The key to winning an argument is persuasion. When an argument starts, persuasion stops and winning doesn’t become the priority because without persuasion, arguments are now merely just fights. Throughout the five sources I used, Consumer Reports’ “You Are What They Eat”, Food Inc., “Organic Illusions,” “Frontline, PBS.org” and “Resisting Food Safety,” each writer intentionally uses both statistics and facts in order to persuade the readers’ opinion of either agreeing with or disapproving the customs of the food industry. Even though these articles have different stances and opinions, the writers each are affiliated with a similar theme, how food safety is related to issues of power. Whether it be for/against big businesses, or for/against organic substances relative to conventional foods, the writer’s purposes are all comparative.

In the documentary Food Inc., experts argue for the transparency of the industrial food system, both questioning the efficiency of the system as a whole and the governments’ relation to big businesses involved. Eric Schlosser, author of “Fast Food Nation”, said “They don’t want you to know what you’re eating because if you knew then you may not want to eat it.” With recent outbreaks of E. coli across the nation one can only question how the FDA is handling the cleanliness and preparedness of our foods and the states at which the facilities are being maintained. Tyson, the biggest meat packer in the world controlling 28% of the worlds beef, 18% of the worlds pork, and 25% of the worlds chicken, declined to speak in the documentary when approached by Food Inc.. Food inspections across the nation have dropped from 50,000 to 9,674 from 1974 to 2006. In the decade of 1996-2006, there were a reported 20 E. Coli outbreaks, most of which due to poor facility maintenance for livestock. Carole Moreson, a chicken farmer for Perdue says that now-a-days it isn’t even farming anymore, but inhumane mass production as most chickens never even see sunlight. Due to the decline of tobacco, most farmers turned to the chicken industry but have to borrow nearly $500,000 from big businesses in order to run roughly 2 chicken coupes. This causes farmers to become in debt and have to do whatever the companies ask of them or else they will go bankrupt and lose everything. This causes a shift of power from the farmer to the company. Corruption at its finest.

In Consumer Reports’ “You Are What They Eat,” the writer argues that what our animals are being fed directly affects us as the consumer. With corn being the main ingredient in animal feed, there has been a large increase of Food Borne Illnesses in the last decade. According to Food Inc., 30% of the United States land base is used for corn and 90% of supermarket products would contain either corn or soybean. With an average of 47,000 products in the commonplace supermarket, that means roughly 42,300 of the products would contain Corn or Soy Bean. Larry Johnson, an expert from the Center for Corn Research, says that “so much of our corn is just a clever manipulation of corn, no matter how you write it.” “There is considerable potential for contaminated animal feed or animal-feed ingredients to move between and within countries.” (You are What They Eat) “Cows can take this grass which we can’t digest, very few creatures can digest, and turn it into fuel.” (Michael Pollan, Frontline) Experts suggest that if you cut down the highly concentrated amounts of corn and add in grass-feeding, the risk for food borne illnesses would decrease remarkably. We feed them corn because it’s the cheapest, most convenient thing we can give them. Corn is incredibly cheap; it costs about $2.25 for a bushel of corn, which is about 50 pounds. It actually costs less to buy than it costs to grow (Frontline, PBS.org). The average farmer could process 200 bushels of corn a day.

In the Nestle article, the writer states that there are large amounts of government oversight within the food industry. As cleverly represented in the Food Inc. documentary through the use of flashcards, we see that high end food industry employees of the big businesses have found a home in government with positions that make, enforce, and legislate different laws pertaining to the rules and regulations of the FDA. Some may call this strategy but most would call it corrupt. FDA stands for Food and Drug Administration but after reading these articles and watching videos and documentaries it seems more likely that the FDA is more focused on the Drug portion than the Food section. For example, there used to be over 1,000 slaughterhouses in America; however, today there are 13. One may look at this and say good, now they can regulate the facilities better because there are a lesser amount to check. But the sad reality is that because they don’t properly regulate these 13 slaughterhouses then some acts become more careless and if some sort of illness or disease falls upon the slaughterhouse, 1/13^th of the nation’s meats are put at risk of becoming sickly. Change begins with the oversight of the FDA’s slaughterhouse protocol and to maintain a strong code of ethics in the higher office. Humans are vulnerable to pathogens, drugs, and contaminants consumed by the animals we eat so why would we allow some things to skate by when it could put not only others but yourself at risk.

My call to action after reading this unit is that the change needs to begin in government. Put people in power that are rightfully deserving and can uphold the strong code of ethics and morals designed by this nation’s leaders. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, you just need to simply learn how to steer what’s already shaped for you. Make it so carrots are better priced than a bag of chips or a box of candy. The only thing that should be processed is what’s occurring in our government. It’s not that there is not enough food, it’s that the scales of nutritional value are unbalanced.

 

Works Cited:

“You Are What They Eat.” Consumer Reports, January 2005.

 

Hurst, Blake. “Organic Illusions.” The American, October 1, 2012.

 

Nestle, Marion. Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.

 

Pollan, Michael. “Modern Meat”. Frontline, September 24, 2013.

 

 

• 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.
  1. Finding the “writer’s project” is vital when it comes to understanding the Point of View of a source. From the examples we went over in class I was able to derive the writers’ project from studying the points presented and by trying to analyze the given arguments to find what side they were trying to argue. In the Kanye West music video we watched in class, by studying the imagery used in the video and breaking down the lyrics I was able to figure out what points Kanye was trying to convey. My personal “project” with this blog article was to bring to light the issues within the food industry today presented by the 5 sources I used in my paper.
• 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?
  1. I did this workshop on my own outside of class due to missing class for personal reasons. Doing it on my own was definitely far more difficult because I didn’t really understand from the get-go what I was supposed to be synthesizing. I had to “Sort it out” on how to do a Sorting it out workshop. Along with this blog article I turned in, these were possibly two of the worst pieces I’ve put my name on when it comes to writing so all I can do for the deration of this class is prioritize better and prepare. I imagine that these workshops would have made it much easier to do the paper as the point was to break down what we were researching and organizing our thoughts.
• Describe your understanding of synthesis. What is its importance? How did it manifest within your drafts and/or final blog article? Provide examples.
  1. The definition from Meriam-Webster for the term synthesis is a complex whole formed by combining. Synthesizing takes a grouping of sources and meshes them into one. By synthesizing, my paper would be more reliable and add both my thoughts and opinions along with those of the outside sources that I referenced.
• Describe your own accomplishment (ofsomething) during this unit.
  1. I’d like to admit that I accomplished something but this paper represented the worst side of my academia as I did everything last minute. I suppose that something I accomplished was turning in each draft. The highest grade I feel that I deserve is a C.
• 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?
  1. When I first began this project I was deep into the documentary Food Inc., and wanted to base my project merely off of that. However, we needed to add 4 other sources, three of which were given, as we dove deeper into this unit. If I rewrote this paper I would lay out each source and go through and physically highlight the main arguments from each so I could have a better understanding of what the Writers Project for each source. When I was done my main idea surrounded the food borne illnesses surrounding corn fed animals.
• 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.
  1. The main organizational strategies I used were simply going article to article and adding synthesis for their arguments and my thoughts. There was no direct strategies other than making sure I covered all of the bases.
• 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.
• 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?
  1. My lede didn’t change from my earlier drafts to the final version. I didn’t receive any feedback from the teacher but I also didn’t reach out to the writing center like I usually would.
• Name a specific writing/researching/revision goal you’d like to work on during the next Unit projects.
  1. I would like to give my actual all for the next units. This unit is a terrible representation of my work ethic and my work attitude. However, it still happened so I need to step up and take responsibility for my lack of trying on this section. My goals for the next three units is to fully take all the necessary steps provided by Professor Barone so that I can be successful in my writing and to gain an understanding and further my knowledge on the topics discussed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Reflection Questions

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Reflection Questions:

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

 

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

 

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Shouldn’t we make sure the food we eat is safe?

