Factory Farming

The Winchester family, John (44), Mary (43), Dean (17), and Sam (15), have come to therapy to seek help for various issues. John and Mary are on the verge of divorce; Dean is skipping school, fighting, and shoplifting, and Sam has withdrawn completely from the family. The family was ordered to attend therapy after the Military Police (MPs) responded to a call from neighbors after an especially loud verbal altercation between John and Dean, in which John threatened to physically harm Dean if he did not leave the premises. John was order to move into the barracks and Mary is threatening to file for divorce.

For centuries, man has relied on animals for clothing, food, and transportation. However, the recent increase in technological advancements has been accompanied by a rise of animal consumption. Currently, the average person consumes an exceptional amount of meat each year. In order to compensate for this, an overwhelming amount of changes has enveloped the meat industry. Animals aren’t raised, they are manufactured. Eric Schlosser, the author of “Fast Food Nation” uses imagery, understatements, and short sentences when describing his visit to a meat packing plant to develop his argument against the inhumaneness of the meat industry.

In the story “A long way Gone by Ishmael Beah” Ishmael first character is innocent and childlike in the beginning of the novel. His innocence and childlike character is a significant role of characterization. Ishmael’s symbol of innocence is the moon, which is constantly being brought you into the story. “Some nights I saw the head of a man in the room...it pleases me to know that part of my childhood is still embedded with me.” It made him happy that he knew he still had his innocence and childlike manner for picturing a man as the moon. In the beginning of the novel he also is a child who has a childlike manner.“We sat together on the stoop and briefly talked about our childhood pranks...we had dancing at talent shows, practicing new dances, playing soccer until we couldn't see the ball.” The quote shows that he was a young boy who liked playing with friends and having fun. In the beginning of the novel Ishmael is innocent but once war comes around him, he changes.

Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Eating Animals” was extraordinary. As a former meat buyer for a large food distributor, I had visited kill floors several times, and I had made some assumptions about the book before I read it. But the meat business has changed radically since I was a buyer and I found the first-hand accounts of extreme animal abuse Safran Foer employed in the book not only to be controversial but also repulsive. It was very difficult to read about some of the regularly used techniques that factory farms use in the name of efficiency.

Today, the food industry has not just altered the American diet, but it has also had a negative effect within the labor sector as well as the animals meant for consumption and the lack of government oversight. Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, and Jonathan Foer in Eating Animals, illustrate the mistreatment of labor workers as well as the animal abuse that goes unseen within the food industry. Foer gives such examples of employees who work in slaughterhouses giving accounts of what goes on in the kill floors, and stories of employees who have witnessed thousands and thousands of cows going through the slaughter process alive (231). Eating meat does not have to be so inhumane for example, Foer quotes Frank Reese, who does not permit inhumane practices on his ranch that are cruel, and Reese believes that there are other ways of having a sustainable humane animal agriculture instead of the methods of the large corporate meat industry (238). Namit Arora in the article “On Eating Animals”, as well as Michael Pollan in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, address some of the issues that animals face once they hit the kill floor. The food industry has transformed not only what people eat, but how the government has neglected the issues of the wellbeing of labor workers and the animals that are processed for consumption.

Most of the animals under this condition will develop illnesses, abnormalities, go insane, or die before they make it to the slaughterhouse (Alfie, 2010). In the U.S., over 10 billion animals are raised and killed each year for food about 9 billion chickens, 250 million turkeys, 100 million pigs, 35 million cows. The vast majority of these are not raised on small family farms but, rather, in the major agricultural facilities called?factory farms, also known as Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). The idea of factory farming originated in the 1920s with the discovery of vitamins A and D. When mixed with feed; farm animals were capable of growing without sunlight or exercise, which enabled them to be raised more efficiently in barns throughout the year (Fieser, 2015). Factory farming is a form of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system that is privately controlled by owners for profit and self-interest (Fieser, 2015). Many philosophers have proposed the principle of equal consideration of interests, in some form or other, as a primary moral value; but, we shall see in more element shortly, not many of them have documented that this principle applies to members of other species as well as to our own. (Singer, 1989). In today society the consumer is much more interested in knowing how the chickens are raised, what they?ve been eating

