Blog 15 - Part I: Summarizing the Stories and Part II: Responding to a Factory Farming Issue

     In the film “The Meatrix”, Leo is a pig living a normal life. One day Moopheus comes to see Leo and invited him to know what the real world is. In the mid 20^th century agriculture factories began to reorganize families farming to amplify their benefits for animals and humans. Animals were packed in cruel conditions most of them never see the sunlight or breathe fresh air. Moopheus continues mentioning that corporate machines to fix this problem began horrible practices such as adding antibiotics to their feed just to keep them alive . This antibiotics’ overuse is causing a big epidemic that is impossible to control. Farming corporations have been destroying communities causing the disappearance of million of farms and the worst is that if they continue with this they will finish with all the family farms.

     “The matrix: Revolting” People have realized where their food come from ,and started to buy healthier food. Then, moopheus showed Leo through of the Meatrix illusion, what really family farms are. Now days family farms doesn’t look as family farms, these places are totally in unhealthy condition and the worst is that our food such as milk, cheese, and eggs comes from them. Moopheus continues explaining that despite of the antibiotic over used these bad condition are making animal sick. He finish explaining Leo how easy cow disease can be spread by calves being feed blood for died cows.

     In the “The Meatrix II½” one of the agents talks to Moopheus explaining that all the importance to factories is profit. The dangerous working conditions are terrible, their insane need for speed is causing manure’s escape into the meat generating a big damage to humanity.


  Part II: Respondig to a Factory Farming Issue
  

      The most important issue for family farms in my opinion is addicting additives to processed food because “ it’s almost impossible to eat food without preservatives added by manufactures”, despite that the (FDA) food and drug administration approved food additives for humans, but this doesn’t mean that additives are not affecting our health.

     There are numerous food additives that are contemplated fit for humans. Flavorings is one of them which change a food’s taste, preservatives which increase its ledge life, and sulfites which are used to prevent discoloration . Additives are causing health problems such as allergic reactions or asthma which can result fatal respiratory distress in a person’s life. So this is why the FDA now constrict sulfite to use some types of foods, and they be inserted on products labels.

     Common preservatives are prop ionic acid, which prevents mold in bread, nitrates and nitrites, which prevent discoloration in meat, and sodium benzoate, which prevent bacterial growth.

      Also, flavoring is another common additive its job is to create smell and taste food to make it appealing to consumers. Some common flavor additives such as fruit flavors, butter, sweeteners are found in natural and artificial forms, but the difference between them depends of the flavor and way it was derived. Natural are often using as chemical manipulation as those used to create artificial flavors. But in some cases there is not difference between them. Food manufacturers are using natural flavors because the term “natural” is appealing to consumers but ,actually these can be more hazardous than artificial flavors.

     According to the reading on the websitehttp://www.sustainabletable.org we can realize that processed food is composed for different kind of additives causing us health problems. Processed food is a massive problem and should be taken very seriously. I think that we should avoid food additives by eating fresh, unprocessed foods grown by local farmers.