The presentation on Thursday by Kelly and Kira hit close to home, and also impacted me later in the day. When I got home I had planned on having lamb for dinner, but after seeing the conditions in factory farm facilities I was turned off of meat. The factory meat industry is not unfamiliar with me, as I have worked in a meat processing and packaging plant for the past two summers. Also my father has worked for a popular meat company for many years, helping in the creation of new products. In all the years my family has been influenced by meat I hardly considered the primary stage of farming the animals. Last summer while working at the factory I began to wonder where all the animals came from, and later found out that they were shipped in from all over Canada. By keeping the animals and their conditions out of site I think myself and other workers were disconnected from the fact that this 'meat' was once a living being.
Question: When you decided to buy meat from the grocery store, or eat it at a restaurant or street vendor do you ever consider where those animals are coming from? Or do you feel disconnected from the animal? Are the animals we eat just merely consumer products?
I think the article did a good job at deciphering the content of factory farms marketing schemes. I think it is interesting that companies will give life to their animals, and make them speak as a way to market them towards consumers. I think it is even more interesting that people buy into this deception. If the corporations were to market the products showing the real treatment of animals they would most likely go out of business. However I think many people know about the unequal treatment of animals and they continue to buy into the products. It is similar in the way that everyone knows that it is a mystery what goes into Hot Dogs but millions of people continue buy them. I think in an ideal world we could purchase meat products knowing what treatment goes into farming the animals, but we live in a capitalist world where people don’t have enough time to research what goes into their product. If buying family farm meat became popular the prices would skyrocket and only a select few could afford it; similar to organic vegetables and fruit. Now that organic is the way to go the prices have been raised and only middle class individuals can afford the luxury of a healthy life.
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I think that you raised a good question...has the meat just become a consumer product. I agree. How many people actually check to see where their food comes from, there is definitely a disconnection between the buyer and the animal. I come from a very small town and over the weekend a man came to our house to sell us half a cow. This is something that my family has been doing for many years now and personally I think that the beef tastes better! We also do this with pigs and chickens, there's just something about buying from the local farmer. It almost makes you feel better about yourself, because you're supporting a local farm and you can say that you actually know where your food came from.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I have learned over the years is that the packaging in the stores is not always true. The package can say that the fish is from Canada, but really it was packaged in Canada and the fish could have come from another country.