Why We Love Dogs Eat Pigs

In addition to his solutions, Pollan’s modern narrative sheds light on the façade of our food industries; asking us to rethink what we know. Despite the mention of certain inhumane acts in All Animals are Equal, Pollan takes us one step further to uncover the reason for which we continue to purchase our corrupt food. We all know animal abuse exists, but the average consumer like myself is more worried about the best price and the fastest way to get a burger rather than how fairly the animals are treated in the process. Whether it be the confined living space of chickens or the mental and physical torture of pigs, we continue to blind ourselves from reality. Is it purely out of selfishness? Or are we too ignorant to come to terms with our wrong doings? Like Pollan explains, it takes seeing the abuse before the shame of our disrespect can be felt (pg.6). After seeing Pollan’s truth, I might now think twice before eating out and the choice to support organic produce can make a dramatic difference for those farmers who promote the ethical lifestyle.

Our nation’s industrial farming has become more than just feeding people; it has become a way for the food industry to make more money as human population continues to grow. Jonathan Safran Foer in his book Eating Animals, illustrates the effects factory farming has had on animals meant for human consumption. Furthermore, Foer asks many questions to the reader on what will it take for us to change our ways before we say enough is enough. The questions individuals need to be asking themselves are: how do we deal with the problem of factory farming, and what can people do to help solve these issues? Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, also illustrates the animal abuse that goes unseen within the food industry as well as Bernard Rollin and Robert Desch in their article “Farm Factories”, both demonstrate what is wrong today with factory farming. 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 (Animals 231). Namit Arora in the article “On Eating Animals”, as well as Michael Pollan in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, both address some of the issues that animals face once they hit the kill floor. The food industry has transformed not only how people eat, but also the negative effects our climate endures as a result of factory farming as illustrated by Anna Lappe in “The Climate Crisis at the End

Do animals have the right to a certain quality of life? How would your views change if our cooks got treated the same way cattle and poultry do? How would you feel about them being beaten and brought to their knees just to be detained to know how to cook todays specials? You might think that the food industry has no issues and no faults behind their tasty food, but when you open up the meat curtain, there is a different kind of world out there that is cruel and inhumane. In Robert Kenner’s 2008 film, Food, Inc., He shows the conditions that cows, chickens, and pigs have to live in. The dark and closeted homes in which the animals are closely compacted together and eating, sleeping, and walking in their own manure. As a person who would consider themselves an animal rights activist, most people would agree that the food industry treats their animals like products instead of living things.

Cows are animals that are used to extract many things, since clothes to food. More than 9.3 million cows were used to produce milk in the United States in 2008, and more than 2.5 million dairy cows were slaughtered for meat. In the farms cows are forced to give birth to collect the milk because the first milk is the best, because male calves will not grow up to produce milk, they are considered of little value to the dairy farmer and are sold for meat. Millions of these calves are taken away to be raised for beef. Hundreds of thousands of other male calves born into the dairy industry are raised for veal. Cow lives all her life in a deplorable place where every day the machine extract milk from their udders causing cancer on it when the cow does not serve she is sends to the slaughterhouse to sell their meat. These are the kind of life led farm animals and although they have

Imagine sitting around eating you’re sitting in a restaurant eating your burger and you see a cow in the back. You might think was the cow that I’m eating mistreated? Or did they have a good quality life before they became my meal. This is why many decide to not eat meat at all because they fear what happened to that animal before it became their meal. Author Gary Steiner is an American moral philosopher, and Professor of Philosophy at Bucknell University. He explained this best in his paper Animal, Vegetable, and Miserable, along with other pieces of work that focused on animal rights.

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

Throughout “The Omnivore’s Delusion…,” Hurst mentions how methods of farming have evolved to match the demands of produce. The author states that “Only ‘Industrial farming’ can possibly meet the demands of an increasing population and increased demand for food as a result of growing incomes” (Hurst 4). This quote essentially means that “Industrial Farming” is the most efficient way to farm for today’s population level. A second point that is made by Hurst is that changes made by today’s farming are necessary. The author mentions that without the protection provided by today’s farming methods, the livestock would kill either itself or be killed by numerous predators (Hurst 8). This infers that animals should be just as interested in America’s farming methods as the farmers and consumers. A final assertion made by Hurst brings relevance to how the changing methods have changed the way that most Americans interact with their animals and nature in general. The author makes the comment in the text that “the distance between the farmer and what he grows has certainly increased, but, believe me, if we weren’t closely connected, we wouldn’t still be farming” (Hurst 11). This quote directly applies to the idea that animal connectedness in America has changed while also assuring that

Compare and Contrast Pollan and Hurst In “An Animal's Place”, by Michael Pollan and “The Omnivore’s Delusion”, by Blake Hurst, animal suffering and modern day farming is being discussed. People should be knowledgeable not only on the treatment of animals but what goes into producing animals. Pollan’s and Hurst’s text both have a strong support on both sides of the argument, which could give the people the knowledge of how meat is being produced.