John Carino

The burger you ate today is not as safe as you assumed when you bought it. Everybody knows that cows eat grass, but it is less known that the cows whose meat most grocery stores sell, were raised eating corn. This seems like it would not be much of an issue if it weren’t for the fact that this diet increases the likeliness of spreading dangers such as E-coli. Food plays a vital role in our daily lives. Without it we cannot survive, so shouldn’t it be a priority to make sure that what we eat is safe?

American food has become industrialized to meet the needs of consumers across the country. However, this resulting industrialization has begun to lean more towards the “industry” than “food” in the food industry. Companies have begun cutting corners to maximize production and profits. Consequently, the quality of food being produced has decreased drastically causing many problems. While promoting public awareness about issues in the industrial food system is important, there needs to be a more significant movement towards instigating change in the industrial food system and improving government regulation of the industry. These changes would include more transparency of food production to consumers and preventing money –saving “shortcuts”, for example by feeding animals what nature intended for them. These operations create a safer well-being for Americans from issues such as food borne illnesses and diseases.

One reason that there have not been significant safety improvements in the food industry is because of the government’s lack of involvement in making sure these companies are not taking shortcuts. In “You are what they eat” the writer shares “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.” (26) Understandably, the government is not capable of regulating all food manufacturers at all times because “the FDA can’t blanket the country with inspectors, so it delegates much enforcement responsibility to the states, which conduct 70 percent of feed-company and renderer inspections.” (27) This delegation of regulation has resulted in a significant loss of control from the government. States are often less likely to take a stand against these industries than the federal government for a couple reasons. They are less likely partly because of the importance of profits these companies makes as well as because of the control these powerful companies may have over more local governments. These companies have simple goals, “to fatten animals as fast and cheaply as possible.” (26) The problem with this having this goal and finding loopholes is the compromise of quality and safety, putting consumers as risk. These “regulatory loop-holes could allow mad cow infection, if present, to make its way into cattle feed; drugs used in chickens could raise human exposure to arsenic or antibiotic-resistant bacteria; farmed fish could harbor PCBs and dioxins.” (26) The federal government needs to take a stand and instigate firmer regulation, even if it compromises fiscal profits. The more powerful these companies become the less ability the government will have to make sure the food consumers buy is safe. Consumers have very little power in fighting these food industries, they cannot simply stop buying food. That is why it is important that the government plays a big role in standing up making sure they stop hurting their consumers.

Not only is the food consumers buy not always safe, these companies also deceive consumers into thinking what they are buying is often healthier and more nutritious than it actually is. Blake Hurst in “Organic Illusions” shares how two contrasting studies present contradicting results to how nutritious “organic food” really is. Hurst writes “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.” (2) The food industry heavily relies on misleading consumers to sell many products at escalated prices. Many companies that sell “organic” foods are owned by the larger conventional brands that they pretend to be competing with. This is another form of deception and sly misleading that needs to be stopped. Hurst argues “the organic farming narrative depends upon the belief that conventional farming sacrifices the present for the future, that the chemicals and fertilizers applied by conventional farmers poison the soil, and that this careless use of the unnatural will infect the things we eat and the productivity of our farms and ranches.” (3) However, this argument for the organic food industry is compromised by the studies that find no differences in nutritional value of foods after over half a century of hybrid seeds and 2 decades of genetically modified seeds. This does not necessarily mean there is no difference at all between conventional foods and organic, “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.” (3) It seems one bad quality has been traded for another, yet the food industry has been able to turn out higher profits from organic foods by misleading consumers with lies. Hurst shares “even if a naturally produced pesticide is less toxic than its synthetic counterpart, it may be applied at much higher rates than the comparable manmade chemical.” (7) One way to combat this and other deceptions by the food industry is to make sure they are not able to hide information to mislead consumers. This can be achieved by calling for complete transparencies within the food industry about how the food was produced and what products have been added to the product and the process. By advocating for more clear and detailed labels consumers can be significantly more informed on their decision making when purchasing food. This will also require government intervention but also consumers to take a stand.

Consumers blindly accept the lies fed to them by the food industry. Marion Nestle writes in “Resisting Food Safety” that “they accept at face value the endlessly intoned mantra of industry and government: the United States has the safest food supply in the world. Whether this assertion is true is a matter of some debate.” (27) The food industry has become more and more powerful and continues to fight and beat the government in every attempt to regulate their processes. Nestle presents that “food producers resist the attempts of government agencies to institute control measures, and major food industries oppose pathogen control measures by every means at their disposal. They lobby Congress and federal agencies, challenge regulations in court, and encourage local obstruction of safety enforcement.” (27-28) Not only do they fight against the government, but also heavily against activists who are fighting for their right for safer foods. An article by the US News Health shares “The food industry works aggressively to discredit its critics. According to the 2008 JAMA article, the Center for Consumer Freedom boasts “[our strategy] is to shoot the messenger. We’ve got to attack [activists’] credibility as spokespersons.” The website even revers to Nestle as “one of the country’s most hysterical anti-food fanatics.” It seems difficult to combat an industry with so much financial, political, and publicity power, but it is not impossible.

By creating a more transparent food industry and instigating stricter regulation, the food industry could return to serving a primary purpose of meeting the needs and safety of consumers, not just to churn our profits and mass produce products. One small step at a time of making the right decisions in making food safe will have a significant impact on creating a safer America. It will take time effort from much of the population, but it is not an unreachable goal, and with the safety of millions of Americans at stake, it is necessary.

Works Cited:

“You Are What They Eat.” Consumer Reports, January 2005.

Hurst, Blake. “Organic Illusions.” The American, October 1, 2012.

Nestle, Marion. Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.

Voiland, Adam, and Angela Haupt. “10 Things the Food Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know.” Health.usnews.com. March 30, 2012.

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.

-Finding the “writer’s project” is key to understanding the argument and greater point of any source or project. From the examples we went over I was able to find the writers project by studying the evidence they presented and analyzing their arguments to find what point they were trying to make. For example, in the Kanye West music video studying the imagery used and listening closely to the lyrics allowed me to figure out what he was trying to make clear. My “project” with this blog article was to present the biggest issues with the food industry today and suggest possible solutions that could be considered to instigate change.

 

• 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 from this worksheet was anaylizing the main argument that each article/report was trying to make. By figuring out what each source had to offer specifically helped create a stronger thesis that consisted of a few key arguments. This workshop allowed me to clearly brainstorm and build on my ideas in a cohesive way, by initially forcing me to find out the key concepts then by finding specific evidence from the text that supported them.

