Today, the majority of people in the United States do not know where their food is coming from. This is probably because the people in charge of our food industry do not want people to know that our food system is completely corrupt.

Corruption is a simple matter of right and wrong. Anyone or anything can become corrupt based on the actions the person or thing practices. In this case, the food system that is used to circulate the majority of the world’s food products to public markets has become corrupt.

The interesting part about our corrupt food system is that most of the people who consume the products have no idea where these products came from or how they were prepared. In the food system we have today, four or five large corporations own the majority of all food products sold in grocery stores today. There are hundreds of different brands of meat, produce, snacks, or whatever types of food you can think of that are sold in a supermarket but, its really only a handful of corporations that own the greater part of all of them.

In the film Food Inc., Eric Schlosser an American author, activist, and journalist talks about how big business has alluded the general public and turned the American food industry into a corporate monopoly. Schlosser goes on to say, “The average grocery store has 47,000 products which makes it look like there is a large variety of choice – but it is an illusion – there are only a few major companies and a few major crops involved.” Schlosser and the rest of the experts go on to talk about how big business runs the food industry and how their methods to grow bigger and better food have substituted the quality of our food for higher profits. That’s the problem, if people knew that large corporations were behind our food and that they were making our food in an unnatural, inhumane manner, they would probably have something to say about it.

Our food system is corrupt because the people in charge of it know what they are doing to our food is wrong but, they still do it anyway. In an ideal world, the people who know the most about our food would be in charge of developing how our food system works. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world.

There are too many problems to count in our food industry today but, a lot of them have to do with how our meat is prepared. The meat in our grocery stores is not prepared in a friendly, heartfelt way. The way most people want to believe that their meat is prepared is that the animal is born and raised on a farm where it was able to roam free and grow the way god intended it to live. They believe the animal was killed humanely by the farmers who raised it in a way that did not make the animal suffer. That would be nice if it were true. The fact of the matter is, in this corrupt food system we have today, animals are basically tortured in cramped quarters from birth up until the moment they are slaughtered.

Michael Pollan, another American author and journalist who worked on Food Inc. discusses how the animals that are raised in these massive farms and slaughterhouses are inhumanely mistreated. Pollan says, “Plus they are now feeding corn to animals like cows who, by evolution, are designed to eat grass and in some cases farmers are even teaching fish how to eat corn because it is so cheap.” Aside from not giving these animals the proper space and freedom to grow, these farms are feeding the animals feed that they cannot naturally digest. The farms use corn feed and growth hormones to fatten up these animals so we can harvest twice as much meat as these animals were supposed to carry.

Besides cows, the chicken is another mass-produced animal that is raised in hellish conditions to satisfy the needs of our corrupt food industry. Several facts and statistics about how the chickens we eat every day are actually being grown are up on truthaboutchicken.org. Today, chickens are being grown to twice the weight of chicken sixty years ago in about half the time. An appalling fact found on this site included, “Many chickens lie in their own waste for much of their lives, with open sores and infections. These unhealthy conditions could potentially increase the risk of foodborne illnesses like salmonella.”

The processes used in our food systems are horrific and mind-boggling but, the worst part is these corrupt practices are potentially life-threatening for humans. Because of the unethical methods used in today’s food industry, humans are contracting various foodborne illnesses from tainted meats that are sold every day in local grocery stores. These illnesses are the result of the unsanitary facilities that are used to raise and prepare these animals for slaughter. Cows and chickens are raised on farms with very little space and little to no maintenance, meaning these animals are constantly walking, living, and sleeping in their own feces which is a great way to get exposed to infections and other types of illnesses.

The number of people that have been getting sick from these types of tainted meat have not necessarily been greatly increasing; the diseases have just been getting worse. Marion Nestle, a well known author and professor of nutrition at NYU, gives us some facts and statistics about these foodborne illnesses and how they’ve progressed in her piece, Resisting Food Safety. She says, “Some years ago, a carefully investigated Listeria outbreak among 142 people who had eaten a commercially produced unpasteurized soft cheese caused 48 deaths and 13 cases of meningitis.” Nestle goes on to talk about how foodborne illnesses used to be some small form of Salmonella or Staphylococcus or some pathogen that was easily treated and resulted in pretty standard, non-lethal symptoms like diarrhea, stomach pains, nausea, etc. However, since the early 1990s the versions of these viruses and bacteria have been getting much more aggressive and much more deadly than they have been in the past. Diseases are scary and its scary to know you can contract these types of diseases from the food you buy at the super market everyday.

If our food system is having all these problems, shouldn’t we be doing something about it? Shouldn’t there be some sort of authoritative body to watch over these food production systems to make sure our food is actually safe to eat? We do, the only problem is, the groups in charge of watching over how our food is made play a big part in how our food industry has become corrupt.

Government programs like the FDA, USDA, and CDC are supposed to watch over food processing facilities and make sure there aren’t any health code violations, unhygienic processing practices, or any other method that could lead to possible contamination of meats or other food products. Consumer Reports, You are what they eat, discussed a great deal about how our government and how our food regulation departments, like the FDA, aren’t really doing anything about the way our food is being processed. The members of Consumer Reports were able to talk to feed-company executives and they said, “Our investigation raises concern 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.” Even the executives from these corporations agree that the production of their food is a potential risk to the health of their consumer. A major reason for this is that there are not enough inspectors to consistently watch over the vast number of slaughterhouses and livestock farms that are in this country.

The FDA has around 700 employees in charge of inspecting all the processing plants that produce meat, eggs and poultry; which results in each one of these places getting an inspection every one to five years. Even when there are certain health and safety violations that are found in these processing plants, if the farm is owned by one of the large corporations, the heads of the corporations always has a friend on the inside of the FDA or somewhere in these government-based departments to help them get out of it. The makers of Food Inc. were able to show how former corporation executives from places like Monsanto land authoritative positions in departments like the FDA and USDA and are able to help their old business partners when they get into a bind. It is difficult to think of a way to free our food industry from the clutches of big business when these corporate executives have monopolized the industry around them.

The corruption that has overwhelmed our food industry starts and ends with big business. We cannot rely on greedy business owners to take proper care of our food when they already hide so much from the public with their illusions. Large profits are not a reasonable compromise when it puts the consumer at risk. We know what is going on behind the closed curtain of our food system; now its just about making an effort to do something about it.

 

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.

To me, the writer’s project is all about the writer’s mission to use his/her skills as a writer to convey whatever message they are trying to send to the reader as best they can through their words. For each text that we went through, I would need to read the piece multiple times in order to get the full understanding of the work. Once I understood the piece, I could pinpoint the main argument and the main message the author was attempting to present to his/her audience. For my “project” I really tried to just narrow the focus of the entire piece to one main point and then connect the dots between the texts we read and how they related to my piece and how they helped to strengthen my main argument.

• 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?

I was a little confused at times during the workshop but, overall I guess it helped narrow down the ideas we had on how to best complete our article. The most helpful sections in the workshop were section D, where we had to basically summarize the main argument of each piece into a few sentences, and the last section where we had to relate different passages from different articles to the same main idea because they helped really narrow down the great deal of information we had to absorb to a few main points. I used the workshop to narrow down the possible arguments I could make for my article to which topics I could best use that included all of them.

• 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 breaking down of an article, or other piece of literature, to the bare essentials of that work. At first, you may have a very lengthy text about several different topics but, once you use synthesis, you can narrow the article to one main point and the different sections the author uses to strengthen and prove that main point. I needed synthesis to get the main ideas out of the texts we read and to get a couple ideas for a man argument using the information it provided. I pretty much drew an outline for my article laying out which sections would be where and how they would connect to each other and back to the main point. In all the works we read, there were a lot of immoral practices going on; so, I decided to write about the wrongness and corruption in our food industry.

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

I have a hard time getting the main points out of pieces of literature, like understanding what they really mean, so I was happy that I was able to learn how to extract main ideas from these articles.

• 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?

Basically, whenever we read one of these articles, there was always something wrong happening in the food system. I decided to show the complete corrupt process of our food industry and all the ways it is affecting the consumer. At first it was just the idea of corruption and how the food industry was able to get away with all this stuff. Then, after the revisions, I was able to expand a little more and discuss the immoral processes they use and how it is affecting people and I was just able to get a better understanding of what they were doing and how it was wrong. Just going back over the works and really paying attention helped with my article’s evolution.

• 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.

I used an outline, I laid out exactly what I wanted to talk about from each article and how I wanted them to relate back to the main idea. I knew I wanted to use Food Inc. for their inside knowledge of the food industry and how it is corrupt from the farm to the supermarket. I wanted Nestle for her knowledge on foodborne illnesses and how they are affecting consumers through our food system. And I wanted consumer reports for their intel on how the government regulation departments, like the FDA, aren’t doing nearly enough to keep our food safe. I would jump straight from one topic to the next without having some sort of bridge between them. I would move from Pollan to Hurst without any context as to what they were saying and how it related back to my topic. In my final revision, I was able to connect each of their views to how the food industry has become corrupt.

• 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.

In my final draft, I used Schlosser, Nestle, and Consumer Reports closely to talk about the corruption of the food industry. I believe they are best utilized to bring their own unique take on my main idea. I couldn’t bring them together into one main point because each of them has their own part in adding up to them total idea that our food system is corrupt. That is why they are necessary to my 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?

My first ‘lede’ looked something like this, “During the time that we, as a class, have focused on articles and topics regarding our food system, the thing that disturbs me the most is not the foodborne illnesses or the hellish, inhumane was our food is being produced; it’s the corruption of our food system.” I really didn’t draw the attention of a reader and sort of just jumped right into the facts about the food system. After several revisions it changed to this, “Today, the majority of people in the United States do not know where their food is coming from. This is probably because the people in charge of our food industry do not want people to know that our food system is completely corrupt.” I sort of get to draw the reader in by talking about something that might effect them which makes them concerned so they read on. I started with corruption, it led to how is the food system corrupt, and it lead to how are food system corrupt and how it is affecting you.

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

I would like to try and find different ways to best narrow the down the key points in an article or piece of literature because although, the synthesis and “writer’s project” techniques worked, they weren’t the best solution for me to get the most out of each article. I would also like to try and use each piece we discuss to their full potential instead of trying to cram them with others in attempt to make our argument stronger, each one is credible enough as it is. I like this class but, the methods and ideas could be a little clearer.

One would think that the government would prioritize public and animal health when it comes to putting food on our table, but the real priority for food producers, the government and its regulatory agencies: money. A lot of it. The food industry is continuing to grow and change rapidly with a rise in demand and production. The United States Government is the watch dog over the food industries giving the responsibility to a handful of agencies. An example that can prove how the food industry has changed is the time it takes for a chicken to grow. In the 1950s it took about 3 months to fully raise a chicken, now it takes only 49 days. That’s about half the time! How does that happen? Something is doesn’t seem right and this is what we will discuss in this post. The food industry has evolved substantially in the past century, however, the government hasn’t been able to properly enforce regulations thus creating regulatory loopholes that food producers are able to bypass. Although the government is heavily influenced by these top companies, change can happen with the public being exposed to and aware of all of these faulty practices that are putting money at a higher priority than the health of its consumers.

GREED: MONEY OVER EVERYTHING.

