Final Blog Post on Course Subject

In this final post to this blog I will be discussing my overall perspective of the industrial food system in America, and some key facts that I believe shouldn’t be forgotten or kept in the dark after this course is over. Today’s food industry is made up of giant corporations in close ties with the higher powers that are very destructive to the environment, people, and animals. They produce a massive amount of unclean and unhealthy meat to the country, and are only concerned about self-profit. These organizations also own factories, which burn a lot of the earth’s natural resources and produce enormous amounts of waste polluting land, water and air. Animal cruelty has also been proven to be extremely common in the so-called farms the animals are contained in, due to the large amount of stress levels the minimum wage illegal employees are facing. Although the food industry is made up of purely negative assets, which many people try to avoid any awareness of, I believe the most important fact that people should really take into consideration is how horrible food factories are for our environment and animals. As a ‘superior’ species humans are on this planet to help one another (including different species) and to respect and conserve the only reason we are all here today. Joining English 101 I was pretty aware of what was going on behind the food industry but obviously not as involved. Studying this subject I have grown more conscious of what I choose to consume. This class has also provided me with facts to support my hypothesis of the greed behind food corporations. I believe this is a subject that has been taken too lightly for too long, nothing is more important then a healthy life in a healthy environment.  

Just Us Humans Doing What We Do Best (polished)

In this blog I will be discussing the documentary The Eleventh Hour, which brings together over fifty of some of our worlds greatest thinkers and scientists to discuss the damage the human race is causing to our planet. It covers issues such as deforestation, killing of sea life and pollution of water, mass extinction of species and of course global warming cause by greenhouse gasses. It also questions if it is too late to go save ourselves from the horrid mess we have made, and gives us a couple of potential solutions. The documentary also explains that as a system, the earth is reacting in the same way an ill organism would. Humans expel too much CO2 into the environment and simultaneously kill too many trees to rejuvenate the CO2 released by factories, burning oil, fossil fuels, etc. We have also whipped out complete species by overfishing and excreting waste into the ocean creating oceanic dead zones. One of the speakers in the documentary named James Woolsey, a former Director of Central Intelligence explains, “ Humans have not figured out how to change their ways ". In other words, the human race needs to change a lot of things about the way we effect the environment, because our fate is in our hands. This quote helped me see a connection our class discussion about Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations because if the world could see what happens behind the curtains of the meat factories they would definitely demand change, just as they would if they saw the damage we really cause to our environment.

You can do anything with an English major (polished)

This blog is dedicated to an event I attended in called “You can do anything with an English major”. This event was organized by a number of English professors of LaGuardia Community College to help students comprehend and acknowledge the power of being an English major. While enjoying the delicious sugary, salty, and fatty snacks offered the students and I listened to a couple of interesting and successful individuals who specialized in a wide range of fields such as Business, Computer Science, Law, and even Game Design which had all started out as English majors. They explained that being an English major prepares you for many different areas because it teaches certain aspects which are very useful for the future, such as presenting yourself, understanding of what others are trying to say, and explain to people what you feel should be accomplished. Majoring in English can also help one prepare for future degrees because it helps someone get used to large amounts of reading and teaches them to break it down into key points. The speakers also brought up the fact that as an English major, you also learn about many different types of arenas, ideas, events, and questions in class because the objective is not to learn material, it is to learn how to learn and conduct material to others. English 101 has already taught me a lot about self-development and although I am not majoring in English I am very interested in what I will learn in my future English courses.

