Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Disgusting Truth.

http://www.foodincmovie.com/
If you ever get the chance, watch the above documentary. You won't believe what you see.

Warning. You may not want to eat while reading this.
The big chicken producers of this country are Tyson and Perdu. They contract with farmers who build huge chicken houses where the chickens are raised. First off, the eggs are put in these long drawers things that pull out and when the chickens hatch they are thrown down this chute and inspected. Then they go to the chicken farmers.  Most of them never see the light of day. Instead of the normal 3 months it takes to raise a chicken to adulthood where it can be slaughtered, the process is sped up to 45 days. They do this by feeding the chicken corn. Since people want more white meat, they have mutated the chickens so that they have much bigger breasts.  The chickens grow so quickly that their insides organs and bone can't keep up. They take a few steps and then fall down. Lots of the chickens die. They keep them in the dark because they move around less. Most of the farmers who have these chicken houses would not talk to the makers of this documentary. The one who did, a woman was one of the few who did not have her chickens in one of these windowless enclosures. She lost her contract with the big company because she refused to change over. It costs a great deal to build one chicken house and the farmers are in huge debt to the chicken company for hundreds of thousands of dollars and only make on average $18,000 a year. So if they get out, they are screwed.

Now lets talk about the cows. It's more like they are manufactured than raised.   They are in barns where they are covered where they are covered with manure. You won't believe what they do to these animals. They take this plastic thing and a hole is cut in the side of the cow's stomach and the plastic thing is left there. It's a round thing with a hole in the middle so the farmers can have access to the stomach to check for bacterial and e-coli. This supposedly does not hurt the cow. I don't believe this for a minute! Since the cows are fed corn which is not natural for them, that is what causes them to get the e-coli. It is said that if they were switched to a grass diet for 5 days, it would get rid of almost all of this bacteria. But no.....they have to fatten up these cows and corn is the cheapest and does the job. So then they take these cows that are covered in their own crap and take them to the slaughter house. They slaughter them and hang them up on those hooks where they are still covered with crap. They are butchered and the bacteria is so bad that many of the workers get infections under their fingernails.  One pound of ground beef that you buy at a store does not come from just one cow. It can come from thousands. 


Then there are the pigs. They are slaughtered by squishing them in this compacter type thing. It doesn't sound very humane does it? I was getting very tired by the end of this movie so need to watch that part again. Well you get the point. 


Anyone in the mood for a nice burger or chicken dinner? Seriously though....be informed and watch this show if you get the chance. I saw it on instant Netflix in case any of you have it. There is also this book called Fast Food Nation that I have that is well worth reading. Stuff like this makes me never want to eat meat again.

2 comments:

  1. OMG!! I don't know if I could stand to watch it??!! But I also wonder if I could live without even eating chicken or fish (which is mostly the only meat I eat now)? Sounds like if anything could make me a vegetarian that movie could, tho. You've definitely given me something to think about...I might have to force myself to rent that movie...how sad. :(

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  2. I'm with SoulComfort - I doubt I could sit through watching this...

    ...but its not a case of head in the sand - ignore it til it (hopefully) goes away... An educated consumer is very powerful indeed.

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