One thing that I have recently started to realize is that money runs this country. It’s as simple as that. As populations grew so did the demand for food. Farmers needed to produce more and faster. The example mentioned above truly shows how farmers have been altering their practices in order to keep up with the rising demand. How can the amount of time a chicken fully grows be cut in half? One answer that I can give you is that it definitely is not natural or healthy. Not only is it unhealthy food but it’s food that costs nothing (I wouldn’t even consider it food). In a debate between Michael Pollan, who is an author, journalist and activist who has been featured in many publications highlighting the problems of the food industry, and Blake Hurst, who is a scholar and farmer, many of the problems in the food industry were brought up Michael Pollan said, “our food system is broken. It’s not serving consumers and it’s not serving farmers. Farmers have to get much bigger to get even. Farmers are not making a lot of money and they are dependent on federal subsidies. There is this flood of cheap food which turns out to not be a good thing.” Like Pollan mentioned, farmers are barely breaking even so one can see why such cheap food is being fed to animals. As a matter of fact in You Are What They Eat, they say that “every year in the U.S., 11 billion pounds of animal fat is recycled into animal feed.” We’re feeding the animals that we eat recycled animal fat? Why is that? Because it’s cheap. In addition the article says that for food producers and companies “the goal: to fatten animals as fast and as cheaply as possible.” Now, what are the consequences of trying to fatten animals as fast and cheaply as possible?

In Food Inc., Michael Pollan said that “E. Coli is the product of the way we feed these animals.” We have all heard of the recent outbreaks of E. Coli that have happened at Chipotle which even made the store close all of its chains on one day. E. Coli is no joke and people can lose their lives but one thing that really angers me is that the practices the food industry is using today produces more E. Coli. Michael Pollan also goes on to say “give an animal grass in one day and 80% of the E. Coli they have will be gone.” But why don’t they feed their animals grass if it got rid of all that E. Coli? Because they wouldn’t achieve their “goal” and their chickens wouldn’t be able to grow fully in 49 days.

 

REGULATORY LOOPHOLES

One of my biggest concerns about the food industry are the regulatory loopholes that are present and so easily accessible. In You Are What They Eat by Consumer Reports the problem is introduced right off the bat. “Our investigation raises the concerns that the federal government isn’t doing enough to protect the food supplies……Regulatory loopholes could allow mad cow infection.” Regulatory loopholes can allow any type of infection! The United States Government has the responsibility to protect its citizens but yet there are regulatory loopholes in an industry that provides the food that we put on the table for all types of people to eat from little kids to the elderly. Make’s sense, right? Food is a life necessity and we cannot live without it but yet we can’t be sure about the safety of the food we put on our tables? That’s scary. One question on my mind is how are there regulatory loopholes? I believe the following reasons from a few experts help answer that question for us.

In Organic Illusions by Blake Hurst, he points out something that doesn’t make me feel any better. Hurst says, “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. So, even if all procedures are followed, it’s possible that conventional pesticides are present—either from drift from neighboring conventionally farmed fields, or because the producer has been less than honest in his certification.” Although he says organic foods, what makes me think that only pertains to organic food? How are food producers able to lie about how they grow their food? God knows what type of containments people have been consuming with there food. This is a prime example of the government and regulatory agencies not doing their job. If these loopholes are present in the food industry, I can only imagine what kind of loopholes can be exposed in all other industries. In You Are What They Eat, it is also mentioned that “about 80 percent of seafood sold in the U.S. is imported. Yet the FDA tests only about 2 percent of those imports, mainly for drug residues.” Wow. If food that is imported is barely tested for contaminations (mainly drug residue but they should be looking for ALL possible containments) then it must be extremely easy for food that is produced domestically to pass tests and end up on our plates. The inspection and testing procedure is completely broken and it needs to be fixed. Farmers can lie about the way they grow their food and much testing isn’t done. The government can do more but they haven’t and in You Are What They Eat, it says that “the Government Accountability Office, has called the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s data on inspections of animal feed producers “severely flawed.” Yet federal food-safety agencies have failed to tighten restrictions.” How have these food agencies failed to tighten restrictions?

Marion Nestle helps answer the question of how these food agencies have failed to tighten restrictions and how they have failed to protect the consumer’s health and interests in his work called The Politics of Food Safety. Nestle 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, sometimes joined by the agencies themselves.” I can only think of one word to describe this: corruption. Marion Nestle even goes on to say that there has been a “historic closeness of working relationships among congressional agriculture committees, federal regulatory agencies and food producers.” How can it get better if there is such heavy influence from these top companies? According to Food Inc., “in 1910 the top 4 companies had a market share of 25%, today the top 4 have a market share of 80%.” In addition to that, at one point in the documentary it showed how some of the top company executives ended up holding a high level position for the same regulatory agencies that were regulating the companies they used to work for.

Whose interests are put first at that point? The company or the consumer? The company. You would think that it couldn’t go any further than the government and its agencies being heavily influenced however, Blake Hurst from Organic Illusions brings up another controversial point. In his article he references a study that was published from scientists and researchers from Stanford University. The article says that “a group of scientists at Stanford University found that the nutritional benefits of organic food have, to say the least, been oversold.” Later in the article Mr. Hurst then brings this into light that “Stanford University and the authors have been accused of being in bed with food producer Cargill, and all the bishops of the foodie orthodoxy have responded by disagreeing and, in many instances, changing the subject.” Why would food producers, such as Cargill, love a study that says organic food has the same nutritional benefits as food that is grown conventionally? Because growing organic food is more expensive than growing food conventionally. However, that is not the part that strikes me. The part that strikes me the most is the fact that a private university, including professors and scientists that helped with study, are also being corrupt/heavily influenced by these food producers. A study from a private university that used scientists and professors should be telling the truth and if they were telling the truth they wouldn’t be “changing the subject.” Hurst then delivers the final blow by saying, “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?”

To say this is scary can actually be an understatement. Money is starting to run everything, or maybe it already has and I’m just starting to realize it now. When it comes to the food industry, politics shouldn’t be involved as much as they are and money shouldn’t be a higher priority than the health of the consumer. People’s lives are at stake, including young children. Why should I be questioning my trust with the government when it comes to the food industry? I shouldn’t be. Then I start to question many other things such as the medicine that we are prescribed. What’s in it and where is it coming from? I guess the answer to that is that we won’t really know. Change can only come with the public becoming aware of the flaws in the system. With the corruption of these agencies and the amount of influence the food producers have on Congress, it only makes the fight harder. But with wide public support and more flaws being exposed this can change and it will.

 

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.

My understanding of the writer’s project is to be able to express your own point of views on a particular subject by being able to synthesize outside sources and use them to your own advantage when you are expressing own opinions and when you want those opinions to be expressed as efficiently and clearly as possible. The writer should also establish the credibility of the experts that they are using in their project. I was able to identify texts’ projects by highlighting their main arguments and the evidence that they use to support it. My project was about highlighting the flaws in the food industry and how food producers and regulatory agencies have the wrong priorities in mind.

2.)  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 most beneficial section to the development of my ideas was the last section. The last section made it much easier for me to synthesize texts because the arrows are literally pointing at direct quotes from other sources that complement each other. The sorting it out workshop was a huge tool in helping me synthesize my texts as best as I could.

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

My understanding of synthesis is to use the outside sources in your own project in order to add some sort of evidence/credibility/reason to why you think about a certain topic a certain way. In addition to that, synthesis is using the texts to complement each other in order to further strengthen your arguments. For example, in the last two paragraphs, I felt that I was able to use Blake Hurst and Marion Nestle really well with each other to develop my arguments and to add some weight to my arguments as well.

4.)  Describe your own accomplishment (of something) during this unit.

This unit really taught me how to synthesize a couple of text’s and use them to strengthen my own argument. I think that this is something beneficial for me while moving on but I also can probably use more work on synthesizing. In addition to that, I learned about the issues of the food industry and food politics. I also wrote my first blog post ever!

5.) 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 always mainly focused on the greed and regulatory loopholes that exist in the food industry. There wasn’t a huge amount of evolution in regards to the main idea, however, as I learned how to synthesize better and better it felt like the amount of evidence I can use to support my ideas kept just piling up and up.

6.) 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.

My main organization strategies were to introduce a quote from an expert and just build off of that. After I would throw in the quote, I would say what I would have to say and then I would bring in another source and expert in order to just keep building off the first quote and to really strengthen my point of views on the particular topic.

7.) 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 the best job I did synthesizing was in the second and third paragraph of the regulatory loopholes section. It might not be as concise as it should be but I feel like it is my best job because one source just leads to the other and so on. I think it is also the best part of the project where I use the sources to really strengthen my arguments.

8.) 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?

My lede didn’t really change since earlier drafts. However, when I wrote it, I wanted to get right to the point and I needed something for the reader to catch onto in order for them to keep reading. Hopefully I was able to accomplish that.

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

I think that one of the next things that I would like to work on is to probably be more concise. This was a big topic for me because I felt like I had to say a lot and there was a lot that I wanted to say. I would’ve really struggled if we were not allowed to go over the 1400 work limit.

 

Were you aware that the average chicken farmer invest nearly $500,000 a year and only makes about $18,000? Or even that in the 1970s the top five beef packers controlled 25 percent of the market, and now the top four are in control of more than 80 percent? How does it make you feel that you don’t have the right to know where your meats are coming from, or if they are at risk of containing a deadly strain of Escherichia Coli?

The film Food Inc. puts the power of emotion to use by exploring the reality of these facts within the documentary. The film’s aim is to explore what’s, “behind the veil of corporate farming,” and it does so by providing the viewer with powerful evidence that demonstrates the authority that the big food corporations possess over their farmers, workers, and also regulatory agencies.  Experts such as Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, an investigative writer, Barbara Kowalcyk, a food safety advocate, and Joel Salatin, an American holistic farmer all give the film high credibility. After viewing the film, I felt somewhat dumbfounded by the things that I saw. First, comprehending the grasp that the big companies like Tyson, and Purdue have on their farmers disgusted me. Carole Morison, a former Purdue chicken farmer, has had enough of what she has deemed to be immoral farming. She is interviewed about her experience and states, “I understand why farmers don’t want to talk, because the company can do what it wants to do as far as pay goes because they control everything.” This quotation, and the interview, shows how one-sided these contracts with the big food companies truly are. Her contract was terminated due to her lack of interest in changing her chicken coups to Purdue’s standards, and her disgust with the antibiotics and abnormal growth of her chickens. Not only do they control the farming portion of the meat packing industry, but the film unveils a far more concerning issue. It explains how many of the members of the FDA and USDA are former members of the beef industry. Notably, during the Bush administration, the chief of staff of the USDA, James F. Fitzgerald, was the former chief lobbyist for the beef industry, and also the head of the FDA, Lester M Crawford Jr., was the former executive VP of the National Food Processors Association.