3.)  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 key when attempting to make a clear argument. If you are trying to make an argument and your evidence does not relate to your argument or at all to other evidence your claim will seem weak and unsupported. I synthezised the main arguments from each source to support my thesis of how America needs to instigate change in the food industry. I also utilized my outside source to support the evidence from the other articles. For example, the article I used comments on how Marion Nestle is viewed by the food industry as “one of the country’s most hysterical anti-food fanatics.”

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

-During this unit I feel there were a few skills I familiarized myself with that I was new too. I have never attempted to write I a “blog/article” format before. This required me to learn a few new skills and writing techniques.

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 evolved as I gained more evidence exploring the articles/sources in more depth. What began as an unsupported claim vilifying the food industry became a well-supported argumentative piece that begins to even offer solutions to the issues presented. For example, I was initially aware that the food industry mislead consumers, but by further examining the given texts I was able to prove how they do so through false claims and misunderstanding on terminology such as “organic.”

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.

-To structure this blog article I considered how a person hopes to consume information. I lead with a catchy introduction to grab their attention, present the topics I intend to discuss, then present an open ended question that my arguments throughout the blog support. In an earlier draft I had written out the topics I intended to discuss in an outline including: How the government needs to step up, how the food industry deceives, and how the food industry is fighting anyone that tries to oppose it. My arguments against these points answer the question I pose of “shouldn’t it be a priority to make sure that what we eat is safe?”

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.

-In my conclusion I connect the main arguments from each text to suggest what actions could be made to create a positive future for American food safety. I proose “By creating a more transparent food industry and instigating stricter regulation, the food industry could return to serving a primary purpose of meeting the needs and safety of consumers, not just to churn our profits and mass produce products.” Through the drafting process I was not as sure what proposals I could make about how to fix these issues but further analysis of the texts led me to this argument.

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 original lede was not significantly different from my final blog. The tips from the worksheet we went over in class were helpful to simplify and reinforce the lede I had written.

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

-I would like to figure out how to narrow down my arguments into a more precise response. I often use too many works and by figuring out how to share my ideas more clearly I will be able to write more convincing works of writing.

 

When most people think of where their food comes from, they probably think of a farm. This stereotypical farm image is generally what most people think of. People generally picture a big field with cows eating grass and a red barn. What nobody realizes though is that farms haven’t been like the image above in decades. The sad truth is that farms have become factories with the sole goal of creating cheap and sustainable food. However, it’s not the farmers that are in control of these farming practices, it’s big businesses.

These businesses have a lot more power than the average Joe thinks they do.  Most of these large corporations have a strong hold on the average farmer. These large businesses often put farmers in crippling debt in order to silence those who are against current farming practices.

“You have to do it, or you’re threatened with loss of a contract. This is how they keep the farmers under control. It’s how they keep them spending money, going to the bank and borrowing more money. The debt keeps building. To have no say in your business, it’s degrading. It’s like being a slave to the company.” – Farmer in Food Inc.

Many of these businesses have large monopolies within the farming realm. With very few companies having such control over certain types of food, farmers have no choice but to succumb to whatever the company wants, or risk losing a contract and farming job entirely.

The food industry has an unfathomable amount of control over the consumer. As revealed in Food Inc., larger companies such as Tyson, give the consumer the illusion of more options by hiding behind smaller name brands. This means that even if you think you have a real say in what you’re eating, you might not.

But the corruption does not stop there.

Almost all of these large food production companies have members running for important positions in government. This leads to an ever present bias within government towards the food industry rather than public safety. These government positions allow for companies to have control over what safety precautions are made, which often benefits the food industry rather than the consumer.

It seems that as the food industry becomes larger and more profitable, food safety decreases. The problem according to Nestle is the government. There is not nearly enough regulations set in place by the government to protect the consumer. Nestle argues that many of these food borne illnesses could be prevented if the proper regulations were put in place. However, the main issue seems to be a lack in man power. The food industry has gotten much too large to be regulated by the limited federal government.

“By the early 1980’s, for example, the poultry industry had already expanded far beyond any reasonable inspection capacity.” – Nestle

While simply adding more regulations seems like the perfect solution, there seems to be many more underlying problems within the food industry.

Pesticides. Antibiotics. Animal Feed. These are just a few of the many problems within the food industry that wouldn’t be fixed with a few simple regulations.

But how do these problems effect you?

Pesticides:

So if pesticides are the problem, why don’t more people choose organic? After all, isn’t it true that organic farming uses less pesticides? This is the question many people seem to be asking. The problem with this statement is that the answer may not lie within the organic food industry. In a study done by Stanford University, it was found that organic foods did have less pesticides than conventional food. However, E. Coli was far more present in the organically grown food. It was also proven that organic foods aren’t really any healthier for you than conventional foods. In an article written by Blake Hurst, it was revealed that even the organic food industry is not entirely pesticide free. While the pesticides being used are not as strong, the organic farmer will often have to use more pesticides in order to make the less potent kind more successful. Hurst also argued that pesticides are necessary in farming. Without them, fields would need to be weeded by hand which takes up more time and requires more man power. So while the idea of not using pesticides sounds nice, it doesn’t seem to be entirely realistic. So if you’re trying to avoid pesticides entirely, you may be out of luck.

Antibiotics:

The reason why antibiotics are used in food production is not necessarily a bad one at first glance. The reason is to prevent sick animals from creating sick consumers after eating that animals’ product. When animals are kept in such tight quarters, it’s not uncommon for animals to carry bacteria. However, the more antibiotics are used in animals, the more antibiotic resistant bacteria are formed. This resistant form of bacteria contaminates the food that comes from that sick animal, which can then make the consumer develop an antibiotic resistant infection. The CDC says that the use of antibiotics in the food industry is ok. However, it should only be used to address sicknesses in animals, not to promote growth. However, even animals that are not sick get large doses of these antibiotics in order to create a bigger ‘super’ animal to create more food per animal. While this saves the food industry on costs, it only harms the consumers health in the long run.

Animal Feed:

What do you think a cow eats? Most people would say grass, right? Well the sad truth is that most cows and other animals no longer eat grass, they eat corn and other waste products. According to Consumer Reports these waste products are not limited to processed feathers, poultry litter, floor waste, feces, plastic pellets, and other forms of meat. As we know, cows and chickens are not carnivores and probably should not be eating feces from other animals. The reason why the food industry does this is because this type of ‘animal feed’ makes the animals fatter creating more food production per animal, which is then more profit for the food industry. This also creates less waste from the food industry since rather than throwing these things away, they feed them to the animals. The problem with this practice though, is that whatever the animal eats directly influences the consumer. In a study done by the Animal Protein Producers Industry, salmonella was found is about one fourth of feed on average. To simplify, if the cows are eating salmonella contaminated food, and then the consumer is eating it, there is a much higher likelihood that the consumer will then be contaminated as well.

So, why should any of this matter to the consumer [you]?

The consumer should have a say in how their food is being made. They should also be knowledgeable about what exactly the risks are to what they are eating. If the consumer is unaware of the practices being used in the food industry, how will they be able to fight it? They won’t.

