Blog Two: From Farm To Fridge

In today's post I will discuss the controversial video "From Farm To Fridge" (Click Here For Video)

 Within the first thirty seconds From Farm To Fridge, hereon referred to as "the video", we "hit the ground running" with footage of poultry and, with little warning, are immersed in a showcase to what really goes on behind most food production companies in the United States. Immediately after hatching, male chicks are subject to a sort of "poultry euthanasia" and killed, due to the high cost of keeping them alive, using various methods including suffocating with noxious gases and grinding them alive. One would admit that this is gruesome, but this statement is soon challenged when we see the egg-laying chicks suffer through their beaks being removed to avoid pecking each other to death in the jam-packed sheds where they will, inevitably, live their entire life. So crammed, that, as we see in the video, there is little room to even spread their wings. As maintained in From Farm To Fridge, 95% of egg-laying end up living in these conditions. Soon after, we are given a brief tour of the dairy and beef. Here, the dairy-producing cows are milked for all they are worth in conditions that are so barbaric that many of them end up disease and infection ridden. These dairy cows cannot be milked for any other purpose than for the consumption of humans and, as a result, many of the young cattle are killed to completely make sure that this is true. Meanwhile, in the pork factories the video, which I, personally, found to be the most graphical account, shows pregnant sows enclosed in cells barely big enough for their body to actually form into them. As soon as they birth, we see workers with scalpels in hands castrating the piglets. It would be less grotesque to watch if it was performed with surgical precision, rather what we see is sloppy work where the worker seems to rip out the insides of these piglets who, clearly suffering, squeal incessantly in a haunting manner. If they become feeble and cannot grow to their potential size, the piglets are then slammed head first into the ground by workers, who seem to eerily  perform this with ease, to end their life. Upon impact, this "pig-slamming" makes a ghastly succession of sounds that proceed as: squeal-thud, squeal-thud. Something many of us may reminisce the next time you have your breakfast bacon.

Conclusively, we are referred to a website that suggest the participation in a vegan diet in the credits of From Farm To Fridge. Though I agree with the video's message to raise awareness of our food production, I'd have to disagree with the suggestion that vegan-ism really is the only means of ethical eating.I think that there are bigger fundamental problems that ought to be faced, as to, say, ethical (humane and considerate of basic rights to all living organisms) slaughter of these animals and public awareness about the food they eat, how it is raised, and diets that are both sustainable and moral. Deeper implications of a purely vegan culture may rise if we don't change our ethics and morals first, for who is to say we will not commit the same barbarisms in cultivating vegetables? Perhaps, in the process subjecting the farmers to the same scrutinizing operations the meat companies are showcased in the video. In the end, we must all overcome this adversity. In the future, perhaps, historians will use the term "pig", not in the sense of the word we use in present time: to depict someone foul, dirty, and/or void of manners But, rather, to depict someone committing a hideous act, similar to the atrocities that us humans performed on the pigs.

H.G.

Blog One

In this post, I will be discussing the introduction in Daniel Imhoff's The CAFO Reader.

The introduction of Daniel Imhoff’s The Cafo Reader examines the ethical, social, and environmental repercussions of the CAFO(Concentrated Animal Feeding Organization) system. It gives us behind-the-scenes details on how most of our animal food source is raised, and exploited, in the United States.

The prominent debate here is one that has profound ethical inconsistencies: How do these CAFOs operate? And, what ethical issues arise from such massive animal food supply systems? Some argue that the animals involved are not to be counted as individuals, rather to be accounted for as an aid to the survival of humans. These “species-ist”, Imhoff states, rank humans to be first amongst all other living things, and encourage the flourishing of humanity as an ultimate priority, argue that animals do not feel and that they are “soulless automata”, as depicted by René Descartes (Pg. 4). The objection to this, according to Imhoff, is clear as to why these CAFOs are unethical, not only forcing these animals to unnatural and synthetic environments, but to why they are unstable and subject for moral questioning.

Imhoff proceeds to unify moral ideals that state that no human should be enslaved, as well as those of inequality protecting people of all sex, gender, and race, with those of animal rights with a quote by Jeremy Bentham stating that “the day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights.” (Pg. 5). In addition, we are confronted with religious opposition. With the like of the Ancient Hindus who praised and worshipped cows for their sustenance, as well as Kosher ethical practices that protected animals, enforcing that the creature be tended to, and slaughtered humanely.

Ultimately, the road to ethics is never an easy one, and the path to ethical food production is no exception. I agree with Imhoff, that in the future, historians will look back scornfully, almost regrettably, to these inhumane practices. That in the end we are, indeed, as Imhoff implies, part of a system that has universal moral values in which all creation is protected equally and “certainly they deserve our care, respect, and mercy” (Pg. 5).

-H. G.