This portion of the film leads into one of the most heartfelt pieces of evidence, children dying of a particular deadly pathogen in contaminated foods. E. coli 0157:H7 is the strand of E. coli that killed Kevin Kowalyck, son of Barbara Kowalyck, whose story is repeatedly shown throughout the film. Kevin is a victim of a foodborne illness. He was only two years and eight months old when the illness killed him in just twelve days! Barbara struggles to enact transformation in government regulation as we watch her bring the case of her son to state and federal courts to dispute new regulations. This horrifying tragedy is also very closely related to a portion of the book Food Politics, by Marion Nestle called, “Resisting Food Safety.” Nestle has a Ph.D, M.P.H., and is a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. In her research about issues of foodborne illness she enlightens the reader about the politics and power behind food safety. Her book provides data from the past thirty years on the number of outbreaks and deaths of certain pathogens, and brings forward the statement that the food corporations and the government aren’t doing their part to ensure the safety of the consumers. In addition, Nestle also gives us some insight into it being an unreasonable task for the FDA and USDA to oversee the entire food production in the United States. Only 700 FDA inspectors are responsible for overseeing 30,000 manufacturers, 20,000 warehouses, 785,000 commercial establishments, 128,000 grocery stores, and 1.5 million vending operations. To me this seems like a nearly impossible task, and the USDA doesn’t do much better considering that they have twice as large of a budget than the FDA and ten times the workers, according to her research. The USDA only regulates twenty percent of the food supply, and just fifteen percent of foodborne illness is reported under their jurisdiction in 2000! Marion Nestle’s aim of her piece is to provide stakeholders perspectives on the issues and how each parties’ goals are not aligned. The manufacturers claim that profit is maximizing shareholder wealth, but there has got to be a consensus to make safety the number one priority.

Consumer Reports, “You Are What They Eat,” is very closely related to the facts that Food Inc. displays in the film. This piece is aimed at the health conscious and concerned consumers, so it exhibits a variety of input from experts of science and other areas of expertise. The article’s purpose is to expose the benefits and risks behind the processed feed that is being given to our livestock. Food Inc. brings forward the issues of using corn to speed up the cows life spans so that they are able to be fattened and slaughtered within just 14 months! Consumer Reports takes a look at the use of other feed ingredients that are at risk of contamination. Yet, David Fairfield, the director of feed services for the National Grain and Feed Association argues that, “animal protein products, meat and bone meal, and blood meat are nutritional feed ingredients.” However, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease and Control Prevention) these processed feed ingredients have far more potential for being contaminated. The biggest issue that we are facing is linking the contaminations with actual human illness. There is just simply not a big enough system to control and inspect the origins all of the contamination. In 1997, a feed ban was enacted by the FDA to prevent infectious prions, or proteins that could lead to mad cow disease. However, the FDA’s enforcement of this ban has been very slim. They admitted that the results of their inspections were “severely flawed” due to a lack of compliance by the manufacturers. With this type of system that we have in place where these companies can skew and deflect attempts at inspections and regulation, we are not going to be able to enact change. Our government must to take control of the situation and spend the necessary capital to regain control of the food industry and ultimately provide safety to our consumers.

The final dispute of this matter concerns the question of organics. Blake Hurst, third-generation Missouri farmer and President of the Missouri Farm Bureau, provides his take on the matter in his published piece, “Organic Illusions.” This article allows Hurst to express his sarcastic tone and thoughts about the illusions of “going organic.” His only use of any evidence or facts come from his reference to a Stanford University study which brings forward the lack of nutritional difference between organics and conventionally farmed foods. However, there hasn’t yet been true evidence of any new studies that have been able to conduct their own data on the subject. I would be very shocked to see that organics were not far more likely to be higher in nutritional value or less apt to contain pesticides, fertilizer, and other harmful things. Another of Hurst’s key points is to illuminate the simple fact that conventional farming is efficient. He eludes to his own knowledge and opinion that it wouldn’t be possible to switch to organics because of its demand for land and labor. Yet there is no evidence that this is the case. Hust’s other claim is that the animals don’t care about the “story” behind their demise. His thought is that organic farming is solely about the ethical processes being used, and how the pesticides and fertilizers are harming the soil. Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore’s Dilemma, has a direct opposition to Hurst’s viewpoints. In the Pollan and Hurst Debate the Future of Agriculture, Michael Pollan explains how our farming system is “broken”, and the farmers who are supposed to be the providers are having trouble even staying afloat under the control of the big corporations. He brings forward the issues of corn being used for almost every food product and its lack of ability to be digested by our cattle. He also responds to Hurst’s comments regarding a switch to organic farming “syphoning” the food supply. Pollan states, “I challenge anyone to prove it, I mean so far, genetically modified crops have not produced increases in yield.” This is a very intriguing statement because a majority of the upside of conventional farming is built of the back of efficiency and higher yields. This is a debate that needs some more research, and several of these matters to be answered using scientific research.

The American food system has become an industrial machine. As consumers we have been unable to see the true issues that lay “behind the corporate veil” of farming. The moral, social, financial, and federal aspects of these issues all have yet to encompass change. Our government lacks the ability to regulate and raise inspections due to their control being overtaken by corporate and political giants. We must come together as consumers and demand change, especially if our government is unwilling to cast its authority over the big corporations. The consumers ultimately make the decision of which foods to purchase, and this may be our only avenue to spark a change directly.

 

Sources:
Batt, Andrew. “Pollan and Hurst Debate the Future of Agriculture.” Market to Market RSS. Weekly Journal Rural America, 16 July 2010. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.iptv.org/mtom/story.cfm/feature/3661/mtom_20100716_3546_feature/video>.

Food, Inc. Dir. Robert Kenner. Perf. Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser. Movie One, 2008. Web. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oq24hITFTY>.

Hurst, Blake. “Organic Illusions – AEI.” AEI. The American, 1 Oct. 2012. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <https://www.aei.org/publication/organic-illusions/>.

Kowalcyk, Barbara. “CFI  |  THE CENTER FOR FOODBORNE ILLNESS RESEARCH & PREVENTION  |  Kevin’s Story.” CFI  |  THE CENTER FOR FOODBORNE ILLNESS RESEARCH & PREVENTION  |  Kevin’s Story. Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention, n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.foodborneillness.org/kevin-s-story.html>.

Nestle, Marion. “Resisting Food Safety.” Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. Berkeley: U of California, 2002. 27-61. Print.

 

 

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 writer’s project goes beyond the actual words and digs deep into diffusing the meaning behind it, or their reason for the piece. You must be able to understand the writer’s background and their point of view on the situation in which they are writing about. My own project of my blog article was aimed to get people’s attention about the lack of authority the consumers of this nation have in controlling our own food supply. And also to make people aware of how our food industry has been monopolized behind the scenes.

• 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?

I used a lot of things from this helpful workshop to concise my ideas and synthesize some of the sources that I was writing about. I mainly used sections B, C, and E. They allowed me to separate my sources and then bring them all back together once I was able to establish each of the writer’s projects and interpret them into my own. I was then able to prioritize my draft based on the sources and also it made it much easier to understand where I wanted to tie them together.

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

Our class discussion and example of Kanye West and Miley Cyrus allowed me to understand synthesis much more. To me synthesis means being able to break down an author’s or artists work and get to the meaning behind it. This involves the use of words, but also is reliant on who they are as a person and the position that they hold in society, or power that they have to assert the information to the public. I think that I synthesized fairly well throughout my article, particularly after noting each subject or source that I used, I was able to break down their aim or reason behind their pieces in each case.

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

I accomplished being something more than just a technical robot-like writer. This assignment pushed me to understand the meanings behind a certain type of writing other than just a technical and formal essay. It also was nice to get a handle on concise writing and taking unnecessary “fluff” out of my work.

• 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 wrote my first draft of the assignment, I had written an extremely long lede. It really wasn’t much of a lede at all actually, but rather I began my draft like an essay format and provided a boring background of what was going to be in my article and also a thesis statement that was far too long. I began focused on what I thought was a good statement, it was along the lines of, big corporate business has consumed our food system, and the government is lacking to ensure that we are consuming safe and healthy foods. But as I came to understand more about what a good lede is I was about to really hone in on being specific and also getting the reader’s attention. I switch my whole focus to asking specific questions that would make the audience want to click on my article. It now reads, “Were you aware that the average chicken farmer invest nearly $500,000 a year and only makes about $18,000? Or even that in the 1970s top five beef packers controlled 25 percent of the market, and now the top four beef packers are in control of more than 80 percent? How does it make you feel that you don’t have the right to know where your meats are coming from, or if they are at risk of containing a deadly strain of Escherichia Coli?” This style came from our lede workshop and the article that we read in class about the tips for good ledes.

 

• 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.

I began to piece my article together based on the sources that we went through in class in chronological order. So, first I wanted to discuss Food Inc. because I knew I had a lot to say about the film, and it also was a great source of evidence to lead into the other texts. I then thought about which texts were most appropriate to go with the things that I was discussing, such as Kevins story and how Marion Nestle’s book dives deep into the issues of foodborne illness. I was also able to find an outstanding video source on the debate between Michael Pollan and Blake Hurst, and I used this video to talk about their opposition of the idea of organics with one another.

• 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.

– This quotation, and the interview, shows how one-sided these contracts with the big food companies truly are. Her contract was terminated due to her lack of interest in changing her chicken coups to Purdue’s standards, and her disgust with the antibiotics and abnormal growth of her chickens. Not only do they control the farming portion of the meat packing industry, but the film unveils a far more concerning issue. It explains how many of the members of the FDA and USDA are former members of the beef industry. (from Carole Morison portion)

-To me this seems like a nearly impossible task, and the USDA doesn’t do much better considering that they have twice as large of a budget than the FDA and ten times the workers, according to her research. The USDA only regulates twenty percent of the food supply, and just fifteen percent of foodborne illness is reported under their jurisdiction in 2000! Marion Nestle’s aim of her piece is to provide stakeholders perspectives on the issues and how each parties’ goals are not aligned. The manufacturers claim that profit is maximizing shareholder wealth, but there has got to be a consensus to make safety the number one priority. (about Nestle’s piece)

– This article allows Hurst to express his sarcastic tone and thoughts about the illusions of “going organic.” His only use of any evidence or facts come from his reference to a Stanford University study which brings forward the lack of nutritional difference between organics and conventionally farmed foods. However, there hasn’t yet been true evidence of any new studies that have been able to conduct their own data on the subject. I would be very shocked to see that organics were not far more likely to be higher in nutritional value or less apt to contain pesticides, fertilizer, and other harmful things. (about Hurst’s “Organic Illusions”)

8.) 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?

My lede began as a rather long statement in which I tried to include a great deal of specific detail. However, after the lede workshop I thought that it would be more beneficial to get the reader’s attention and express my thoughts and specific details within the article. My lede began something like, our food system had become consumed by the authority and money of big corporations, and we as consumers lack the ability to enact change. The government has allowed itself to be controlled by these large profit makers as well, and because of this we have been unable to be provided with safe and regulated food that is reliable. My new lead asks direct questions to the reader in hopes to engage them on a personal level. Were you aware that the average chicken farmer invest nearly $500,000 a year and only makes about $18,000? Or even that in the 1970s the top five beef packers controlled 25 percent of the market, and now the top four are in control of more than 80 percent? How does it make you feel that you don’t have the right to know where your meats are coming from, or if they are at risk of containing a deadly strain of Escherichia Coli?

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

I want to make sure that I save multiple versions of my draft. In this unit I had one working copy that I would just make changes to and then save each time. This made it difficult for me to go back to things that I had already deleted but wished that I could refer back to. I think that this would make it easier for me to pull things from my revisions together instead of just having that current copy to work with.

 

 

When you take your first bite into that juicy cheeseburger or hearty burrito, I know I can attest for myself and I’m sure many more, that you’re definitely not thinking where exactly did that red meet or those vibrant colored vegetables originate, or better yet how harmful they can potentially be.

