Food Inc Reflection

 Food Inc

After watching Food Inc, what are your impressions of how science of food industry, technology of food industry, and society are interrelated?

After watching Food Inc, I couldn’t eat my food the way I used to. This movie was a very powerful movie; I think it really affects the people who watch it. I couldn’t eat my food because I was so curious on where my food was coming from, how many miles it had flown around the world to be eaten in less than a half an hour. My mom was really aghast to the fact that cows were wading in their own manure, and how badly they were treated. I was amazed that scientists have altered the cow’s diet to eat something that is cheap and easy to process, in reality the cow can’t even process the corn, which creates a bigger problem. These are very scientists, they have figured out away to feed these cows and chickens something that cost so little, yet they don’t know how harmful it can be. After watching this movie I reflected the fact that many people in world and in the US aren’t aware of what they eat. How many people think they are eating pure farm grown beef, which are treated with care and kindness? After watching this movie I realized how much of the US is not governed by the government, but by the food producers.

How did the film describe science & technology as a positive or negative impact on society or the environment?

I think that the producers of Food Inc had a very good way of bringing both a positive and negative effect to the awareness of the viewers. They showed us what some of the big meat packing companies were like, and they also showed us what the real farmers were like, giving us a taste of both the bitter and the sweet, in my opinion I thought they did a very good job. Food Inc needed to prove a point, they needed society to realize that we aren’t eating a farm fresh product; we are eating a product that has been processed shipped and frozen containing meat from thousands of cows. The film described the science & technology mostly as a negative impact on society. Food Inc wanted to the public to be aware of the big impact of what we eat does to the environment and to us as humans. Over all I thought this movie was a powerful movie and I hope that the public becomes even more aware of what they are eating.

How do our consumer choices affect what is out on the market and therefore, our own species survival?

Just like anything living, we eat and drink to survive. Today we have numerous products of food that fill up the big supermarkets. What we don’t know is that the supermarket is filled with only a few types of producers, many of which are Tyson, Stonyfield and many more. These companies disguise their in different colors, packages and containers to make it look like we have a variety of food to choose from. Supply and Demand, two words that make a world of difference, as consumers we love food, products and stuff… they supply us with our “stuff” which affect the market of continuously becoming bigger and bigger. With our growing needs of the market and population, the over production of food has almost become something that we need to do for us all to live in this world. As our world grows, our wants and needs grow also which impact the way we live and our environment we live in. The effect of supply and demand is huge, if we want something we are going to get it because it means someone’s going to get a boat load of money which goes right in their pocket. 

How are we as humans connected to how the Earth is used?

Our earth endures a lot in our time, we have dirtied its water, smogged its air and yet it still provides us with all our needs and wants. As humans our main goal is to stay alive, this goal has been along for a very long time. We have evolved from our crude tools to our genetically modified tomatoes, our ancestors did not need a lot to survive, now we do a lot more than we used to. Our human impact on earth is called our Carbon Foot print, we all have one, some more than others each foot print effect our world in many ways. As our human population grows our earth is used more and more, if don’t do something about it who know what will happen to our earth. The best thing that we can do is take action and save and preserve as much as we can. As science progresses through time and we learn more about our precious earth hopefully we can find a way to conserve our earth. Humans have a big problem have a huge problem with over population and over production. As more and more people are born, more of the Carbon Foot Print is produced, and less of the earth is available for our use.

A few ideas that popped up in conversation throughout the movie were:

When I was watching the movie not only ideas popped into my head but questions.

• When did this start, when did we start to have such a demand of meat?

• Is there a reason for the old Tyson workers to now be working with the government?

• Why is the government cracking down on the immigrants who have been working in the states for years instead of the companies who brought them to the states in the first place?

• Why aren’t there more movies like Food Inc?

• Why wasn’t this movie a bestseller? Did the government have something to do with how public this movie was??

When do we say "no" to more high tech devices and go back to what caused the problem in the first place? Why are we only into the "HOW" things work and not the "WHY" things don't? What did this farmer mean?

I think that the farmer was trying to say is how many products are produced, how many cows were slaughtered in a year, not why were so many cows slaughtered this year. Because of the new technologies produced and the factor of supply and demand, farmers don’t consider why they are killing so many cows; they do this to be able to pay their bills and expenses. The supply and demand of America is huge, if there is something that we want; we get it because many people are willing to pay. One of the reasons why we have a big supply and demand is that not a lot of people know where our food is coming from. If the farmers consider the why and how many cows and chickens they are killing maybe we can become more aware of where our food is coming from.

What is the difference between natural farming and industrial farming? Which is better? Are they both necessary for human survival? Why or why not?

The difference between natural farming and industrial farming is the amount of animals killed and slaughtered every year. Natural farming do not have an assembly line and it is not dangerous to work in, it is a safe clean environment and the animals actually graze on grass which they have evolved to do, unlike eating corn. Natural farming is a lot better than industrial farming because there is a lot less like chance of getting sick with natural farming. The cows in industrial farming are fed corn because it is cheap and easy to process, a cow’s diet is not made up of corn, they are a grazing animal, an animal of which grazes on grass. Feeding corn to a cow creates an even bigger problem, because they can’t digest the corn it is stuck in there stomach. The “farmers” then have to remove the not digested corn, or else E-Coli will disease the cows when they are wading in each other’s manure. That is another problem with industrial farming because there are so many cows and not enough room they have to wade in each other’s manure. I defiantly think that for humans to survive there should be an equal balance between the industrial farming and natural farming because if one out balances the other there is a big problem. If natural farming over balances industrial farming the farmers will need more and more land for their animals. The industrial farming is the “over balancer” now, because of so many animals are slaughtered a day, diseases could be a very big problem. I hope that in a few years industrial farming will become more to the public eye, and maybe that will trigger this balance.

If technology and industry have improved so much that we are getting faster, fatter, bigger, and cheaper, how are science and technology held responsible for improving or ruining human health and survival?

Instead of a chicken growing at a regular rate, it is grown at half that time. It all goes back to supply and demand; the more eggs we want the more we have to produce unless we want to go out of business. The demands for eggs just kept getting bigger and bigger, so what did scientists do? Invent and genetically modify chickens to grow faster and bigger to support our needs. I don’t think this is something that one category is responsible for, I think it is all of us just consuming. We are all accountable for the things that we consume; I mean the scientists have to eat also. As a team we are responsible for looking and the why and the how we can decide to ruin our health or not, it is all about supply and demand.

What economic costs, environmental costs, ethical costs, health costs, and cultural costs did you observe while watching the film?

One thing that my dad always says is that everything costs, and in reality it does. We see a free sample at the supermarket, does it cost directly to you, no. It does cost the store, the person who drove it to the supermarket, all in all everything costs. Industrial farming is a very costly subject, all the little factors that go into raising feeding “caring” for the cow, COSTS! It doesn’t just cost the “farmers,” it costs the environment, all of it costs, no matter what.

Finally, state your final thoughts about this film and any changes you see happening in the food industry in the future or even your own eating habits.

If I were to state all my thoughts on this film this blog post would go on for another six pages. To sum all my thoughts up I would to state that after watching Food Inc, my perspective of food completely changed. Before I had watched this movie I was oblivious to the fact of where my food was coming from, everything has changed. I hope that this movie becomes more public so that other people can become more aware of what they eat.