Honeysweet Plum Trees Chapter 3 Summary

According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or the ASPCA, factory farms, because they are not maintained properly, can cause “dangerous, drug-resistant strains of bacteria to develop and spread among people”(“Farm Animal Welfare”). 76 million people in America become sick from foodborne illness, and thousands of die, every

Let’s take chicken farming as an example. Chickens are injected with growth hormones to make their breasts bigger for human consumption. The film showed chickens that were abnormally large. These modified chickens can only walk a few steps before having to sit back down because they can’t carry their own weight for too long. Some farmers will recycle the dead carcasses of the animals into the feed for herbivores on the farm. So plant eating animals will be eating the meat of a dead carcass. Animals could get sick or contract a disease from the dead animals. This infection would soon get

Although the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) was established by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to protect consumers, a number of unintended consequences have arisen that negatively impact producers. These include increased costs of feed, negative impacts of small and rural producers, limitations to meeting new demands and the voluntary nature of the VFD. This letter explores the VFD and identifies challenges with its current implementation that impact our rural and remote producers.

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

The main reason for which corn is the main crop in America is because it can be easily used for the making of “processed food and hundreds of other products.” Corn has become so convenient, that many factories use it to feed their animals, in order to accelerate their growth. Since it benefits government subsidies, many farmers opt to make a greater profit by changing the way they raise cattle, which also means the amount of animal manure is much greater. Furthermore, since there is “no good way of disposing it,” the grounds are becoming ideal parameters for the breeding of “deadly bacteria,” which brings about the unethical and scientific issues in the industry for these bacteria have found “their way into our food.” Moreover, as confirmed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a corn-based diet can promote Escherichia coli within the “digestive tract of

The main reason for which corn is the main crop in America is because it can be easily used for the making of “processed food and hundreds of other products.” Corn has become so convenient, that many factories use it to feed their animals, in order to accelerate their growth. Since it also benefitted government subsidies, many farmers have opted to make a greater profit by changing the way they raise cattle, which also means the amount of animal manure is much greater. Furthermore, since there is “no good way of disposing of it,” the grounds are becoming ideal parameters for the breeding of “deadly bacteria,” which brings about the ethical and scientific issues in the industry for these bacteria have found “their way into our food.” Moreover, as confirmed by the American Association For The Advancement Of Science, a corn-based diet can promote Escherichia coli within the “digestive tract of

The Sugar Plum Bear and I became friends. As we were walking through, what seemed like peppermint trees, we stumbled across the “Sugar Cookie Trail”. Both the bear and I looked at each other in confusion. As we walked across the delicious road, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, and ended up in what appeared to be frosting.

America is a nation of meat eaters, consuming up to 25.5 billion pounds of meat a year, there are approximately one million farms with livestock, and about 212,000 confine animals and are defined as animal feeding operations (AFOs) under current regulations (USEPA, 2012a) in the United States. In 2015 majority of the population in our country does not actually know where their meat comes from, we can just walk into our local super market and walk out with a plethora of meat products for a relatively cheap price. All of our meat products are nicely packaged with a nice, green, sunny farm right on the front of the packaging. Is that really what our farms look like now? Not exactly, if you went to the farm your animal came from you would walk

Industrial agriculture is currently the predominant food production system in the United States. It is distinguished by large-scale monoculture, abundant use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and meat production in CAFOs. CAFOs are ‘Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations’, otherwise known as factory farms, which aim to cram as many animals in one space to boost efficiency and profit at the expense of animal suffering and environmental hazards.

The United States Department of Agriculture estimated there to be three million pig farms with fifty-five million pigs in 1950. Those statistics would round out to approximately nineteen pigs per farm. In 2007, the United States Department of Agriculture estimated there to be 65,640 pig farms with 65 million pigs; resulting in a ratio of 992 pigs per farm. Dairy farms have reduced by more than half and chickens produced for meat has increased from 12,630 in 1950 to 300,000 in 2007 (Johnson, 82). Currently, each minute, fourteen thousand chickens will be killed. Every twenty-four hours, ninety thousand cows and calves will be slaughtered (Wilson, 314). In order for the alarming amount of growth in animal numbers to occur, their quality of life had to diminish. Gene Baur and his colleagues at Farm Sanctuary have been fighting to change laws regarding the treatment of factory farmed animals since 1986. In more recent years their hard work in lobbying has paid off. In 2003 the United Stated Department of Agriculture enacted a policy to remove downed cattle from the food supply. Downed cattle refers to cattle that are unable to walk due to malnourishment or physical abuse. In California, Baur’s home state, it was outlawed that downed cattle be used for slaughter. Farm Sanctuary also promoted the outlaw of foie gras which is a liver meat of forced fed ducks. Both