The End of Overeating (polished)

In this blog I will discuss the connections between a reading from The End of Overeating by David A. Kessler and previous information we have discussed about in our English 101 class. The reading describes how the three ingredients of salt, fat, and sugar (which are found at excessive amounts in almost everything we eat today) create a chemical reaction in our brain, which is very similar to some dangerously addictive illegal drugs. He uses very interesting examples about war veterans which have gone through tragedies not being able to resist a pack of M&Ms. Kessler’s research along with other sources have proven that our body has a very hard time resisting food which contain salt, sugar and fat. Fast food restaurants contain a large amount of these ingredients in there almost everything they serve, which is the main reason why many people who suffer from obesity and health issues still have trouble resisting the famous burger with a side of fries and a shake. Kessler also states that in the past couple of decades, the average levels of obesity have risen at a tremendous amount compare to what it has in the past, which is where I found an interesting connection between the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation systems and The End of Overeating because obesity has struck hardest the same time as the CAFO system has taken over most of the farms in the country. The birth of CAFOs was the birth to cheap and unhealthy fast food being sold to millions of Americans every day. This situation has been discussed often in our English 101 class and has been touched on many aspects such as business, ethics, health, and more. 

My Food Ethics Twitter

https://twitter.com/#!/KimonPapakostas

From Farm to Fridge (polished)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hP3y3OwSHyk&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.ak.facebook.com%2Fcommon%2Freferer_frame.php&has_verified=1

        This post will be summarizing the conditions inside factory farms and how they produce the meat, which most of us eat daily. A video (linked above) called "Farm to Fridge" by an organization called Mercy for Animals unmasks the viewer from what is really going on behind the slaughter houses in the country. It shows animals such as pigs, turkeys, chickens and cows being abused in the most brutal and inhumane manner. The images of the factory look exactly like an auto chop shop, but covered in blood, feces and terrified animals.

   Calling it shocking would be an under statement. To describe the footage of animals that lived in a cage smaller then their own size their whole life being bullied by under paid employees, who risk their own life every day. The chickens are split into two groups, the male who dies within the first few hours of its birth and the female chicks who have their beaks burn off and kept in confinement until sliced in the neck. The piglets are castrated at birth without antibiotics, and have their throat sliced letting it bleed out in muscle spasms. Cattle are tortured every day by men who stab them with an electric rod and have their tails cut off without painkillers. All of these animals are physically abused by being smacked around, pounded, kicked, burned and stabbed before their death, and the ones too ill to make it to our table 'clean enough' are brutally murdered with hammers, weapons, or by being smacked on the ground until passing away.

The events being shown in this video remind me of an interview Gail A. Eisnitz reported in her novel Slaughterhouse with a previous employee of a Farm Factory, where he describes similar situations to the ones mentioned above, but the image someone creates by reading about these very graphic scenes cannot possibly compare to the moment one actually sees the cruelty with their own eyes.

Summary of Daniel Imhoff's "The CAFO Reader" introduction. (polished)

 In this post, I will be discussing the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, and the issues that come with it.

In the short introduction of "The CAFO Reader", Daniel Imhoff helps the reader brace their self for the shocking truth of what goes on behind our concentrated animal feeding operations. He discusses a number of effects CAFO's have on us and not only as eaters, but as living and working human beings. A small sense of awareness will rise after Imhoff prepares you for his further facts and experiences about the economical, health and medical, veterinary and animal cruelty, agricultural, ethic, as well as many other issues behind the ‘cheap’ and great tasting meat factory farming has brought to us.

Imhoff’s introduction illustrates some facts about how factory farming has affected each individual meat and non-meat eater’s life including “10 billion domesticated livestock mostly chickens, pigs, and cows are raise and slaughtered annually” or the fact that the number just mentioned is double of what our meat production was in 1980. Although this may seem uninteresting to someone completely senseless to animal cruelty and to what animal husbandry has transformed into, these facts aren’t only targeting animal lovers, since Imhoff also states “It is not uncommon for a CAFO on 100 acres to generate the same amount of sewage as a city of 100,000 inhabitants”. With this sewage being released in football field-sized ponds, another ‘small’ percentage added to the pollution of our environment.

According to the introduction of “The CAFO Reader”, corporations behind slaughterhouses and factory farms are running the country and hold our future in the palm of their hands. And as the slaughter continues to rise, man kind will continue to collapse through health issues such as obesity, diabetes, as well as various other types of heart disease caused by our very own concentrated animal feeding operations.