In just 2002, the typical American consumed an average of 137 pounds of beef, chicken, fish, and shellfish per year,” stated the article You are what they eat. While we are lead to believe that beef, chicken, fish and shellfish are the source of power and protein that are body craves, nonetheless, that is not always the case. Foodborne illnesses are becoming more and more prevalent amongst us. According to an article regarding food safety on behalf of NESTLE to Consumer Reports You are what they eat “Campylobacter, Salmonella, Shigella, and E-Coli are amongst the most common illnesses from these various foods, totaling 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths and most of us are not even aware of this.”

Unfortunately, many pathogens infect the animals we use for food without causing any visible signs of illness. Today a major proponent to these illnesses is the grand scale that our food is being produced on. Unbeknownst to many, the packaging on items is solely an illusion and only a few corporations control the whole industry. The monstrous production line today that all these products stem from allows for much more contamination, and less regulation.

Stated in Resisting Food Safety “In the late 1980’s health officials found salmonella in one-third of all poultry and estimated that 33 million Americans experienced at least one episode of foodborne microbial illness each year.” With this being said the outbreaks of food borne illnesses over time are becoming more dangerous and common. Even worse food producers are resisting the attempts of government agencies to impose controlled measures, and often pushing these issues in the dark. The article Resisting Food Safety clearly displays how the food producers are reacting when it states, “… food producers repeatedly deny responsibility for foodborne illness…” Having little cooperation from the production end makes it very difficult to improve the general standards as a whole.

Today, the most blatant illness is the E-Coli outbreak. E-coli derives from infections that come in direct contact with food and water that have been contaminated with feces; the virus then eventually kills red blood cells and can be lethal. Years ago people were only aware of undercooked hamburger, and ground beef to be the only sources of E. coli. However, today things such as fruits, vegetables, apple cider and sprouts have also been infected. A prime example of this was when E. coli unexpectedly swept Chipotle’s all across the country. An obstacle the company faced among the 58 cases that broke out was that Chipotle could not find the direct source of the E. coli, possibly stemming from the tomatoes or beef. In turn this prolonged the process longer and made it much harder for the company to detain the contamination.

Food, Inc. displays an instance in beef where the illness was lethal to 2-year-old Kevin. Kevin passed away from E-coli in his burger, and it turned out that the beef Kevin consumed was not recalled until 16 days after. Kevin’s mom sought justice in honor of Kevin, and now a law has now been put into place, “Kevin’s Law”- Kevin’s Law allows the USDA to shut down plants immediately.

We go to the supermarket and see dozens of options and brands, thinking that each came from different places. However, the truth is that this is just an illusion; while many have different logos and may look different to the eye, much of all the products come from the same places.

As quoted in Food, Inc. a farmer’s goal is to “produce a lot of food, with a small amount of land, at an affordable price.” Frankly, a few major corporations control the whole industry and small farms raising numerous kinds of crops and animals have been replaced by unfathomably large factory like methods.

Household brands such as Tyson, is a prime example of just that. Today, Tyson is one of the leading meat packing companies in the nation. In 1970, Tyson controlled 5-25% of the market; today Tyson now controls 40-80% of the meat packing market.

Unavoidably, when raising massive populations of chicken or cattle in the same location calls for more manure then can be contained or converted to fertilizer. When farmers normally raise an average amount of animals they can control and compost the waste, which is a process that usually generates enough heat to kill bacteria. Today that is much harder to get done with the volume of animals, inevitably, increasing the tendency for contamination and illness.

Another leading debate among the food industry is weather or not the suppliers and demanders should go organic or remain conventional.

Personally just in my local grocery store, I see the organic section continuing to expand each year. Years ago we didn’t have three isles dedicated solely to organic products with options that expand to organic shampoo, make up, toothpaste, and food. According to Food, Inc. the organic industry is growing at an annual rate of 20%, however as stated in Organic Illusions “The quantity of organic sales constitutes considerably less than 4 percent of the total market.”

Currently, the argument of organic food versus conventional food is also a rising topic among farmers. In the article You are what they eat discussed is going organic, “If all animals were raised organically on feed lacking pesticides, animal byproducts and antibiotics- would our food supply be safer? Yes in some ways. There would be less risk of mad cow disease, little or no arsenic in chicken … But there is no guarantee that organic feed is free of garden- variety bacteria, including salmonella.” Ironically when deciding between organic or conventional food, in organic food no check is ever done to test the reliability of these titles.

Although you are may be buying organically, organic foods have a higher rates of deadly E. coli, while conventional foods were higher in pesticide residue that substantially less toxic.

Even if we were to go organic there is not enough land readily available for production as quoted in Organic Illusions, “ If food demand nearly doubles over the next 50 years, as its predicted to do, there just isn’t enough arable land available to support a wholesale adoption of organic methods.”

Sadly today, the reality is that the food we consume on a daily basis is not always safe. Foodborne illnesses have had an affect all across the country in a variety of different manners. Many different kinds of illnesses have been seen with E. coli being the most dominant. The harsh reality is that our food is deriving from all the same places and it is very hard to regulate things on such a grand scale. Even organic “all natural” food is not always the answer. While, this may all be the circumstances today- I am hopeful that in the future with awareness, our food production ways can be changed and improved to lead a healthier lifestyle.

 

 

---

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.

When I first came in contact with Joseph Harris’s Rewriting How to Do Things with Texts article, I was slightly confused by all the information. He spoke about many different aspects in writing- defining the project of a writer, assessing uses and limits, some terms of art and about coming to terms with the overall text. After coming to class that week and braking down the subsections as a class, I gained a complete better understanding. To push beyond the test I found that you must a- figure out what the writer/artist is trying to do in the text. To my understanding what this meant is that you have to try and figure out what is the writer or authors overall motive with the text, why are they doing such a thing/creating this work of art? Secondly, b- you must understand what is his/her project?, what is the plan of work, set of ides and questions that a writer/artist presents, something that a writer is working on. Ultimately what part b is trying to convey is that you must understand how the writer is going literally to express part a, what is the plan of action? And lastly, part c- what someone has said and what she is trying to accomplish by saying it. What part c means is that you have to grasp the feedback of others and think about what you as a writer or artist is trying to get at, by presenting this piece of work?

•  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?

Due to unfortunate circumstances I was absent while the class worked on the sorting it out workshop. When looking at document on my own time, the organization as a whole helped me determine what you would be looking for in this assignment. The breakdown of everything made it very evident that you were looking for many sources with clear and concise arguments. Overall, the document helped to clarify exactly what you wanted in our final pieces.

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

To my understanding a synthesis is when you draw influences between a variety of different texts to display the writers understanding of a project and how they all complement one another. A synthesis is very important because when you are writing and having to collect information from multiple sources, knowing how to synthesize will help your further your overall goal in a more sophisticated manner- being able to take many different perspectives, compliments, and colliding views and combining them all. Learning about a synthesis undoubtedly helped me further my drafts and final blog article. Through out the course of unit one we gathered information from multiple texts and sources, such as Food Inc., You are what they eat, Organic Illusions and Resisting Food Safety. Having a better understanding of a synthesis allowed me easily combine them all together, drawing connection, perspectives, opinions between one another to form my final blog article.

• Describe your own accomplishment (of something) during this unit.

Overall, my own personal accomplishment during this unit is that I know feel incredibly more comfortable being able to compose a piece using many different perspectives yet still come to a general consensus. I thought it was nice how we slowly worked in all the different pieces and gained a firm grasp on each before moving to the next one. The grids and handout that we made comparing the many different sources were very helpful. The unit was well organized and allowed me to understand each topic clearly.

•  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?

The evolution of my main idea came from 500-word piece, and still remains in my final draft when I state in my introduction, “While we are lead to believe that beef, chicken, fish and shellfish are the source of power and protein that are body craves, nonetheless, that is not always the case.” I think that this is the evolution of my main idea because from such a young age we are taught the food is a need for survival, which it is. However, so many people are blind to the problems we as a nation are facing on so many different levels. Its progress is shown through out my whole piece. Reiterating the struggles that many of us are unaware of, and proving the blindness in the middle when speaking about how about only a few companies control the industry in its entirety and how organic food may just be an misconception.

•  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.

An organizational strategy that I implemented to create this blog article was in my first draft introduction paragraph I touched upon all three main ideas I was going to speak about. One being the illnesses itself, the second the grand scale that our food is produced on, and the third the debate between organic and conventional food. For example, “In just 2002, the typical American consumed an average of 137 pounds of beef, chicken, fish, and shellfish per year,” states the article You Are What They Eat. While we are lead to believe that beef, chicken, fish and shellfish are the source of power and protein that are body craves, nonetheless, that is not always the case. Campylobacter, Salmonella, Shigella and E-Coli are amongst the most common illnesses from these various foods, totaling 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths. Today a major proponent to these illnesses is the grand scale that our food is being produced on. Many argue that the answer to these unfortunate problems is to grow organically while many disagree and think that conventional food is just fine and if not better overall.” In my later drafts and making my work more “blog like” I broke pieces up and start off a little differently with my lede stating, “When you take your first bite into that juicy cheeseburger or hearty burrito, I know I can attest for myself and I’m sure many more, that you’re definitely not thinking where exactly did that red meet or those vibrant colored vegetables originate, or better yet how harmful they can potentially be.”

• 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.

An example in my final draft where I successfully synthesize is when I say, “Unfortunately, many pathogens infect the animals we use for food without causing any visible signs of illness. Today a major proponent to these illnesses is the grand scale that our food is being produced on. Unbeknownst to many, the packaging on items is solely an illusion and only a few corporations control the whole industry.” This is a prime example of a synthesis because I use information from Resisting Food Safety, You are what they eat, and the film Food Inc. This synthesis along with my piece as a whole evolved throughout the drafting process for me because because each time I drafted  learned how to better compact, diverge, and collide ideas.

• 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 and prior to discussing ledes I did not have one incorporated at all. I started off my draft going straight into statistics and stating, “In just 2002, the typical American consumed an average of 137 pounds of beef, chicken, fish, and shellfish per year,” thinking this would excite the reader. While I think this can also be a good tactic, a lede is much better. In class when we did peer editing, my edior suggested I incorporate a lede instead of going straight into the facts, so prior to these statistics in my final blog I article I added, “When you take your first bite into that juicy cheeseburger or hearty burrito, I know I can attest for myself and I’m sure many more, that you’re definitely not thinking where exactly did that red meet or those vibrant colored vegetables originate, or better yet how harmful they can potentially be.”

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

During the next unit project and through out the course of this class I would like to work on making my writing overall less wordy and more concise.

How much do you actually know about what is in your food? In recent years several publications have examined the food industry. The discussion is complex, filled with criticisms and shared blame but most consumers are in the dark about the pertinent issues.

All issues related to and relevant to food safety are reflective of a three way power struggle between the industry, the government, and consumers. This matters because the industry is more impactful than the government in certain areas. Consumers should be concerned because they are increasingly at the mercy of the economic-interest of major food corporations. After reading various texts, there are a few topics that I could clearly identify at the crux of the debate. Criticism of government regulation over the food industry, and the dangers of foodborne illness was featured in almost every reading.