The food industry needs a complete renovation. The government should not be biased towards companies using unsafe practices. While the lack of resources to monitor these farms is a valid excuse, it’s still not a good enough reason to put public health at risk. The people that make decisions on consumer health should be the consumer themselves, not the company or official getting a paycheck. The only people that should have a say in what a safe farming practice is, is the consumers, the FDA, and other food safety commissions. We as the consumer need to put a higher focus on food safety in order to protect ourselves and the rest of the nation.

A change needs to be made, and while change may take time it is definitely worth the wait to save even one life from dangerous food consumption. Food should not be made on a conveyer belt. Cows and other animals were meant to eat grass and be able to roam around. While these new techniques have made quite the profit for these big companies, the consumer is suffering greatly.

Consumer health needs to come before profit, and the only way to do that is to fight the industry for change. By voting for change in the food industry, we will once again put the power back in the hands of the everyday consumer [you].

Reflection Questions: 

1.) The “writer’s project” seems to be whatever the writers main purpose is for writing an article. For example, in Blake Hurst’s article his “writer’s project” is to spread awareness about the real differences between organic and conventional farming methods while also exposing that conventional food isn’t necessarily bad for you. I was able to identify the texts project by summarizing the article and focusing on whatever the writers main argument was. My own “project” for this article was to spread awareness of the many dangers in the food industry and the many corruptions that prevent change being made. I also wanted to promote that consumers fight for a change within the food industry.

2.) The “Sorting it Out” workshop was actually really helpful. I ended up referring to it several times when drafting my article. I think the most helpful sections were summarizing each article and figuring out what it’s “project” was. It helped me remember which article was about what so I didn’t confuse the articles. The workshop also allowed me to start picking out quotes and connecting articles together so I could come up with one centralized idea for my article.

3.) Synthesis is taking information and simplifying it. It takes several different ideas or stories and combines them into one singular piece. It basically takes multiple perspectives and puts them together for a more rounded perspective. For my drafts I synthesized each piece and then used that to come up with my main argument.

4.) I learned how to create hyperlinks and write in a less formal tone.

5.) I originally began with the idea that the government was entirely to blame for the flaws within the food industry. However, later on I realized that perhaps the consumer is also to blame. After all, we’re the ones that vote these people into government roles. We should do our research to make sure these candidates have no biases. I attribute this revolution to the inclusion of more sources and also reading other peoples articles to get a better sense of what my opinion was on the topic.

6.) My organizational strategy was pretty simple. I broke it up the same way I would any other writing piece, just by topic. The only difference is that this article was much more casual and short so I broke it up into easier paragraphs. I just made sure to condense my topic as much as possible and shorten everything.

Example:

Original Draft:

These businesses have a lot more power than the average Joe thinks they do.  Most of these large corporations have a strong hold on the average farmer. These large businesses often put farmers in crippling debt and force them to follow unsafe farming practices. With most of these businesses having a huge monopoly within the farming realm, most farmers have no choice but to succumb to whatever unsafe practices that company wants. Large companies such as Monsanto, have even gone as far as controlling what type of seed farmers use and how they use it. They use scare tactics to keep farmers from speaking out or breaking these unfair rules. But the corruption does not stop there.

Final Draft:

These businesses have a lot more power than the average Joe thinks they do. Most of these large corporations have a strong hold on the average farmer. These large businesses often put farmers in crippling debt in order to silence those who are against current farming practices.

I also added block quotes to the final draft to help make my point while also keeping the paragraphs simple.

7.) Example: It seems that as the food industry becomes larger and more profitable, food safety decreases. The problem according to Nestle is the government. There is not nearly enough regulations set in place by the government to protect the consumer. Nestle argues that many of these food borne illnesses could be prevented if the proper regulations were put in place. However, the main issue seems to be a lack in man power. The food industry has gotten much too large to be regulated by the limited federal government.

While I focussed on one particular article in this example, I think I did a good job touching base on the main argument in several other sources. My inclusion of the texts increased as I got further along in drafts and got closer to the final product.

8.) My ‘lede’ originally was really long, to be honest it didn’t even exist. I just started talking without hooking the reader in. The lede in my final draft forced the reader to imagine a stereotypical farm and then forced the reader to face the reality that farms don’t actually look like how they picture it.

Original ‘Lede’:

When most people think of where their food comes from, they probably think of a farm. Perhaps their farm has a happy farmer and his family making conscious decisions about the food they are making. The farmer would be the one in charge of how his food is created and what growing practices he/she chooses to follow. However, the sad reality is that the food industry is no longer controlled by the farmers themselves, they are controlled by big businesses.

Final ‘Lede’: When most people think of where their food comes from, they probably think of a farm. This stereotypical farm image is generally what most people think of. People generally picture a big field with cows eating grass and a red barn. What nobody realizes though is that farms haven’t been like the image above in decades. The sad truth is that farms have become factories with the sole goal of creating cheap and sustainable food. However, it’s not the farmers that are in control of these farming practices, it’s big businesses.

The feedback I got was to be more specific and make the reader picture what the farm looks like a little better. I originally was pretty vague and focussed more on the farmers than the farm itself.

 

9.) The next unit project I’d like to make more drafts. Maybe go to office hours to ask for better revisions. It felt like I had to make tons of revisions at the end for the final paper because I didn’t get enough feedback from my peers.

 

The main issue in food the food industry today is not whether we should buy organic or conventionally grown foods, but what type of production is best for the future generations to come and how the food we consume will determine the values and industries our country supports.

In the food industry  production has become dependent on GMOs in agriculture and on antibiotics and other drugs in meat producing. Now, every time a problem occurs the solution is to invest in better technologies and genetics for food production, rather than resorting to more natural method. It seems that every time something goes wrong, more people go into a lab.

www.micronutrients.com

 

Throughout the past couple of decades there have been many concerns in the food industry. Consumers have become aware of the treatment and drugs given to the animals that they consume. There has not only been concern in the meat producing section of the food industry, but also in crop production. Farmers are beginning to mainly grow plants that have been genetically modified. This concern stems from people not knowing how these more recent styles of food production affect their health.

In many cases the food industry is abusing the power to produce food. Much of this industry is focused solely on profit and will obtain by making production as cheap as possible, while abiding by all the regulations. Many consumer would think as long as they follow regulations everything will be fine, but what consumers do not know is how loose the regulations and how they are barely being enforced.

Marion Nestle, a professor in the department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at NYU,  once explained that food producers do not have to recall unsafe foods, but they do because the want the consumer to feel safe buying their product. <http//blackboard.syr.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-3960364-dt-content-rid-11963839_1/courses/32056.1162/Nestle%20Resisting%20Food%20Safety.pdf > . She connects this with the lack of regulation enactment and enforcement in the FDA and USDA. These government organizations are supposed to be protecting the consumer, but as the film Food Inc. demonstrated many of the officials appointed to these organizations have been linked to major establishments in the food industry as well as congress.  As a government agency created to protect this country from hazardous food, all they have been successful of is maintaining the industries safety.

Some of the regulations in affect today have only helped the food system become stronger. For instance, in meat production the products that are approved to be used in animal feed have grown. According to the article “You are What They Eat” ,<https://blackboard.syr.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-3960322-dt-content-rid-11963838_1/courses/32056.1162/Consumer%20Reports%20You%20are%20what%20they%20eat.pdf>, the industry is now allowed to use animal waste, protein products, meat, bone, and blood. These are only ingredients that can be added to animal feed. This does not only seem disgusting, but it is also allowing animals that have been deemed insufficient for human consumption to be used in creating products for animals which will eventually be consumed by the population. By doing this the industry is able to reuse animal parts in order to cut costs.