To depict the extent to which humans have twisted nature in the food industry, Michael Pollan offers anecdotes detailing modern slaughterhouses and the industrialization of meat, one of which is written about his personal connection with a steer raised for slaughter. Similar to the meat industrialization system he describes, the manner in which Pollan writes is clear and methodical, each animal designated by a number and their histories described succinctly; steer 9534’s name, for example, “signifies she was the thirty fourth cow born in 1995” (Pollan 69). However, this system greatly differs from the original nature of the process which Pollan describes. Before the mechanization of the meat industry, cattle grazed in

In his journalistic investigation into the depths of industrial agriculture, Michael Pollan analyzes “what it is we’re eating, where it came from, how it found its way to our table, and what it really cost” in an effort to provide both himself and his readers with an educated answer to the surprisingly complex question of “what should we have for dinner?” (Pollan 411, 1). However, what appears as a noble attempt to develop a fuller understanding of the personal, social, and environmental implications of food choices soon reveals itself as a quest to justify Pollan’s own desire to continue eating meat despite its undeniable detriments to animals, human health, and the environment. Indeed, the mere title of Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma as well as his assertion in the book’s introduction that “omnivory offers the pleasures of variety,” exposes the author’s gustatory preferences that prompt him to ask which meat to eat, rather than if to eat meat at all (Pollan 4). This preemptive refusal, due to mere gastronomic pleasure, to consider methods of eating responsibly that do not involve meat renders Pollan’s investigative endeavor essentially meaningless why would he take the time and effort to thoroughly examine the consequences of his food choices if he vowed at the outset to not allow his discoveries to truly shift his eating habits? Why would he write an entire book delving into the minute details of industrialized food production only to advise himself and his audience

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.

Turning a blind eye to troubling realities is no new concept to western culture. The materialism, capitalism, and industrialization that is ever so prevalent in today’s “civilized” society has contributed to a separation between consumer and source; a veil of consumeristic ignorance. In agriculture, this is especially true. Similar to how the Nazis dehumanized the Jews, western society has essentially disconnected all empathy between humans and certain forms of life, namely livestock, with the only real reason for doing so being human enjoyment of animal products. Humans have also managed to do the exact opposite with other types of animals, namely pets, by personifying animals and creating one-way emotional bonds.

Namit Arora’s article On Eating Animals captures the horrors of the meat industry. Arora is a true animal activist who describes instances in which cows try to escape slaughterhouses, but they are usually recaptured and killed. Arora portrays these events and statistics through a reprimanding and critical tone. This tone appeals to the audience’s feelings of guilt about the purchase of meat wherein the inhumane killing of farm animals takes place. He incites guilt in order to reveal the twisted system that Americans call the meat industry.

Ultimately, these particular articles hit a spot that I hold very dear to my heart and that is my undeniable love of animals. Therefore, by reading Pollan’s “An Animal’s Place” I finished it wide eyed and horrified by the burger I had the night before for dinner. I was given a reason to question an industry that before I hadn’t batted an eye at, yet now I was filled with questions. However, upon reading “The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-Intellectuals” by Blake Hurst and I realized that in some instances the industry necessarily a terrifying thing. In the end there is a continuous theme of the welfare of animals, human needs and the environment. I learned a lot about the personal perspectives of Pollan and Hurst when it comes to the

In “Animal, Vegetable, Miserable,” Gary Steiner argues against the eating, or using, of animals and animal products. Steiner is the author of multiple books on topics similar to this, and a dedicated vegan of fifteen years at the time of this article. The author begins with an allusion to the recent outcries for the humane treatment of animals being raised for food. However, he points out, no one seems to be concerned about the animals being slaughtered, merely that they were not abused beforehand. Steiner then goes on to explain the two main