The Consumer Reports article You are What They Eat inquiries into the lack of government monitoring of the food fed to the animals we eventually eat and the adverse effects thereafter.  By providing the current narrative between industry and concerned officials, the article effectively attacks the credibility of food industry executives. After highlighting the inclusion of waste and antibiotics in the feed of farm animals such as cows and chickens, David Bossman the CEO of American Food industry Association is quoted as saying “You can eat meat with confidence that it’s not only safe but getting safer” (Consumer Reports, 27) Yet, other officials admit to being aware of the potential for the feed to still become contaminated in several parts of the process. Two key observations made by the text are that the appropriate organizations do actually have oversight and final approval over feed ingredients, and even still certain health labels and claims on food are unverified.  I wish to add that this is one of the most important manifestations of the food industry’s power over consumers. Families and individuals are severely disadvantaged, and at times endangered, when shopping because they don’t where there food comes from or how it is produced and must trust labeling. As a reader and consumer of food, I naturally wondered why the government would be so negligent in this area. The investigations conducted in the documentary Food Inc. do the work of providing some answers.

In the film, the directors and producers examine every aspect of food production in an attempt to spotlight controversial industry practices for an uninformed audience. Eric Schlosser, the author and co-producer, explains that “For years during the Bush administration, the chief of staff at the USDA was the former chief lobbyist to the beef industry in Washington; the head of the F.D.A. was the former executive vice president of the National Food Processors Association. These regulatory agencies are being controlled by the very companies that they’re supposed to be scrutinizing”. (Food Inc.) This is possible due the fact that only a handful of companies control the food system, another observation made in Food Inc. What Schlosser is speaking to at the end of that quote has actually been a continuing occurrence through recent history. The trend illuminates how the amassing economic power of food corporations is being transformed into political power, further tipping the balance of influence away from the government. The two publications I’ve discussed thus far attacked the issues of regulation from the outside attempting to peek in. Marion Nestle was able to provide more of an authoritative insight in her article Resisting Food Safety.

Pulling from her experience as the senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services, Nestle critiques the internal structure of regulatory agencies. She argues that the system is outdated by providing the facts and statistical details as to why government action is so limited. She insists that there is more protection for producers than the public, “If anything the demands on the FDA are even more unreasonable…The FDA’s budget allocation for inspection purposes was…minuscule by any standard of federal expenditure”. (Nestle, 59) The arguments made by Nestle about the daunting tasks provided to food regulation organizations stood out to me. Extending the text’s observation that regulatory government agencies are more concerned about vying for resources and jurisdiction than public safety, I wish to add that the dilution of their responsibilities contributes to the dilution of their power. It is this environment that influences the behavior noted by Nestle.

Foodborne illness is the danger fostered by current regulatory practices.  This issue is framed by power as well. As the current system is constructed, all the texts point to the fact that consumers, the industry and the government are all severely disadvantaged when it comes to preventing foodborne illness.

The major function of Consumer Reports as a publication is to caution and advise uninformed consumers. This particular article is characterized by explaining the source and risks of two major food related afflictions.  They are effective in this effort by clearly elucidating how infectious prions in beef feed can lead to mad cow disease in humans and antibiotics in chicken feed can expose people to arsenic, in a concrete and organized arrangement. Yet, even though the sources of the diseases are known, the author explains how preventative efforts are still hampered. “The FDA is aware of a handful of incidents worldwide in which salmonella infections in humans were linked to animal feed… connecting human illness to contaminated feed is difficult” (Consumer Reports, 28). Extending the text’s observation about the difficulty linking feed ingredients to foodborne illness, I wish to add that the dangerous aspect of this issue is that the industry again reigns superior in influence. If it is difficult to link the ingredients known to have potential for harm to actual outbreaks, it is easier to defend their inclusion.

In contrast to Consumer Reports, in addition to providing information Food Inc. makes effective rhetorical appeal to emotion in order to make its arguments. The inclusion of Barb Kowalcky’s story regarding her son Kevin emphasizes the dangers of foodborne illness in a way that effectively hits home. Ms. Kowalcky narrates how her son developed hemolytic-uremic syndrome in reaction to contaminated hamburger meat, while playful photos and videos of the deceased play on screen. Her experience expands on the difficulties of foodborne illness touched upon in Consumer Reports. “It took us almost two or three years and hiring a private attorney to actually find out that we matched a meat recall”. Kevin’s Law, passed after his 2001 death, gives the USDA the power to close down plants with contaminated meat. What was alarming to me was that the government didn’t already reserve this power and that it took death and years of lobbying for them to assume this power. The Kowalcky family was powerless to prevent their son from eating the tainted meat. The industry lacked significant power to identify and contain the contaminated food, and the until Kevin’s law the government lacked the power to shut down production of contaminated meat.

Nestle’s article, being more factual and educational in nature pinpoints, the specific challenges faced by organizations in identifying the source of foodborne illness. She notes “most episodes of food poisoning are not very serious… it is difficult to collect accurate information about the number of cases and their severity”. (Nestle, 37) She is also able to tangibly clarify what I have observed as prioritizing of economic interests over public safety.  Nestle provides data showing how foodborne illness presents a multi-million dollar cost to the industry in the form of recalls and loss of reputation. I similarly hold one of the text’s position that consumers do share some of the responsibility in issues of food safety.  This was a perspective touched on in all articles in fact. Food Inc., tries through rhetorical exercise to emphasize the power consumers have by selective spending when it comes to food. Consumer Reports urges people to utilize their local means of political influence to affect change by signing petitions and such. Yet, as Nestle observes the blame and responsibility is shared equally between producers, consumers, and regulatory agencies. Although, revisiting these issues of food through the framework of power, it becomes clear that power is concentrated in the industry. Therefore, so should accountability for food safety.

Our country’s food system is far from perfect. Marion Nestle accurately describes my attitude towards the issue when she states “The costs of foodborne illness to individuals, to society, and to food companies should encourage everyone to collaborate in efforts to ensure safe food.”(Resisting Food Safety, 61). We consumers have to stop buying into common narrative and false sense of security regarding what we eat. The potential dangers are very evident and acknowledged by all interests involved. We cannot rely on the government, their influence has been tempered by a complex system of checks and balances. A system where their power is imbalanced and too often checked. It is our best interest to demand better.

 

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.

 

I understand the writer’s project to be the arguments or observations they are trying to make and how they go about making them. In order to identify the texts projects, I first tried to synthesize the author’s thesis, and then identify different compositional strategies they employed. My project with this particular blog article was to compile information on food safety and present it through the framework of power. My overall thesis was that consumers need to reclaim power in the equation, and I used the various arguments made by the texts to highlight where power currently lies.

 

• 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?

 

I appreciated the Sorting it Out workshops for organizing my thoughts. I found the sections connecting passages in the text and identifying the various projects to be extremely beneficial when it came to writing the article. The workshop helped me address all prompts for the assignment and then figure out how to present it.

 

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

 

Synthesizing in my understanding if concretely expressing the main arguments of the text, providing key details and evidence, without summarizing. Its importance lies in the analysis of the text, which manifested directly into the article.

 

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

 

I think the practice in synthesizing, helped me read texts more critically. An accomplishment for me was identifying and utilizing evidence from the differing text effectively in my article, finding connections and relevance.

 

 

 

 

• 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 original main idea was just the focus or thesis of my 500 word reading response. “After reading the texts, there were several issues prevalent throughout all of the texts. The topic of government regulation over the food industry was touched upon briefly in almost every reading. Two in particular went into depth over the actions and lack of actions on behalf of organizations such as the FDA and the USDA.” After the sorting it out workshop, my main idea developed more into my own observations and opinions about the food industry “All issues related to and relevant to food safety are reflective of a three way power struggle between the industry, the government, and consumers. This matters because the industry is more impactful than the government in certain areas. Consumers should be concerned because they are increasingly at the mercy of the economic-interest of major food corporations.”

 

 

• 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.

 

My lede is designed to draw the readers attention the issue of food in general. My introductory paragraph is where I declare my observations and main idea. I tried to organize the article around the issues transitioning from text to text. After synthesizing the text as it related to the issue I was discussing at a particular point, I made sure to highlight how the argument or issue relate to my main idea and opinions. I often utilized my topic and concluding sentences to compare and contrast the articles and their various approaches. I nested the textual evidence in the heart of paragraphs to support the claims I made in my synthesis of the texts. My concluding paragraph revisits the main idea but ends with my own personal assertions and opinions.

 

 

7.) 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 Consumer Reports article You are What They Eat inquiries into the lack of government monitoring of the food fed to the animals we eventually eat and the adverse effects thereafter.  By providing the current narrative between industry and concerned officials, the article effectively attacks the credibility of food industry executives.”

 

“In the film, the directors and producers examine every aspect of food production in an attempt to spotlight controversial industry practices for an uninformed audience.”

 

 

“Pulling from her experience as the senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services, Nestle critiques the internal structure of regulatory agencies.”

 

In earlier drafts, my synthesis was just a statement of the author’s project or thesis. After the lede workshop, I revisited the synthesis and focused on being concise and informing the reader about the most important things I want them to know about the texts.

 

8.) 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?

 

My lede did not undergo much change from first to final draft. I felt I really benefitted from the workshop we did in class. I immediately knew I wanted to incorporate a question in order to draw the reader’s attention. I figured it would work effectively since the issues of food involve so many questions.

 

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

 

I would like to improve on composing more concisely when appropriate.

Brandon Wright
Amy Barone-Phillips
Writing 205
29 February 2016

Your Food:
What the Labels Don’t Say

Food, something humans consume in order to support the body. Historically, humans hunted and gathered, or farmed food in order to stay alive. Today, with the advances in technology and continuous increase of the world’s population, the food is supplied to us by the big bad food industry. The food industry is a very dangerous place. Much like every other business, big corporations are in charge, and that is not always a good thing. We are blinded by the lies told to us by food corporations and that needs to stop. It is time everyone knows the truth about the food industry. Food safety is a big issue and it is not regulated as well as it should be.

Organic Foods

One of the fastest growing markets in the food industry is the organic market. We have been sold on this idea that organic foods are the greatest thing in the world. We have been told that they are less fattening, provide more nutrients, and taste better than nonorganic products. Well how much good do organic foods really do for us? Organic Illusions, by Blake Hurst discusses the overhyped value of organic foods. “A recent study by a group of scientists at Stanford University found that the nutritional benefits of organic food have, to say the least, been oversold. Apres moi, le deluge. A furor has erupted.” We cannot be blinded by the big corporations and their motives. The truth is, organic foods are more expensive than conventional foods. As Hurst goes on to say, “Despite the growth in organic food sales, they only constitute 4 percent of the dollar value of all foods sold; and since organic foods often cost twice what conventionally grown foods do, the quantity of organic sales constitutes considerably less than 4 percent of the total market.” As we can see, we are paying way more than we should be for organic foods when we compare it to the overall market. Even more startling, we may be paying more money to actually get sick. “The Stanford study found that organic foods were considerably less likely than conventional foods to have pesticide residues, although organic foods were higher in E. coli.” Yes, organic food may not have as many pesticide residues as conventional food, but diseases like E. Coli are more abundant in these foods. Why should we be paying twice as much for food that is not 100% safe to eat? Organic foods are not what they are made out to be, and we need to think long and hard before we buy them.

Safety First?