The changes in the animal feed are harmful for the animal’s diet. Today, more animals have been taken off their natural diets and instead have been given feed. The film Food Inc. demonstrated how this could be a problem, but what I find most concerning is that in some cases this new diet can be linked to increases in harmful bacteria. Due to the rising outbreaks recently, any link should be further analyzed.

Many food producers do not only modify the animals’ diet from grass to make production cheaper, but they also administer drugs and antibiotics to create larger animals and to protect against disease. When these companies administer these drugs, they are creating alterations within the way these animals grow. For instance chickens have been given drugs to increase their size and to decrease the amount of time they take to grow. The documentary Food Inc. demonstrated how chickens were dying prematurely and how many of them could not move due to the increase in body size. This is not the only problem. Also, chickens are being given antibiotics in their feed. This is causing them to become resistant to antibiotics and this could make consuming something as common as chicken dangerous for the population. Although many producers and government program swear that everything is safe, consumers still have to question which type of diet they want the animals they eat to have. We have to realize that everything eaten and administered to animals will be carried into our diets when we consume them.

www.farmsanctuary.org

The argument presented so far makes it seem like there is a clear choice as to which foods should be consumed, but the real answer is much more complicated. Over the years the food system has been developed because many people believe it is more “sustainable”. People focus on whether our society is “sustainable” because they want future generations to grow up healthy without any worries of food borne illness. “Sustainability” is a way of producing a society that can be prosperous and be long-lasting.

“Sustainable” is a funny word that has a variety of meanings, especially when it is applied to the food system. We need to work for a “sustainable” future or we need a “sustainable” of farming that will produce enough food for the country. It seems like everyone is searching for their own form of sustainable and this is where the argument over food production can get difficult.

One view which can be represented by sources such as Food Inc., “You are What They Eat”, and “Resisting Food Safety”. These articles offer that the word “sustainable” when being discussed with the current food system is based on creating food that will not demolish the societies overall health. This focuses in on the issues of administering drugs to meat, raising animals in warehouses, and using genetically modified plants. They are right in the fact that each of these factors has repercussions on society. The main concern with the word “sustainable” in this context is that people will become resistant to antibiotics and outbreaks of various bacteria will occur. This is a major concern with the increase in outbreaks related to food borne illnesses lately.

The other main definition for “sustainable” in this context can be represented by the article “Organic Illusions”. <https://www.aei.org/publication/organic-illusions/>. This article offers the idea of “sustainable” as being able to support thousands of people on the current food system. This article’s approach suggests that without the mass production that is offered by the current food system, society would not be able to have enough food to survive because there is not enough resources to run an organic food system on this large of a scale. This form of “sustainability” is being formed to protect a society from running out of a food supply.

The word “sustainability” used in different contexts can create a more controversial argument about food politics. There is no easy solution that can be made, but there is common ground that can be acquired on both sides of the issue.

The website Sustainable Table  demonstrates how people and society can maintain a sustainable society in agriculture and production of meat. <http://www.sustainabletable.org/940/food-issues>. It represents different articles which  explain how each part of the industry can become more sustainable and healthy. However, the only issue it doesn’t address is the amount of land and resources it will take. Although, it does not represent this topic it demonstrates how each part in the food system can be improved. This site demonstrates a variety of solutions on how to improve the food system we have today. This site establishes that there are ways to change the food system and that can create a more wholesome and healthier society.

Each of these arguments presented can only represent a glimpse at the errors and concerning facts about the current food system being used in today’s society. What the food industry does not want the consumer to know is that they actually have power in how the food industry can change. The consumer has the power to make purchases and to choose what type of production they support. As the consumer it is our job to purchase products that we can stand behind and be confident in saying I support the food I eat. By doing this the consumer can change the food market entirely, because the one thing that the system is focusing on is making a profit.

 

Reflection

1.) 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.

It is the ability to synthesize a text’s main concepts and values after reading it. After reading these texts, I searched for the key points and how the writer was presenting them. My project is to make people aware that there is not one simple solution to the food industry, but I want people  to also know that they have the power to say what they will eat by choosing every time they go to the supermarket.

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?

This work shop assisted me in determining the links between the different articles and how I could bring them all together. The most helpful part for me was when we had to identify key terms. After doing this I found different ways to combine the articles together. It helped me establish the main ideas I wanted to write about.

3.)  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 how someone determines how parts of the article relate to the world and impact other ideas in the article. It helps people focus on analyzing a text, rather that summarizing it. I was able to take key aspects of each article and relate them to one another. It helped me established an overarching theme for my article.

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

I figured out how to focus more on synthesizing through the use of writers’ projects. Before when I tried to analyze I would mostly summarize, but now I feel as if I am looking more into the texts when I read them.

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?

When I began I was going to focus on food borne illness. As I researched I realized that a better option would be organic vs. conventional production. Even as I was developing my argument I remained vague. After the “Developing a Claim” workshop I began to realize that I need to go more in depth to the issue. Then, I realized that I would rather let the person reading my article decide what type of food they would want to eat and to explain why the topic of food production is much more complicated than it often appears.

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.

I decided to start off easy and just demonstrate negative aspects of the food system and why people are concerned about it. Then, I decided to add another view towards the end to leave people thinking about why the food system is more complicated than it appears.

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.

“One view which can be represented by sources such as Food Inc., “You are What They Eat”, and “Resisting Food Safety”. These articles offer that the word “sustainable” when being discussed with the current food system is based on creating food that will not demolish the societies overall health. This focuses in on the issues of administering drugs to meat, raising animals in warehouses, and using genetically modified plants.”

In this excerpt I demonstrate how all of these articles can relate to each other and I establish that they support the use of an organic style of production, or at least production that does not imply as many drugs.

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?

In my first draft it was vague, but after reading peer reviews I tried to elaborate more on the issues I am presenting.

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

I would like to focus on producing a lede more, on how to be more articulate with writing details, and how to write in different styles.

 

Out Of Our Hands But Onto Our Plates

We live in a country that was founded on the freedom of choice and people’s say in government. Is it not ironic then that we have so little say on what we are actually eating? The most fundamental element of our very human existence is out of our hands and into the hands of those who have the power to control it.

It’s not just about choosing what we consume, it is also choosing our safety in consuming it. In a country whose food industry is based off of profits and efficiency, it is no wonder that regulations put in place to protect our safety, actually might not be as safe as we would like to think. Even more troublesome though, is the power the food industry has. With the government backing their every move, they have little to no reason to actually care if their regulations are not acting as they should.

“These companies have legions of attorneys.  And they may sue even if they know they can’t win, just to send a message.”

According to Eric Schlosser, in the documentary Food Inc., the food industry in our country has an insane amount of power.

The documentary Food Inc. aims to show the food industry as it really is. In other words, it shows the food industry from the side that consumers do not usually see. For example, consumers do not see how powerful the food industry really is until they are the ones fighting it.

An example that the documentary used was the battle between Monsanto and a farmer who they were sewing for saving soybeans.