Did you know, that the United States consumes about 24 billion pounds of meat every year? Meat and poultry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world today. For many, all that goes through their mind is how good it is and they chow it down without a second thought. It has become a habit, an act of second-nature. However, many are not aware of the way it was produced or where it comes from. In his 2009 New York Times essay, award winning novelist and New York University professor, Jonathan Foer considers the effects of consuming meat and argues that the contemporary ways in which the animals we eat are produced, is highly unethical. Specifically the conditions they are raised in, the genetic tweaks, and the inhumane killing process. He spent three years researching his book, Eating Animals, which was published on November 2, 2009.  It is clear he is not forcing his views on his readers, rather he is speaking to them on a more logical and emotional platform. Bringing to light the controversial ways of modern day meat production, he insists on more conscientious food choices. Foer is critically acclaimed for his persuasive writing techniques, staggering research, clever language, and graphically creative instances. His main claim is that meat is bad when it comes at the expense of animal suffering, danger to your health, and negative effects to our environment. To advance his claim he does the following: first,  he uses narration as a way to attract his audience attention and keep them engaged with the text, next, he employs the strategy of cause and effect, to help his audience to fully comprehend the results in his research, and lastly, uses convincing descriptions to appall his readers and to leave them in dismay. His audience is mostly mainstream, however, it specifically entices rhetoricians. It seems his main purpose is to inform his audience and educate them on the matter at hand.

Every year, an average American will consume approximately one hundred-twenty six pounds of meat. This meat can be traced back to factory farms where the animals are kept to be tortured to turn into a product for the appetite of humans. The terrible treatment these animals are forced to endure is the outcome of the greed and want for a faster production of their product. The industry of factory farming works to maximize the output of the meat while maintaining low costs,but will sadly always comes at the animals’ expense.

Throughout history many arguments have arose concerning the matter of Factory Farming and the way we obtain our meat. But it is now, in early times, that the well-being of the animals are being observed. People started to witness the inhumane treatment of the animals before they were slaughtered. In the novel, “Eating Animals” the author Jonathan Safran Foer discuss the different ways the animals are abused along with the living conditions of the animals. Make no mistake I’m not trying to convince anybody to stop eating meat because I wouldn’t be practicing what I preach

CM spoke to Maureen O’ Dea (IIC) regarding a follow-up on therapeutic services for Destiny (youth). IIC informed CM that youth has good coping skills and does not need IIC services. IIC and CM discussed transitioning youth out of Hudson CMO. CM will conduct 1st transition meeting for Tuesday, 4/25/17. IIC and CM talked about some challenges that youth endures due to her environment. CM noted she met with youth on 3/28/17 and provided her with school and employment resources. IIC and youth continues to meet weekly for 1 hour.

the rise of large cattle, turkey and dairy operations. In addition, factory farms introduced cheap prices to animal products but these practices were discouraged by animal rights activists and environmentalists. They argued that factory farms overused antibiotics and released great amount of concentrated animal waste that were hazardous to human health (Davis, 111).

In his 2009 article “Eating Meat,” Jonathan Safran Foer uncovers the cruel and gruesome truth about factory farms and how they violate animal rights. Foer believes changing food habits prevents the sufferings of animals. He explains that factory farmed animals are suffering due to their inhuman living conditions and style of killing. Foer explains that chickens are cramped with twisted legs and cows are skinned or dismembered while still conscious. In addition, Foer clarifies that after making an animal suffer and go through torture, it is just plain wrong to eat it. Foer would often acknowledge his grandmother’s story, emphasizing her famine during the War and how she had refused a piece of meat offered to her. Even though she had been starving for days, she refused the piece of meat.

Sources say that ¨over 56 billion farmed animals are killed every year by humans and more than 3,000 animals die every second in slaughterhouses

As humanity becomes more civilized, many of us perceive that eating livestock is morally incorrect, but aren’t we are designed to be an omnivore? Our teeth and digestive system serve the purpose of breaking down animal and plant foods and to bring these important nutrients to every part of the body. Despite the fact that, in 2011, U.S. meat and poultry production reached more than 92.3 billion pounds, the ethic of killing and eating animals as well as the concern of the environmental burden caused by the production of meats is debatable. However, animal based diet is necessary for the human body to function properly and we can choose the meat produced from environmentally sustainable farms to avoid the moral ambiguity.

“For most humans, especially for those in modern urban and suburban communities, the most direct form or contact with non-human animals is at meal time: we eat them. This simple fact is the key to what each one of us can do about changing these attitudes. The use and abuse of animals raised for food far exceeds, in sheer numbers of animals affected, any other kind of mistreatment” (Coats). The most effective method to stop this cruelty is to learn about where the meat comes from, by supporting the organic and family farms which will ultimately lead to the reducing the amount of animals that have to suffer (PETA). More than 95 percent of animal abuse in America occurs in the meat packing industry (Harper & Low). Animals suffer an unimaginable amount, they are raised to be killed, then bought and then consumed. In order to help fight back against the abuse, there needs to be a cut back on the amount of meat or poultry that is consumed. Seriously consider the option of becoming a vegetarian; by not eating meat, you completely stop supporting animal