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America’s Food Crisis, by Bryan Walsh Essay

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American society has grown so accustomed to receiving their food right away and in large quantities. Only in the past few decades has factory farming come into existence that has made consuming food a non guilt-free action. What originally was a hamburger with slaughtered cow meat is now slaughtered cow meat that’s filled with harmful chemicals. Not only that, the corn that that cow was fed with is also filled with chemicals to make them grow at a faster rate to get that hamburger on a dinner plate as quickly as possible. Bryan Walsh, a staff writer for Time Magazine specializing in environmental issues discusses in his article “America’s Food Crisis” how our food is not only bad for us but dangerous as well. The word dangerous…show more content…
Manure lagoons, mostly located near factory farms, is another danger that affects workers and the environment or community. “A pig produces approximately four times the amount of waste a human does, and what factory farms do with that mess gets comparatively little oversight,” (Walsh 169). The process is a very dangerous one in of itself to ensure that the waste is gone and the factories can continue producing bacon and ham steaks for millions of people. A Rolling Stone Journalist, Jeff Tietz, wrote an article about these lagoons that Smithfield Foods controls. He goes into detail about how toxic these lagoons are and the effects they can have on workers. He tells a story about an incident in a lagoon in Michigan for the company. “A worker was overcome by the fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig shit,” (Tietz). Workers across the country are being put under these conditions in these levels of toxicities every day not knowing if this might happen to them. These manure lagoons can also be dangerous to the surrounding communities as well. Walsh writes, “Most hog waste is disposed of
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