Monsanto is a company that essentially has control over all soybean production because of their patent on the bioengineered soybean. Monsanto has the money and the resources to fight average farmers even if they only have suspicion that the farmer is using their patented soybeans against their patent agreements.

There are some farmers who support big companies such as Monsanto, only adding to the argument of the food industry’s actual power. For example, Blake Hurst, a farmer backs up Monsanto and conventional ways of farming. Although a farmer himself, his alliance with big companies just shows his position in the conversation.

Monsanto is one company that shows power that the food industry has over producers. Those who produce our food our essentially puppets controlled by the food industry. Therefore, issues of food safety are widespread and out of reach not only by the consumer, but also by the producer.

To show the extent of how important food safety is and how it is neglected by the food industry, Food Inc. highlighted the story of Kevin. Kevin was two years old when he contracted E. coli 0517h7 from food and ended up hospitalized where he then died from the infection.

Even Hurst’s controversial article positions E. coli as an important factor when looking at the food industry. The argument the article makes is that the Stanford study found that E. coli is more prevalent in organic food. While this argument is one from Hurst in support of conventional farming, it still acknowledges how food safety is less important than the profits of the industry itself. In Kevin’s situation, his mom has been in a legal battle ever since the E. coli infection.

Unfortunately, the food industry, highly backed by the government, is not easily budged and it has been a long and hard battle. “Food safety (or the illusion of safety) is being positioned to secure capital rather than public welfare.” States Laura B. Delind and Philip H. Howard in Safe at any scale? Food scares, food regulation, and scaled alternatives.

 Adding to the E.coli conversation, this article discusses an E. coli outbreak in contaminated spinach that sickened people in 26 states, over the course of six to eight weeks, and caused at least three deaths. It took about a week to find the distributor (Dole) and the article said that it would have taken even longer to find the contamination source insinuating that that was never discovered.

Steps were only taken to secure the contaminated food but not to actually find the contamination to prevent it. It is no wonder Kevin’s mom is having a hard time working with the government in response to regulations that do not work.

While the food industry claims that there are many safety regulations put in place to monitor the safety of food, evidence has surely proven otherwise. The article You Are What They Eat provides various reasons to be concerned with the meat we are eating in the United States of America in regard to animal feed.

The director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America, Carol Tucker-Foreman, is quoted in this article saying “Rules protecting the feed supply aren’t as strong as they should be, and the FDA enforcement has been more wishful thinking than reality. Contaminated animal feed can result in contaminated food, putting the public health at risk.”

Meanwhile, Fred Angulo, who is the chief of the CDC’s foodborne and diarrheal branch, is also quoted saying that “connecting human illness to contaminated feed is difficult.”

While it is hard to pinpoint human illnesses to animal feed, the article also notes that there have cases of salmonella linked to animal feed and the most recent case occurred in 2003. With that being said, it is obvious where the concern lies and that is with consumers.

The fact that human illnesses are hard to trace already puts the food industry at an advantage. Safe at any scale? Food scares, food regulation, and scaled alternatives already put that into perspective by describing how they never found the source of contamination even in such a widespread illness outbreak that resulted in deaths.

Want to know how tracing food illnesses can be difficult? Nestle highlighted an instance where health officials traced one hamburger back to slaughterhouses in six different states and around 443 cattle. How could one possibly find the source of contamination of a hamburger induced foodborne illness? The fact that the food industry operates in such a way leaves them and the government off the hook.

In response to that, saying that they are hard to trace does not mean that they are not a concern because even the CEO of the American Feed Industry Association in You Are What They Eat said that feed can become contaminated because “people make mistakes.” Thus putting the consumer on the end of the mistakes that may result with them getting a foodborne illness while the food industry can blame it on an accident, if in fact, they are even caught.

Another way the government and food industry are off the hook when it comes to food safety is because many illnesses go unreported according to Nestle.

Nestle states that even with 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths yearly in the United States of America “most episodes are never reported to health authorities and their cause is unknown.”

Nestle not only highlights the severity of foodborne illnesses, but also how the use of antibiotics in animals can make foodborne illnesses even more severe.

Using antibiotics creates a resistance to bacteria and therefore “If antibiotic-resistant bacteria infect people and cause a disease, the disease will be untreatable.” However, this article goes on to state how the drug industry does not agree with any attempt to hinder the use of drugs in animals for food even with the alarming evidence of how dangerous it can be to humans. In this scenario, the drug industry, as well as the food industry uses their power to maintain control over production even when the health of their consumers are at stake.

Does the food industry and government’s monopoly over the food in this country really leave consumers in jeopardy? Should consumers be concerned when buying a package of meat because what the meat previously ate is not listed in the ingredients? Food that sustains their lives nowadays can end it just as easily. The fact is that regulations are put in place, but that does not mean that their health standards prevent food from contamination. Nor do these regulations protect the average consumer in the face food foodborne illnesses. Put in the position such as Kevin’s mom, whose son died from contaminated food, what more could possibly be at stake? The fact is that no one wants that to be their loved one but that is also what is at stake when it comes to the food industry and the government’s jurisdiction over it.

 

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 is what an author intends to get across to their readers. It is what the author wants the reader to take away from their piece. To identify a texts project, one must thoroughly read through the entire text and take note of keywords, arguments, and phrases. Then one must think, what did the author intend to help me understand and intend to show me? For example, my project for the Huffington Post Blog article is to add to the conversation about the power of the food industry and how it effects the safety and health of consumers. I aim to show how the food industry is more concerned with their own power than with the safety of their consumers and how their negligence when it comes to food safety is able to happen because of their said power.

 

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

 

The Sorting It Out Workshop was an all-around helpful worksheet to complete. Actually writing out the writer’s project for each source was very helpful because I was then able to see in a few short sentences what the author’s purpose of the text was. Then that really helped at the end of the worksheet when I was pulling out quotes to connect and synthesize the texts. Since I was already able to see the purpose of the articles, it made it easier to find quotes that could relate to each other. It gave me a good starting point to find out their similarities. For example, while all of the articles had to do with safety in the food industry, I was able to find that they all talked about food borne illnesses. By knowing that Consumer Reports talked mainly about animal feed, I then looked for a health issue with animal feed and one that was very prevalent was food borne illnesses. Knowing this, I was then able to go back into the texts and pick out quotes that had to do with food borne illnesses from each source.

 

• 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 ability to connect different texts in a manner that creates a cohesive argument. It is not just summarizing the different texts and explaining similarities between them, but it is looking for patterns between the texts on certain topics and being able to use information from each text to build upon each other in a cohesive manner. This is very important because in doing this, a writer is able to pull important information from each text and use it in a way that makes sense and shows the important information, all while creating one’s own piece of writing. For my blog article, I used synthesis throughout my entire piece. For example, after identifying the writer’s projects for each text and looking for patterns within them in the Sorting It Out Workshop, I was able to see that they all talked about the problem of foodborne illnesses in the food industry. For example, I used Nestle’s example of how one hamburger was traced back to slaughterhouses in six different states and around 443 cows to show how contaminated food is hard to trace back to its origin, to add on to the point in Delind and Howard’s article when they mentioned how an E. coli outbreak was never traced back to the original origin of contamination.