We assume that packaged food is always safe to eat, but that is not a good assumption. Marion Nestle is a Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, and in her article Resisting Food Safety, she states “Safety is relative. 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… Such numbers undoubtedly underestimate the extent of the problem.” About 25% of the entire US population will get sick from food this year. That is one in every four people. So we get sick from something that we depend on to survive? That should not happen. Obviously some of these reasons have to do with allergies and other external sources, but 76 million is way too many. We are so surprised when one gets food poisoning of some other illness from food because we do not see it as a common occurrence. We are clearly wrong about how rare foodborne illnesses are. Nestle later goes on to say “Centralized food production has created even more favorable conditions for dissemination of bacteria, protozoa, and viruses. We call these organisms by collective terms: microbes, microorganisms, or ‘bugs.’ If harmful, they are pathogens. Many pathogens infect animals we use for food without causing any visible signs of illness.” If we are not concerned about food illnesses yet, then when will we? Since food production happens in mass quantity, bacteria and other viruses are more prone to be attached to the food. In Food Inc., an Academy Award-Nominated documentary film that examines corporate farming in the United States, Eric Schlosser, an American journalist and author known for his investigative journalism, states that “Now our food is coming from enormous assembly lines where the animals and the workers are being abused.  And the food has become much more dangerous in ways that are being deliberately hidden from us.” Still don’t believe that food safety is not a concern? Let us ask Carole Morison, a former contract poultry farmer who raised chickens for international corporations for over two decades and appeared in Food Inc. According to Morison, “The companies don’t want farmers talking. They don’t want this story told.” Carole Morison was silenced by multimillion-dollar food corporations about the conditions of the chickens she was raising on her farms. The chicken coops were not big enough for the amount of chickens she had, which caused numerous problems. The chickens lived in an enclosed coop with hundreds of each other and barely could move around. Many of these chickens had bacterial infections and other diseases due to the filthy conditions, but that did not stop the corporations from packaging them and selling them to the people. We are under this spell that corporations are looking out for the consumer at all times. They want us all to think that is the truth. That couldn’t be any further from the truth. Food safety is not being regulated well enough, and that is no longer a myth, it is a fact.

The Government

While big corporations are at fault for many of the food safety issues, the real culprit is the Federal Government. The Federal Government has ties to the to all the big food corporations and that is not good. Consumer Reports: You are what they eat looks into the Government and how they are turning a blind eye to food safety. They investigated the issue of safety and here is what they found. “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: Regulatory loopholes could allow mad cow infection, if present, to make its way to cattle feed; drugs used in chickens could raise human exposure to arsenic or antibiotic-resistant bacteria: farmed fish could harbor PCBs and dioxins.” Loopholes in the federal government will get eaten up by big food corporations and will use those loopholes to gain advantages. Loopholes are every lawyers dream and big corporations have plenty of lawyers. The fact is; these companies can get away with this as long as the loopholes continue to exist. The big winner in all this is Monsanto, America’s most hated corporation, who has a long history of corruption. Here are just a few examples of Monsanto squeezing their way into powerful positions in the US Government, courtesy of Seattle Organic Restaurants. “In 2001, Anne Veneman (who was on Board of Directors of one of Monsanto’s biotech subsidiary called Calgene) was appointed as head of USDA in charge of regulating genetically modified organisms… In 2001, Linda Fisher who previously was Monsanto’s VP of Government Affairs was appointed as Deputy Administrator of Environmental Protection Agency… In 2002, George Poste (the former Monsanto’s animal specialist) was appointed as head of bioterrorism division of Homeland Security… In 2008, Obama despite his promises to label GMO foods appointed Michael Taylor, (Monsanto’s former attorney and VP) as Deputy Commissioner of FDA. He also gave his blessing to soda companies to continue the use of aborted babies as flavor enhancer in sodas and soft drinks.” As we can clearly see, Monsanto has very powerful friends in the three most significant agencies relating to food safety, the FDA, USDA, and EPA. If this is not corruption at its finest, then what is? We cannot sit around and watch as food corporations take over Government agencies, we must take action in order to protect ourselves from a food crisis.

Conclusion

The food industry is a very dangerous market to get involved in. Farmers have the toughest jobs in the US because they have to work long and hard hours everyday, get paid very little for their work, and are forced to keep silent about the conditions the animals goes through before being turned into food. Organic foods are not as healthy as we are told, safety in the workplace is nonexistent, and the Government is just as involved in the corruption as the big businesses are. These issues were swept under the rug for a long time, but now we all must know the truth. The food industry has been lying to us all. Food safety is a big issue and it is not regulated as well as it should be and it starts at the top, and we the people must fix the problem by having our voices be heard. For if not, nothing will change, and food safety will never get any better.

 

References:

Food, Inc. Directed by Robert Kenner. Food, Inc. Accessed February 28, 2016. http://www.takepart.com/foodinc.

Nestle, Marion. Politics of Foodborne Illness.

“Organic Illusions – AEI.” AEI. Accessed February 28, 2016. https://www.aei.org/publication/organic-illusions/.

“Political Corruption of Monsanto and Its Influence.” Political Corruption of Monsanto and Its Influence. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

“You Are What They Eat.” Consumer Reports. January 2005. Accessed February 28, 2016.

The writer’s project to me is the central focus or idea that a writer is trying to make a point about. While doing this, the writer wants to inform the audience of his/her about the ideas and how they are important. I was able to identify the texts “project” by reading each one and figuring out what there messages was to the reader and what they wanted me to take away from it. That is what I tried to do for my own “project,” get my point across and make sure the readers comes away for it with a good understanding of what is being discussed.

Food Companies: Is Food Safety A Priority?

 

Wouldn’t you like to know if the food you eat is contaminated with a deadly disease? Wouldn’t you like to know if that disease could potentially kill you or someone you know? The food industry doesn’t care. They don’t want you to know about their unsafe and inhumane processes that they use to produce the food that you buy. All they care about is your money!

Big food companies such as Tyson Foods and Cargill Foods produce most of the meat that is sold in supermarkets. People buy the meat, cook the meat, and then they eat the meat like any other standard meal in the history of civilized living. But what is different about these the meat nowadays is that the meat is processed in large factories. This is due, in part, to the dramatic increase in demand for meat that is required to satisfy the growing population of America. But this was not fast enough for these big corporations. Many big companies have resorted to creating feed for these animals that differs from the natural diet that these animals are used to. As the Consumer Reports article made evident, feathers and feces are only some of the things that are essentially fore fed to these animals. This creates an environment for disease. In the documentary Food Inc., the director gives an argument against the current way that feed is produced. He argues that the food that is given to animals is harmful because it goes against what is supposed to be given to them. Giving corn to cows is dangerous because cows are not supposed to eat corn so their bodies are not very healthy which leaves them vulnerable to disease. Corn can also carry diseases such as E. Coli. It can then be spread to animals and humans. If the corn contains a disease, then the cow gets the disease. When combined with the horrid living conditions that these animals are forced to live in, the disease can then evolve and spread faster to the humans that eat the meat that comes from that cow. These unnatural and basically inedible feed ingredients are meant to fatten the animal quickly so that they can be slaughtered and sold sooner. But instead, the feed helps make the animals walking petri dishes that contain many different diseases and bacteria. In addition to the unhealthy feed, all animals, regardless of health, are given medications that are supposed to “boost growth and keep infections at bay.” This now makes these animals like walking cocktails.

The Consumer Reports article does provide a slight glimmer of hope. It provides ways, in which, the consumer can protect themselves against these potentially dangerous meats. But it does not solve the issue at hand.

Big food companies also take advantage of the new technologies that society has to offer. Their goal to decrease their spending while increasing their profits. They no longer have the consumer’s best interest in mind. They only care about their wealth. This shows in how they run their factories and their farms. They have resorted to some inhumane practices as a way to increase their profit margin. Food Inc. visits some of these huge farms in America that house hundreds of cows, chickens, and pigs. The film shows some of these animals being kept in tight, dirty spaces; sometimes even being kept in their own feces. This brings down the maintenance costs by giving the animals the bare minimum needed to live but it also creates a breeding ground for bacteria and disease.

Pesticide use has also become commonly used as a way to kill bacteria and bugs which allows for a higher crop yield. These crops are then put in the feed of the farm animals. Some pesticides, such as chrysanthemums, sabadilla, and nicotine, are highly toxic and can be dangerous to consume. But of course, these companies do not care as long as they are paying less and making more.

Blake Hurst in his article, Organic Illusions, spends some time discussing pesticides. According to a Stanford study, that he repeatedly refers to, pesticides cannot be doing any harm because if they were, then farmers would have stopped using them years ago. The Food Journal article backs up this point of view to a certain extent. The article insists that new pesticides that are made are modelled after natural pesticides and they are safer than before. Jennifer Dewey Rohrich, a third generation farmer, says that her family must protect their farm in order to keep producing and if pesticides were slowly damaging their land, they would not be using them anymore.

The Consumer Reports article argues that pesticides and antibiotics lead to disease and if farms and companies were to stop using them, then there would be less risk of getting some diseases. This contradicts with Dewey Rohrich’s view because Dewey Rohrich mentions that farmers are very safe when it comes to pesticide use and she argues that pesticides make food safer because disease carrying organisms are killed and so they can not infect any of the plants.

The article ultimately makes the claim that without pesticides, the cost of farming would significantly increase because alternative methods of protecting crops would have to be used and so the price of goods that are bought in stores would increase as well. So again, it all comes back to costs. At the end of the day, food companies only care about their profit margin so they will continue to use whatever products or practices allow them to spend less and make more.

This all ties nicely under the idea that there is a lack of government oversight. The government created the Food and Drug Administration and the United Stated Department of Agriculture in order to oversee the food industry and ensure that the companies are following regulations that were that were implemented in order to make food safe for consumers. Food Inc., Marion Nestle, and Consumer Reports show that this is not the case. Food Inc., Marion Nestle, and Consumer Reports all argue that the government needs to do more. From Food Inc., “in 1972, the FDA conducted 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006, the FDA conducted only 9,164.”

There has clearly been a sharp decline in government involvement in the food industry. There are a few factors that can affect this downward sloping trend. One example being a lack of funding. Food safety has clearly become a second thought in the minds of everyday consumers and this stems from the trust that they have put into their government to keep them safe.        Consumer Reports and Marion Nestle go more into detail on the two agencies that are supposed to be protecting the consumers of America. Nestle believes that the lack of federal oversight stems from the “illogical division of food safety oversight.” An example being that the USDA regulates hot dogs in pastry doe and the FDA regulates hot dogs in rolls. But the main issue regarding these two is that they are very understaffed. The FDA has about 700 inspectors and does an inspection about once every five years due to this. The USDA has about 7000 inspectors, which is more than the FDA but is still not enough because the USDA does daily inspections but they cannot be thorough because they have a lot of companies to inspect. This results in situations like how the FDA only tests about 2 percent of imported seafood yet about 80 percent of seafood is imported.

These are the very things that allows food companies to get away with skimping on proper safety procedures. The FDA and USDA need to be more funded. They ultimately need an overhaul in the way the agencies are structured. The current state of these agencies is one of inefficiency, which allows for the selling of unsafe food.

The food industry has been able to get away with not following safety instructions properly due to their size and power and also the lack of government oversight. This makes buying food dangerous because the average consumer is not able to tell whether the food they buy will get them sick. They put their trust in these companies and in the government and in return, they are let down when outbreaks occur and people die. This can happen to anybody, at any time, anywhere that sells these tainted foods. These companies, and the government agencies that are supposed to regulate them, need to be overhauled to stop people from getting sick and dying.

 

 

• 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.

I think that through the workshops in class and listening to the views of other people on the writer’s project, the writers project became very clear in each article. I was able to identify the project after breaking down the article into its crucial details. Doing that made the projects very clear. My project was that the food industry is not as concerned about the consumer as they should be and the people deserve to know.