This book summarizes the excruciating environment factory farm animals live in, as well as the effects eating those animals, and fish, can have on the human body. Freedman and Barnouin point out the way in which factory farm animals are treated: “There are no vast meadows or lush, green pastures,” (44). Chickens and hens are laid on top of one another in wire cages too small for them to even spread their wings inside dark buildings. This “overcrowded, stressful environment” leads to the birds getting their beaks cut off with a hot knife, because if not, the birds will angrily peck at each other (45). Cattle, on the other hand, are kept in stalls that they cannot even lay comfortably or turn around in. They are also branded, creating third-degree burns, and castrated. Even further, their horns are ripped out. Pigs experience branding and castration, but instead of losing horns, they lose their ears, tails, and teeth. Both cattle and pigs live in their own urine, manure, and vomit. This is where the use of half the antibiotics made in the US each year come in. An overuse of antibiotics causes both the animals and the humans who consume those animals to become resistant to medications. Chemicals such as, benzene hexachloride, chlordane, heptachlor, etc., all found in meat, poultry, seafood, and dairy products, correlate with obesity, cancer, liver and kidney failure, reproductive and nervous system disorders, birth defects, and miscarriages. Furthermore, chicken and fish have both been connected to colon cancer. Then, the use of pesticides began, and eventually, “...bologna and other luncheon meats had 102 different industrial pollutants and pesticides, fast food hamburgers had 113 residues, and hot dogs had 123…In comparison, meat contains 14 times more pesticides than plant foods...” (47). The European Economic Community has rejected meat from the United States multiple times, because of the contamination processes and excessive growth hormones uses. Growth hormones are used to produce more meat, which in turn

The food system in the U.S. has changed a lot over these decades. In the past, people grew crops in their land and vegetables in their gardens. Today, the food system is dominated by the industrial farms and food companies. The industrial food system prevents us from knowing the food. We do not know where the food comes from, how it is produced, and what the conditions that animals live in are. Animals, such as cattle and chickens, are raised in concentrated feedlots where the conditions are terrible and the space is narrow. When it comes to the meatpacking, we do not know how the animals are slaughtered, gutted, and skinned. The operations are invisible and conducted behind walls. The industrial food system aims to produce more food faster and more cheaply. However, it hides lots of truths, such as its effect on consumers’ health, the environment, and the society. If there were more transparency in the food system, the inhumane practice of meatpacking would be reduced; the living conditions of animals would be improved; fewer fertilizers and pesticides would be used in agriculture; consumers would have the chance to see how the food is produced and make a wiser choice of what to eat; and the current industrial food system might be replaced.

As the soil becomes more and more polluted with these toxins, it becomes unsustainable. Therefore, land that would have remained fertile for centuries through the commonsense farming of our ancestors, is being ruined by farming controlled by big corporations whose sole interest is in immediate short term profit (Goodall 38). Industrialized livestock farming with thousands of animals crammed into small factory spaces is responsible for numerous bacterial and viral infections such as E.coli., Avian bird flu, Mad cow disease, Salmonella, and many more. Therefore, conventional farmers use antibiotics to keep these animals alive. This over use of antibiotics is causing the creation of new, resistant strains of deadly diseases that kill people and animals. Disease is actually caused by the bad practices, shortcuts, and antibiotic resistance. This has the opposite effect of what was intended and also costs farmers millions of dollars every year instead of saving money. Unfortunately, conventional agriculture experts recommend these monocultural farming practices in the name of quick, mass production.

The potential threat of a foreign animal disease is always at the back of an agricultural livestock producer 's mind because it could possibly be devastating both economically and environmentally. The disease has the potential to wipe out a large percentage of the livestock animal population, thus affecting the way the US uses the land that supports food animal production. The possibility of an outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease is a big area of interest because of the ramifications the disease would have on the United States, but it would also be a great threat to any FMD free country. This disease is a highly infectious, viral disease of cloven-hoofed species. The tell-tale signs of

Cloned sheep aside, genetic modification has been infiltrating its way into modern livestock farming slowly but surely. The livestock themselves, the animals whose products are marketed for human consumption, are not genetically modified directly. However the concern is that a large amount of their food is comprised of GM crops. Plants and grains produced for a high yield and fast growth have been proven to possess fewer nutrients than an animal would consume in the wild, and often this specially engineered produce is all that livestock are fed. A battery diet of vitamin-deficient, mass-produced crops can have some serious side effects. A lack of nutrients in a cow’s diet, for example, can lead to less energy and fat production, less digestive efficiency, and severe issues in reproduction such as weak, blind or even miscarried calves. The outbreak of a disease dubbed ‘the yellow death’ in Denmark shows rather convincing evidence of being influenced by the use of GMOs to feed pigs, as the animals