 

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

 

During this unit, I learned about the importance of hyperlinks to online articles. Although it might not seem like much, this was a big accomplishment for me. My background in writing comes from my Sociology and Women and Gender Studies majors where writing research papers and reading responses make up a good portion of my course load. With that being said, it has been engrained into me to cite cite cite and cite! Even if I am unsure if information is just common knowledge still be safe and cite! I am used to professors telling me that there is no such thing as too many citations. This was a difficulty when writing this online blog because I was writing it in terms of citing it back to the different sources I used rather than using the sources to make a cohesive argument for an interesting article. When I learned of the hyperlinks however, that made me feel one hundred times more comfortable with writing the article. The hyperlinks became my way of citing information and it thus made me more comfortable. It also showed how this writing technique is a lot different than what I am used to, but helped me become more comfortable with it

 

• 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 started with the Sorting It Out Workshop. When I was looking for quotes that I could use to connect each text I started with the Consumer Reports article because of how specific it was to animal feed. I realized that a main concern of this article was foodborne illnesses and realized that every other source also had something mentioned throughout it about foodborne illnesses. So then I searched through the other sources to find what the aid about foodborne illnesses and found that they all had one thing in common: foodborne illnesses are a problem that should not be overlooked. That is how I got the main idea. What is at stake? Foodborne illnesses. Who does it put at stake? The consumers. Then I looked for specific examples within each text to show how foodborne illnesses put the safety of consumers in jeopardy because of their danger and the food industry and government’s help in fighting them and putting in place regulations that are effective. That is how I came to create my final draft, by using the examples I found within each text and synthesizing them to fit my argument.

 

• 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.

 

In my first draft, I just organized my article by the different sources I used. I did them one by one and described their position on how they add to my article by using specific examples from the text. Then when working on my next draft, I reorganized the article by seeing what examples fit where and what texts could I put together tomake the article flow better and synthesize the texts and their arguments. So then working on my final draft, I had my article organized by the different examples I found within each additional text and by how what I wrote about with each article fit together with the others.

 

• 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.

 

“To show the extent of how important food safety is and how it is neglected by the food industry, Food Inc. highlighted the story of Kevin. Kevin was two years old when he contracted E. coli 0517h7 from food and ended up hospitalized where he then died from the infection. Even Hurst’s controversial article positions E. coli as an important factor when looking at the food industry. The argument the article makes is that the Stanford study found that E. coli is more prevalent in organic food. While this argument is one from Hurst in support of conventional farming, it still acknowledges how food safety is less important than the profits of the industry itself. In Kevin’s situation, his mom has been in a legal battle ever since the E. coli infection.

Unfortunately, the food industry, highly backed by the government, is not easily budged and it has been a long and hard battle. “Food safety (or the illusion of safety) is being positioned to secure capital rather than public welfare.” States Laura B. Delind and Philip H. Howard in Safe at any scale? Food scares, food regulation, and scaled alternatives.”

 

This is a section from my paper where I show three sources to shape my initial argument. I show how food safety in regard to foodborne illnesses is a problem within our food system by describing Kevin’s story of how he died from contaminated food with E. coli 0517h7 present in it and then showed how even though Hurst is controversial when discussing food politics, he was even able to agree that E. coli is a problem within our food system. Then to tie the problem of foodborne illnesses back to the initial question of whose at stake, I used a quote from Delind and Howard to show how the government makes us believe we are safe when we really can see that we are not.

 

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

 

In earlier drafts, I just used something that I thought would be interesting and pull readers in to read. Then, after completing the body of my first draft I was able to use a lede that still meets the requirements of interesting enough to pull readers in, while at the same time making it specific to my particular discussion. At first my lede was very long and wordy, and advice I received was to separate my lede from my introduction. In doing that, my lede for my final draft was able to be more consise, relevant to my article, and still maintain its specific purpose of grabbing the reader’s attention.

 

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

 

During my next unit projects, I would like to work more on the ability to adapt my writing style for the specific purpose of writing. As stated earlier, I had some trouble creating an article that did not read like a research paper. Although I feel comfortable with my ability to write an article now, I would like to work more on my writing adaptability so that when I sit down to write anything, I am better equipped to write in a style for a specific purpose and feel comfortable writing whatever I am given to write.

There is an injustice sweeping through our nation undetected by the general public. The average American has no idea what they are putting into their bodies on a daily basis, how unsafe our regulatory food system is, or how much power the industrial food system has over our country.

Can our society be saved or are we doomed to by our naivety?

Since food is an intricate part of all of our lives, one would think that the food industry would be closely regulated. However, the FDA does not have the funding it needs to enforce all of the laws regarding food safety. This leads to self-regulations by companies who feel that profit is often more important than enforcing regulations. “The role of government in food safety demands particular notice. Current laws grant regulatory agencies only limited authority to prevent microbial contamination before food gets to the consumer” (Nestle 28). How are consumers supposed to protect themselves from harmful bacteria such as e-coli, when we can’t rely on our government to protect the consumer?

The continuous outbreaks of food born pathogens, such as e-coli and salmonella, show that there are many flaws in the regulation of our industrial food industry; however there have not been many steps towards stricter regulations due to the power these large companies have over our government. Changes in regulation have been attempted but larger companies have pushed back against these changes that would harm their profit and efficiency. “The culture of opposition to food safety measures so permeates the beef industry that it lead, in one shocking instance, to the assassination of federal and state meat inspectors” (Nestle 28). The power of the industrial food system lies in the fact that money often controls our governmental system, not integrity. The health and wellbeing of the consumer is put at steak when profit and efficiency is valued over safety.

There are not enough laws in place protecting the rights of the consumer and too many allow large corporations to control politics. There seems to be a disconnect between the process of food production and the information that is released to the consumer. The majority of consumers are unaware of the conditions of how their food is produced, or the control that a handful of companies have over their meal. According to Food, Inc., there is an illusion of diversity in our economy when it comes to food production. There is a uniformity that comes with mass production. This can lead to many problems concerning health and the ethics of the food industry. Corporations are hiding behind legislature and attorneys; they know that their practices often put lives at risk, but are willing to look past this issue in the name of progress. Transparency and the well being of the consumer should be their primary concern.

The industry needs to address ethics as well. The regulations and laws regarding food production are hindering efforts to keep the consumer safe. The consumer deserves to be informed so that they can make safe and educated choices. The blame is placed on the consumer. Big businesses have too much power over legislature. Instead of looking for an alternative solution, the food industry relies on self-regulation. “Government oversight of food safety has long tended to provide far more protection to food producers than to the public” (Nestle 30). Recently with more food born illnesses being traced back to our food production system, the government has been forced to take a closer look. Part of the problem is that our government agencies like the United States Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture do not simply have the manpower to enforce laws and regulations.

Another concern is the fact that money from cooperation’s often sways legislature in their favor. It is impossible to make any progress when the companies we are fighting to change hold all of the power in our political system.

Safety is also a major concern when dealing with our food supply. Our current regulatory system is failing There are recurring outbreaks of food born illnesses, such as e-coli and salmonella every year. “According to a recent report from the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). ‘There is considerable potential for contaminated animal feed ingredients to move between and within countries. This could result in widespread and rapid dissemination of a pathogen to geographically diverse animal herds and in turn, to a range of human food products” (Consumer Reports). There are many concerns ranging from the spread of pathogens, to the use of pesticides or antibiotics.