 

• 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?

Summarizing the main arguments of the article and then responding to these arguments made it easier form my project because I was now able to see the ideas laid out. It made it easer follow instead of having to keep it all in my head. Without the layout, I probably would have just written whatever came to my head in hopes that it comes out clearly.

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

After synthesizing these articles, the direction I wanted to take became very clear. I laid out the details, formed the question that I wanted to answer and then plugged in the details where I saw fit. This is evident in the paragraph where I introduce the government agencies. I supported the synthesis by plugging in statistics.

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

I was successfully able to fully analyze and formulate an opinion on the subject and successfully back up this opinion using the articles from class and also from another online source.

5.) 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 originally wrote the synthesis as an essay but I realized that writing as a blog would be more successfully at conveying ideas to the lay person. A blog is more informal while at the same time, sharing a lot of information. At first, I just compared a few of the articles against each other but in the end, I decided to lay those same details out and use them to support a claim that I was making. That claim being that the food industry needs to be overhauled.

• 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.

SMy strategy for my drafts and my final piece were the same in that I used an outline. The difference was how I used that outline. Basically my entire piece was changed. At first, I wrote it as an informative essay but then I wrote it as an informative blog that was doing more than stating facts. My entire piece needed to be changed in order to properly convey the claims that I was making.

• 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.

In the 6^th paragraph, I begin talking about pesticide usage and I use 3 separate sources that discuss pesticide usage directly. I started out making by taking a stance and I feel as though I pulled out the most essential sentences that supported and strengthened my claim.

8.) 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?

sMy lead did not really change much throughout the evolution of my blog. I knew I wanted to take an immediate, strong stance against the current state of the food industry and I feel as though that is exactly what my lede did. I wanted it to set the tone of the article and after getting some feedback about it, that is exactly what it did.

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

During the next project, I would like to get better at synthesizing because at first, it was difficult for me to make a claim and find details to support said claim. But after finishing the first project and reflecting upon the process, I feel like I am already better at seeing the argument that I would like to make.

 

Safe and Healthy Foods: Responsibility of The Consumers, Producers, Or Regulators?

We all tend to go to the store, read a few labels, compare prices and buy whichever food fits our interest and budget, correct? We buy things that may sound healthy or seem to have the best price. We are quick to trust the labels that say “all natural” or “organic”, and trust that we are getting our money’s worth. But is this always the case? Are these labels really as factual as they seem? Are producers as concerned with our health as we think they are? In order to be certain that products are healthy, not only do the consumers need to be more aware of what goes into the food they buy, but also there must be tighter regulation on food production.

Companies function in ways that will help them achieve their ultimate personal wants, and people forget to take this into consideration when they shop. Some companies’ main goals are to make the most profit from their product, while others actually aim to ensure safe foods for their customers regardless of the cost. In the article Resisting Food Safety, Marion Nestle states that food safety politics involves diverse stakeholders with highly divergent goals. She is getting at the fact that companies function differently depending on their personal desires. In addition, Consumer Report’s article You Are What They Eat discusses how companies choose to feed their animals and prepare them for the market, stating that the goal is to “fatten animals as fast and as cheaply as possible.”(pg. 1) This claim shows that they are focused on efficiently increasing profit rather than the health of consumers or animals, while traditional farmers put more focus on their product. With this in mind, the big producers are going to feed the animals whatever it takes to grow the animals quickly as economically reasonable as possible. The health of consumers is not their number one goal. Most consumers do not understand that the chicken and other produce they consume are placing them at a higher risk for food poisoning or possibly even obesity. Despite the fact that the FDA and USDA have approved all of the ingredients used in animal feed, we should not assume that it is good for us as humans. Consumers must understand that certain foods are not necessarily healthy for us just because they are FDA approved.

For consumers who believe in buying the most healthy and appropriate food, there are always the organic options. Consumers tend to believe that organic products are better for them, while Hurst, a conventional farmer, arrives at a different conclusion. While the Consumer Report article supports the option of shopping organically, Hurst’s article Organic Illusions, opposes organic farming and proposes conventional farming because of its economic and environmental reasonability. Hurst’s article sheds light on the hidden facts about the unreality of organic food. His claim is that conventional farming is more reasonable for today’s economy and supply demand. Hurst states that it takes fewer acres to produce the same quantity of food conventionally than it does organically, even though there is a yearly yield decline for organic products. This also confirms that different farmers have different beliefs in farming- Hurst’s being that we should farm in ways that helps sustain the environment. Hurst also helps us understand that the organic foods people buy may be just as unhealthy as conventionally grown food, yet it is more expensive because of “special” qualities. Despite Hurst’s not so positive connotation of “organic”, he does believe in consuming food that is good for you, while doing so in a more economically reasonable way. One interesting claim that Hurst makes is that companies get away with numerous things that fool organic consumers, such as organic foods being “labeled as organic because producers certified that they have followed organic procedures. No testing is done to check the veracity of these claims.”(pg. 4) This ties into the issue of poor regulation by the USDA and FDA. Hurst makes the point that if they can get away with many faults that people don’t know about, why spend so much money on the product?

While reading these articles, it seems as though the issue of consumers not buying and consuming what they think is good for them comes from limited FDA and USDA regulations and extremely strong power held by large companies. Referring back to the article Resisting Food Safety, Nestle states that “it should be evident that people involved with every stage of food production, from farm to fork, must take responsibility for food safety to prevent animal infections (producers), avoid fecal contamination (processors), and destroy food pathogens (handlers/consumers)”(pg. 28) She is ultimately saying that everyone blames each other for the issue of unsafe food. Nestle’s claim is that when it comes to food safety, billions of dollars are at stake, and industry, government and consumers collide over different beliefs over interest in product value, economics and political power. She demonstrates how powerful food industries oppose safety regulations and deny accountability. Similarly, You Are What They Eat extends the idea because it discusses about poor regulation monitoring. Companies are going to feed whatever they want to their animals, knowing they may get away with it, but then blame the consumer or deny the fault when something goes wrong. Companies will blame the consumers for improperly cooking their product, making it seem as if they are not at fault for consumers getting different types of food poisoning like E. Coli and Salmonella. This issue cannot be blamed on consumers when new bacteria and diseases are arriving yearly.

The documentary Food Inc. is a good example of how the blame for unsafe food is also being tossed around. Food Inc. questions the efficiency of the system of food production and regulation. In the documentary there is a story about a young boy from Colorado named Kowalcyk, who died in 2001 after developing hemolytic-uremic syndrome from eating a hamburger contaminated with E. Coli. After Kevin’s death, Kevin’s Law was proposed which would give the United States Department of Agriculture the power to close down plants that produce contaminated meat. The law was finally passed after 4 years and many claims from companies that they were not at fault. The fact that it took so long for the law to pass shows how much power the food industry has over consumers, the USDA and the FDA. The company that is responsible for his death would not take the blame for the incident and it seemed as if the problem did not matter. In the documentary, Michael Pollan along with Nestle’s argument expresses that the industry is changing rapidly, creating more and more unsafe food. With their arguments, we should take away the fact that we must more aware of what we buy and where we buy.

Furthermore, the article GRAS Out: Surprising Number of Unregulated Chemicals Found in Food by Twilight Greenaway expresses how laws created by the USDA and FDA are intended to apply to common food ingredients like vinegar and vegetable oil. The laws allowed companies to consider certain foods “generally recognized as safe.” This does not necessarily mean they are good for us. This also confirms that companies can get away with their own ways of production easier than we think. The FDA and USDA have limited control on how companies grow their food, which also coincides with an argument from Nestle’s article that the USDA and FDA have different responsibilities and only search for a limited amount of things when inspecting our food.

Labels, certification stamps, and prices are not always the best way to choose our foods. All they do is make their product seem the healthiest. They distract us from the hidden facts that their product may cause future health risks or that a product is produced at the lowest level of organic as possible while getting us to pay as much as possible. Should the FDA, USDA, and government allow this? As a consumer, it is important to do your own research if you want to buy the best things for yourself. Although we need to be aware of what we are buying, it is also the ethical responsibility of the companies to have interest in the consumer’s health while making their products. Until the FDA, USDA and government begin to centralize and up their standards and regulation process, we will never be 100 percent sure about the production and safety of our food. This issue may seem insignificant to some, but it will become a bigger problem once things previously accepted as “healthy” turn out to be unhealthy, and our hard-earned money spent on “healthy food” goes to waste.

Reflection Questions:

• To me, the writers project was a way to get a better understanding of the writers’ purpose and goal of the article. I was able to identify a text’s “project” by picking out the main focus and analyzing how they chose to send out the message. My “project” was to help consumers understand that our products are not usually as good for us as we think. I try to get this point across by pointing out the flaws in the regulation system and explaining how most companies’ main focus is not the actual health of the consumer.
• The sorting it out workshop was a little bit difficult to complete. Especially part E. The part I found most useful was part F (the last part where we connected, found similarities and differences in arguments). It made it easier to see the connections between the articles when writing the final paper.
• Synthesis is tying in main ideas and points together to create an argument of your own. Synthesizing helped me come up with more points and topics that I was able to use in order to fuel most of my article.
• One accomplishment that I was able to achieve was comparing and contrasting opposing views to help support a main point in my argument.
• To create a main idea, I took a few points that stoop out to me in the articles, then compare and contrasted them in order to find a common theme.
• I started by having the readers see how this issue affects their lives. (Talking about the things they purchase and food labels in the beginning) I transitioned into talking about why companies function they way they do (personal interest: first main paragraph) and ending with how they are able to function how they do. (Regulations: toward the end)
• I was able to synthesize 3 texts in my article when I use Nestle, Consumer Reports, and Food Inc. to talk about how the blame for unsafe foods is tossed around.
• For creating the lede, I found the article we read useful. I tried to incorporate the 5 W’s. When we looked at examples, I picked the style that worked best at grabbing my attention to use in mine. I found asking questions very useful. In my first lede, I asked questions pertaining to food safety, and then in my final draft the questions shifted the questions to the consumer’s interest in the foods they are buying.
• In the next unit project I would like to work on synthesizing even more. I still believe in need more practice. Synthesizing better will make my whole paper better as a whole.

Why is the government allowing the food industry to poison you? Wouldn’t you feel unsafe knowing that the government is not paying attention to what’s in your food? Well this is only partly true. The food industry is controlled by huge corporations who decide everything from policy to how much farmers get paid. This results in a system that is cutthroat and industrialized leading to food that is unsafe. The government cannot do much to stop this due to the power and deep pockets that these corporations have.

The Food industry has had a drastic shift in how they produce their products. Food Inc. explains that when the word farmer is said, most people naturally picture the stereotypical farmer in the mid-west with his hat and his tractor planting his crops. Unfortunately, only part of this is true. The farmer is very likely to be a business man, as Blake Hurst explains, and he’s planting using techniques that would maximize his yield and profit. Now, this probably isn’t the way you would want your farmer to be thinking. The farmer is most likely planting a genetically modified organism (GMO) seed. The chemicals that are used to plant these crops can be dangerous. The whole process lacks oversight and is run more like an industrial business than a food producing farm.

The processes that are being used are scientifically improved every day to give higher yields. As Robert Kenner, the director of Food Inc. explains, “Back around the turn of the last century, the average farmer could feed six or eight people. Now the average American farmer can feed 126 people.”

