Whistle blowing. Snitching. Ratting. Tattling. Exposing. Blowing the lid off. The meat packing industry is not as it seems. Beware of the meat. Beware of the job. Things are not as they seem. Whatever the big meat packing companies have said, it is a lie. Immigrants to the United States were told about a better life, but it was also a lie. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle which exposed the reality of the meat packing companies in Chicago in the early 20th century. Likewise in the food documentary Food Inc., exposes the same reality in the 21st century. Food production and labor conditions have greatly improved in the past hundred years , but there is still more that needs to be done to fix the corrupt nature of the large meat packing companies.
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That fact has not changed over the past century. Sinclair writes in The Jungle about the sausage making process. He describes how workers would through poisonous bread on piles of rotten meat to kill the rats, and then proceed to scoop everything into the sausage grinder. The meat company, Durham, did not care if there was rotten meat, animal guts, or vermin in their sausage, just as long as they made their money. A similar example was presented in Food Inc. Food Inc. focused on the disease E.coli, specifically, in beef. The documentary described that cows are fed corn to fatten up instead of grass. The cows then poop a lot more. Prior to slaughter, the cows are wading ankle deep in Ecoli rich poop in holding pens. When it is then time for slaughtering, the waste goes straight into the meat to be processed. A farmer in Food Inc. explained that if a cow is fed grass for five days before slaughter, 80% of the ecoli is gone. However, the beef companies are too greedy today and back then to feed cows correctly or to have acceptable holding pens for the cows. The consequences of the beef companies greed are shown when Jurgis’ young nephew dies after eating a bad sausage in The Jungle. Similarly in Food Inc., a young boy died after contracting ecoli from eating a Jack in the Box hamburger. Both instances of poor food production have led to more government regulations as a
That fact has not changed over the past century. Sinclair writes in The Jungle about the sausage making process. He describes how workers would through poisonous bread on piles of rotten meat to kill the rats, and then proceed to scoop everything into the sausage grinder. The meat company, Durham, did not care if there was rotten meat, animal guts, or vermin in their sausage, just as long as they made their money. A similar example was presented in Food Inc. Food Inc. focused on the disease E.coli, specifically, in beef. The documentary described that cows are fed corn to fatten up instead of grass. The cows then poop a lot more. Prior to slaughter, the cows are wading ankle deep in Ecoli rich poop in holding pens. When it is then time for slaughtering, the waste goes straight into the meat to be processed. A farmer in Food Inc. explained that if a cow is fed grass for five days before slaughter, 80% of the ecoli is gone. However, the beef companies are too greedy today and back then to feed cows correctly or to have acceptable holding pens for the cows. The consequences of the beef companies greed are shown when Jurgis’ young nephew dies after eating a bad sausage in The Jungle. Similarly in Food Inc., a young boy died after contracting ecoli from eating a Jack in the Box hamburger. Both instances of poor food production have led to more government regulations as a