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“Did you know that 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States are for use on livestock and poultry, not humans?

The majority aren’t even given to animals that are sick. Instead, it’s normal practice in the meat industry to mix these drugs with livestock food and water day after day as a substitute for healthier living conditions and to make chickens, pigs, and cows grow faster.” – Natural Resource Defense Council 

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Our regulatory system is out of date. Pathogens have adapted and have grown increasingly more aggressive (Nestle 40). This is due to the increase in the use of antibiotics in the process of raising animals for slaughter. The way that our food industry functions have changed drastically since many of the food regulation laws were passed by congress. Our governmental system and regulatory system was not prepared for bacteria to change as fast as our processing system. Changes in our society and food system have helped foster more dangerous microbial pathogens. These new strains are becoming harder to kill and resistant to antibiotics.

The reason for this change in antibiotics and pathogens is due to the fact that farmers have been adding antibiotics to animal food in order to stave off infection. This seems like a good idea in theory; however this overuse of antibiotics on otherwise healthy cows is endangering the consumer. Mass production does not have space for inconsistencies like infection and disease. There are not enough precautions taken with new technologies and practices to insure they are safe in the long run.

Our change from traditional farming methods to mass production is due to the changes in our society. As a society we need to make sure that our regulatory system stays up to date with the consequences of new technology. “Each link in the production, preparation, and delivery of food can be a hazard to health. While technologies designed to improve the safety of the food supply hold promise, changes in food processing, products, practices, and people will continue to facilitate the emergence of foodborne pathogens into the next century” (Altekruse 291). It is clear that we are heading down a road that we haven’t faced before regarding food and public health. These challenges and concerns are only going to escalate in the coming years. If the food industry does not regulate its use of antibiotics and other production practices, then the health of our nation could be at risk.

Since our world is ever growing and the globalization of the food industry is in full swing, the dangers of the spread of pathogens are ever present and dispersing at a faster rate. “The trend toward greater geographic distribution of products from large centralized food processors carries a risk for dispersed outbreaks. When mass-distributed food products are intermittently contaminated or contaminated at a low level, illnesses may appear sporadic rather than part of an outbreak” (Altekruse 288). With widespread trade and global food production, the United States needs to do a better job of regulating the food that we allow across our borders. There have been many outbreaks that were traced back to produce that was produced in South America and other counties with less regulations. It does not matter how we improve our own industrial food system, if we continue to allow contaminated food from other countries onto our tables.

There are many concerns that the consumer needs to think about when regarding food safety, but the blame should be directed toward the industrial food companies and the government. There needs to be stricter laws regarding food production. The industry has been self-regulated for too long. It is clear that these companies are only looking out for themselves. This task is made even harder by the secrecy of the food industry; however things will never change unless we take a stand.

Many of these concerns revolving around antibiotics and other drugs use on processed meat can be avoided by buying organic meat. (Consumer Reports) As the consumer it is our job to decide what we put into our bodies. Some may not agree that organic farming is the answer to this predicament, however “we can afford a food system that provides lots of choices” (Hurst 1). Even though there are varying levels of concerns with the food industry, it is clear that something needs to change.

As consumers, we deserve to know what we are putting into our bodies. The industrial food system is afraid of our opinions. Sadly, many consumers are not aware of the power their voices hold. When it comes down to it, these greedy corporations will only be swayed by one thing.

Money.

It is time to start making conscious and educated decisions on what we are eating. If we stop purchasing these unregulated products and opt for more sustainable and local option, then the food industry will be forced to change their ways for the better.

 

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Citations:

Altekruse SF, Cohen ML, Swerdlow DL. Emerging foodborne diseases.Emerging Infectious Diseases. 1997;3(3):285-293.

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/.

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

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Reflection

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

The “writer’s project” is the claim or the main point of a piece. It is a combination of what the writer wants the reader go get from their article and why it is important. Often the “project” of the texts revolved around the thesis of each. Once I read each text and identified key points and arguments than I was able to formulate a clear project for each. My project for this particular article was to bring awareness to the fact that the food industry has many flaws such as antibiotics use and other health risks. These flaws are due to the lack of regulation and government oversight.

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?

Section D was the most beneficial for me because it forced me to go back and find the main argument for each paper. After that I could start to focus on what aspects of these texts interested me. Section E was also helpful. This forced me to find key phrases that linked these texts together. In doing so I organized my thought more and was able to better synthesize the texts. This workshop also helped me organize my quotes and connect them in a way that made sense. I feel that my first draft was stronger because of this. I was prepared to integrate facts as well as synthesize the texts.

3.)  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 going a step further than summarizing. To synthesize is to connect ideas from multiple texts and draw further conclusions with your observations. I struggled with this at first, but I feel that I moves away from summarizing. My final drafts uses sources to connect ideas and prove my claim, while reflecting on the overarching themes of each piece. An example of this would be my discussion of organic foods with Consumer Reports and Hurst.

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

I feel that I am better at connecting main themes in multiple texts to support my own argument. The synthesis workshops forced me to connect ideas from multiple texts to support my claim.

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?

Originally I knew that I wanted to discuss the corruption of the food industry. The “sorting it out” workshop helped me narrow my focus to the regulatory system and how there are many health concerns that the consumer should be aware of. An example of this would be the additional source that I used focused on antibiotics and how our industrial food system operates. I chose this article to support my claim, but also give a different perspective. The evolution of my draft is due to the fact that I had to go back into the texts and read them for the purpose of supporting my claim and identifying their “purpose”. By doing this I was able to better understand what information would be helpful in my article.

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.

In my original draft there were not many quotes or facts, but I used many opinions. As I went along in the process I added additional sources and quotes. An example of this would be

“Each link in the production, preparation, and delivery of food can be a hazard to health. While technologies designed to improve the safety of the food supply hold promise, changes in food processing, products, practices, and people will continue to facilitate the emergence of foodborne pathogens into the next century” (Altekruse 291).

By adding this source I was better able to backup my ‘purpose’ and support my argument.

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.

“Many of these concerns revolving around antibiotics and other drugs use on processed meat can be avoided by buying organic meat. (Consumer Reports) As the consumer it is our job to decide what we put into our bodies. Some may not agree that organic farming is the answer to this predicament, however “we can afford a food system that provides lots of choices” (Hurst 1). Even though there are varying levels of concerns with the food industry, it is clear that something needs to change.”

In this section I quote Consumer Reports, Hurst, and reflect on Food, inc.. Thought out my draft I reflect on many of the ideas in the same paragraph but usually quote only one or two. This is because I have synthesized the main ideas and interwoven them into my text as I progressed in my drafts.

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?

Original – “There is an injustice sweeping through our nation undetected by the general public.”

Final – “There is an injustice sweeping through our nation undetected by the general public. The average American has no idea what they are putting into their bodies on a daily basis, how unsafe our regulatory food system is, or how much power the industrial food system has over our country.

Can our society be saved or are we doomed to by our naivety?”

I kept the original sentence, but added on to elaborate on what the reader could expect. There was a bit more drama in the second draft, in order to keep the reader’s attention. The feedback I received was positive and said that it was a strong lead because of the powerful statement.

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

I think I can still improve my synthesizing. It was not made clear to me exactly how to do this, but I feel like I have improved through out my drafts.