Blake Hurst explains that with one of the worst droughts in California’s history, the amount of production, or the yield, was still higher than the yield in 1993. This means that even though California’s environment is downright horrible for farming right now, the yields are still better than they were in the 90’s. Makes sense and seems great right? Not exactly. These high yields are being achieved by using techniques that aren’t at safe and are putting your health at risk.

Farmers are trying to have high profits because they have many bills due to lack of government regulation. According to Food Inc., they have to pay for their seeds, even though their crops produce seeds, because big corporations like Monsanto control the industry. This causes farmers to spend money that doesn’t have to be spent and have to save money in other areas, resulting in farming that isn’t as safe.

When you go to the supermarket, you wouldn’t want to buy vegetables or meat that have been produced by a farmer with the business mind frame, but unfortunately that’s what you are purchasing.

When we think of meat, the process is also not quite like what we think. The cattle are raised until they are of slaughter age. While they are being raised, they are often fed things that are not natural to the animal’s diet. For example, Consumer reports has an articles named “You Are What You Eat”. In this article, it is stated that “processed feathers are an acceptable source of protein in cattle feed”. In addition, the article also describes how animal “waste” is used to be fed to other animals. Antibiotics are also put in the cattle’s food to prevent outbreaks of illnesses. The industry is doing this to increase their profits. If cows are healthier and fatter, there is more meat to sell. Since the waste is naturally produced, it means that there is no need to spend money on food to feed the cattle. All this increases the profit margin for the farmers.

When the consumer (also known as the reader) puts this meat into their mouth, they are eating everything that the farmer fed to his cattle. Doesn’t that sound delicious? So what’s the problem? It is dangerous because the cattle were given drugs, which can be bad for humans. The farmers can feed their cattle almost anything they’d like so they can make a bit more profit and in the meantime poison the consumer. They are able to get away with it because the government is not fully regulating the food industry.

Government oversight is weak at best for the food industry. One of the reasons for this might be the amount of money that the government sees from the industry. Taxes have to be paid for all the food that is eaten or produced. Taxes are also paid for all the ingredients that are used to prepare the food whether it be chemicals, seeds, equipment, or food for cattle. Farmers are also a big supplier of jobs for local towns. This means that if a farm is making more money and hiring more people, it looks good for the representative of the government from that area. As a result, the government representative is not going to be looking for ways to implement regulations on the industry that is making him look good. All he wants to do it win, and this helps him get there.

On a national scale, there is a lot of money involved when candidates are trying to be elected to office. Since the food industry is so large and powerful, they are in the position to make large contributions to campaigns and they can lobby representatives of the government already in office. However, this doesn’t mean the government is doing nothing, even though that wouldn’t be hard to believe. Instead, the government puts forward regulations that are either extremely difficult to oversee or regulations that require too many inspectors to oversee successfully. Sounds like the government really wants to help the problem right? An example of this is the division of responsibility between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which Marion Nestle points out. Some examples of the division include the USDA being in charge of soups with more than 2% meat or poultry while the FDA being in charge of soups with less than 2% meat or poultry. Similarly, if you have spaghetti with meat stock it is the responsibility of USDA, but the FDA is in charge of spaghetti with no meat stock. This means that if an agent of the USDA walked into a restaurant and saw a meal prepared that consisted of spaghetti with marinara sauce and it had a violation of the code, the agent wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Sounds like great governing and regulation.

With these regulations, it is very hard to catch violations in progress. If the government would try to make these regulations more viable by simplifying them, there would probably be a negative reaction coming from the food industry. This in turn would mean less money being given to the representatives that are trying to change these policies. Christopher Leonard explains how damaging proposing food regulation can be when he says “In 2010 and 2011 when there was a really ambitious reform agenda proposed by President Barack Obama, it was absolutely dismantled, pushed back and defeated by the meat industry lobbyists”. He continues on to say that it probably “did more damage than if they had not proposed to do anything”. Instead, the propose policies such as the one Marion Nestle points out. Part of the reason why proposing changes can be so damaging is that the food industry has some of its most powerful former executives working for the government. Food Inc. explains how some food industry executives work for the government and after the governing administration is over, they go back to the food industry. These executives in the government are unelected and it would not be unreasonable to believe that they are in their positions due to the contributions they made to elected members of the government.

Why would these members of the government make their lives harder in a few years?

The former and future executives of the food industry working for the government don’t pass necessary policies because they know that these new policies would make their lives more difficult in the future and would mean lower profits for the company they would work for.

Big corporations unfortunately control the way the food in America is produced today. Christopher Leonard explains that these corporations not only have the money to be able to manipulate the market whichever way they want, but they have the customers locked in. There are four companies that produce 85% of the meat in this country. This is very important information for several reasons.

1. The first reason why it is so important to understand that these companies have so much control is that these companies control the prices on the meat market. Over the last several years, meat prices have been going up, yet corporations like McDonalds can sell you cheap meat because they are the largest buyer of ground beef a year. Food Inc. explains that McDonalds can raise the price of the market, but still sell you cheap, unhealthy beef.
2. Another reason this is important is because they can also choose what to pay farmers. If they pay farmers less than what they used to be paid, as is the case, farmers will only have two options. They will have to find ways to raise their cattle for cheaper or they can go bankrupt. If they raise their cattle at a cheaper cost, there is likely to be problems such as outbreaks of diseases or cattle being fed things that are not natural to their diet.
3. Lastly, these corporations have so much power that when they do force these farmers to go out of business, the US federal government ends up paying the debt accumulated by these farmers. This just goes to show how powerful these corporations are and their control in the government. Not only do they get to bankrupt the farmers, but then they get to call the government to clean up the mess with your money. So instead of being able to use that money towards improving things like education, the government takes your money to bail out the farmer that was forced to bankruptcy by the company that is ripping you off at the grocery store.

Another example of a company that controls the market is Monsanto. Robert Kenner says that Monsanto owns the GMO seed for corn through a patent. Farmers who want to plant corn have to plant this GMO or risk legal action from Monsanto. Even though they have their own seeds, they have to use the corporation’s seed. If it does go to the legal system, Monsanto can outspend any individual farmer and win the case. Monsanto is rumored to have surveillance teams that look for farmers who are cleaning and using their own seed. They will take legal action on these farmers, ultimately leading them to use Monsanto’s seed. Corporations like these have the power to control the food industry, manipulate the government, and ultimately can do whatever they want with their food and no one will know or say anything for fear of what these companies can do.

The food industry is a very powerful industry that gets anything it wants or needs to make higher profits. The government is almost incapable of helping the consumers because of the power that the food industry has. If consumers want a change and wants this revolutionary change in the food industry to stop, they will have to stand up to the food industry. Without your money, the food industry has nothing. So the next time you go food shopping pay attention to where your food is coming from, who produced it, and what did they use to produce it.

 

 

Reflection questions:

1. 1. The writers project is what a writer intends to do with a project. If the author wants to convince you of a certain point or just bring to light an idea, that will be his/her idea. It is helpful to read the text and research the author to see what the project is. It is not always clear from the text. Sometimes after seeing what their experience is, it is easier to understand their project. My project in my blog is to bring to light the fact that the food industries power controls all regulation and results in unsafe food. I also propose several ideas on why the food industry is allowed to have so much power.
   2. I completed the sorting it out activity at home when it was assigned. This helped me for several reasons. It was the first time that I was able to tie together multiple texts and find quotes that relate to each other. With this, it became evidently clear to me what I was going to write about. The part where we connect quotes was most helpful to me.
   3. Synthesis is comparing two or more sources through writing. The importance of it is being able to tie together the sources and see what similarities and differences exist among the different sources. During my draft, there wasn’t much synthesis. I mainly pointed out different ideas from the different sources. As I moved into my final draft, I connected the different sources together. A good example is when I talk about how farmers are more business like now a days and they are not the typical farmer we imagine. I state “. Food Inc. explains that when the word farmer is said, most people naturally picture the stereotypical farmer in the mid-west with his hat and his tractor planting his crops. Unfortunately, only part of this is true. The farmer is very likely to be a business man, as Blake Hurst explains, and he’s planting using techniques that would maximize his yield and profit.” Here two sources are tied together to explain the same idea.
   4. During this unit I accomplished two things. I learned the components of an article and how to write one. I also learned how the food industry works. Although this is not a WRT 205 skill, I think that it is something that everyone should learn about so we can at least be educated about where our food comes from.
   5. The main idea started when I wrote my writing response. I started talking about the money and how it leads to power which was used to control the industry. I wrote “The amount of money in the food industry means there is also a lot of power involved. Companies like Monsanto control both the farmers who are using seeds and the members of government putting forth the regulations.” I then decided to write my blog about how this power impacts food safety and why nothing is done about it. An example of my main idea is seen in the blog when I state “The reason we have a problem is because of the money and power that are involved. The government lets the industry chose what policies go into place. These policies aren’t always the safest.” You can see how the main idea evolved from companies have power, to why does the government allow this and what are the ramifications. The evolution can be attributed to further research. When I kept looking for information, I noticed that the problem wasn’t that these companies have the power, the problem is that these companies are given the power by the government in order to gain money. Its almost like an exchange of power. The government gives the industry power in exchange for money and votes so the government can be powerful in other areas.
   6. I didn’t really use one organizational strategy. I first got my idea while writing the reading response. From there I reviewed my notes and found that I could definitely write a blog about this. I started collecting good quotes from the different texts and looking for a source that would be good for my argument. An example of a draft came from my reading response. This is where I first started discussing the idea of money and power in the food industry. I wrote “The amount of money in the food industry means there is also a lot of power involved. Companies like Monsanto control both the farmers who are using seeds and the members of government putting forth the regulations”.
   7. An example of three texts being synthesized is when I discuss the policies and how or why the government comes up with them. I bring Nestle’s example of the dysfunctional policies and explain it with Food Inc.’s explanation of who runs these departments for the government. I then bring in my source which explains what going against the food industry and proposing good policy can do.
   8. My first lede was “Food safety is a major problem in the United States. Money and power have a huge role in the policies and the production of the food. However, the industry is the one deciding which policies get put into place. How is this possible? Why is the government letting the food industry choose what is important and what isn’t? The food industry is trying to make higher profits by making the food process more industrialized and efficient, but leaving behind all oversight of the meats or produce, resulting in product that may be contaminated with no way to stop it.” This was more of an essay introduction than an article lede. Instead, I decided to scrap it and move towards a shorter and more direct lede. After my classmates gave me suggestions, I came up with “Food safety is a problem in the United States. The reason we have a problem is because of the money and power that are involved. The government lets the industry chose what policies go into place. Why does the government allow this and look the other way? How are these companies so powerful and rich? The food industry has become an industrial machine geared towards making money and is no longer about feeding the country.” While reading my final draft, I realized I needed something more powerful. I retyped my lede for a third time and came up with a more powerful statement: “Why is the government allowing the food industry to poison you? Wouldn’t you feel unsafe knowing that the government is not paying attention to what’s in your food? Well this is only partly true. The food industry is controlled by huge corporations who decide everything from policy to how much farmers get paid. This results in a system that is cutthroat and industrialized leading to food that is unsafe. The government cannot do much to stop this due to the power and deep pockets that these corporations have.”
   9. During the next unit, I would like to write a research article. I would like to be able to find my own articles and write an opinion that I have. While I was able to do that this unit, I also had to synthesize the sources and use the idea presented within them instead of using them to backup an idea that I am proposing.