC Williams played football, then they never would have won the state championship, our congress needs to change its ways if we want to remain as a dominant country in the world. In the end, America is a democracy where whomever gets the most votes wins, usually at least, so the only way for there to be rapid change in this country is by all of its citizens going out and actively participating in politics. But most importantly, we need to vote.