Preview

Critical Analysis: Slaughterhouse Labor

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1812 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Critical Analysis: Slaughterhouse Labor
Critical Analysis: Slaughterhouse Labor

As Americans, we are often blinded by the food industry to think that what we are putting into our bodies is to fuel our bodies, not to profit major companies. However, the whole idea of food production is to make food for the general public in the quickest, easiest way possible. When producing a mass product, things must be done efficiently and effectively, regardless of who or what it is affecting. Major businesses try to get the most bang for their buck, and it often has high stakes for those involved in the hard labor of the food industry.
Many aspects of this industry have been explored in excerpts from “Fast Food Nation” and scenes from Food Inc., but something that particularly stood out to me was the way that the workers and animals in the slaughterhouses were treated. Workers are treated unfairly and put through unnecessary and unhealthy conditions. We get nearly all of our meat from these slaughterhouses, so it caught my attention that there are people that must work through these conditions in order to make a living, and animals that must lose their lives against their will. It made me think that while consumers are often blind to the ways in which their food is being made, it is incredibly crucial to have an understanding of the severity of poorly treated slaughterhouse workers and animals, because it is, after all, the food we are eating that comes out of the process. The ideas and arguments against the treatment of slaughterhouse workers and cattle were presented in the text in such a way that the reader is compelled to react. Because the houses were “far away from the strongholds of the nation’s labor unions” (164, Schlosser, 2002), they were able to get away with exposing both animals and workers to unhealthy and unsafe conditions without any major repercussions. The gruesome details of workers standing in pools of blood, or the chilling fact that a majority of them end up getting injured by sharp knives



Bibliography: Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton, 2001. Food Inc. Dir. Robert Kenner. 2008. DVD.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Schlosser and Wilson made several valid points throughout Chew on This. Facts about business strategy, marketing, food composition, and slaughterhouse conditions all blended together to make one bad appearance for fast food. As intended, many flaws that exist in that industry were looked upon in a new light. The authors’ main point was to point out the flaws of the industry itself and expose fast food to America. They wanted not only to show the vindictive behaviors of the businessmen, but the cruel conditions that go into making the food. They wanted to open the eyes of the public to what they were really eating.…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    SUBJECT: In this chapter of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, titled “The Feedlot: Making Meat”, Michael Pollan discusses the use of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO), and the factories where countless cattle are being mistreated day in and day out.…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fast Food Nation Summary

    • 1278 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Reading this makes me surprised that we have supported and invested our money into fast-food restaurants that did not even take care of their employees and was not benefitting individuals with all the growth hormones that were put into their animals for such a long time. When the McNugget came out it was a huge success but it wasn’t enough for Fred Turner, he wanted more McNuggets and bigger ones, this then lead to getting a new breed of chickens, according to Eric Schlosser they were had “unusually large breasts” (140). But not only were the animals treated poorly, their own employees who worked hard were being treated as working animals. Right here in Greeley, Colorado, we have and still have a slaughter house where animals go to be cut into chunks of meat so we can cook and eat them. There are plenty of slaughter houses located all around the United States. Back around 1979, a worker named Kenny was working at the Monfort slaughterhouse in Grand Island, Nebraska. In the shipping department, where Kenny was positioned in, there were boxes that weighed over 100 pounds and one day a box fell from above where Kenny caught it with one arm. This incident ended up having him get severely herniated disks but the worst part about this was that the company doctor told Kenny that all he had was a pulled muscle, after months of…

    • 1278 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When we are eating meat, we do not stop and think about what the real cost of its production has been. The cost is not a sum of money, the cost is the one humans and animals have to pay in order for us to consume meat. In his book Fast Food Nation , Eric Schlosser discusses the unsatisfactory treatment workers and animals receive when being at a slaughterhouse, which lack proper inspections, due to the absence of government oversight. Jonathan Safran Foer, in his book Eating Animals, also discusses the horrendous treatment animals receive inside and outside these slaughterhouses, and the terrible process of killing and skinning they have to go through. The inhumane treatment of animals is a problem that could be improved, Sam Gazdziak in his article “Effective…

    • 1159 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The food industry produces a substantial amount of food every year to feed the hungry American people, but at the cost of quality and health. While the Industrial food chain may not be the healthiest or most efficient chain, it provides appetizing food to all Americans for an affordable price. When choosing the finest food chain for America, the modern industrial powerhouse of food production is a choice to be considered.…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the Industrial Revolution in Louisiana the state legislature claimed that the Mississippi River had become polluted because butchers dumped garbage into it. The solution to this problem was made by the legislature who created a slaughter house company, but because the butchers were forced into these facilities and it was such an expense to run the butchers banded together. The butchers created the Butchers Benevolent Association and argued that they were deprived of the right to purse their business which is a violation of the fourteenth amendment. However, after appealed opt the Supreme Court the justices ruled in favor of the corporation. The slaughterhouse cases made an impact on future cases because this was the first interpretation…

    • 231 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Obesity is perhaps one of the biggest problems society faces today, people are asking the question: Who is to blame? Fast food, while a major contributor, but it is not the only cause of the obesity epidemic in America. In particular, food producers that supply the high calorie, minimally nutritious, and highly processed foods that dominate our market must be examined. Although the external factors are important, it is more important for American citizens to educate themselves to make more informed individual decisions.…

    • 861 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Food Inc Summary

    • 598 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the documentary, Food Inc., we are given access into the world of industrialized American food production. Because of our modern agricultural farming practices and policies, the quality of food being massed produced in our country has taken a toll on consumer’s health particularly those in lower income brackets. The idea the McDonald brothers put forth on the delivery of fast food by standardizing large volumes of food production is now proving disastrous. I saw this documentary a few years ago when I was working on changing my dietary lifestyle to improve my health. The most compelling things I learned then had to do with the realization that there are only a handful of companies controlling the majority of our food supply with limited regulations and being exempt from serious consequences.…

    • 598 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Prac Essay

    • 673 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The poem “Meatworks” reflects on the experience of an individual’s initial discovery and deals with perceptions of inhumane treatment of animals that are butchered for human consumption. The persona explores the harsh realities of living in the regional area “The only work was at this works”, the syntactical repetition highlighting the characters desperate need for employment. However the disgusting and visceral imagery utilized throughout the text “sticky stench of blood”, compounded by the sibilance describes the inherent inhumanity of the true nature of the slaughterhouse.…

    • 673 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Robert Kenner’s documentary, Food Inc., gives insight into operations in the food industry. The documentary depicts the people’s desire for money, with resultant implications characterized by mass production through varying approaches. Indeed, Kenner seeks to sensitize the society on the manner in which animals are exposed to inhumane conditions, severe health conditions that result from mass production in the food industry, and unmoral circumstances under which farmers operate. Whereas various flaws are depicted in the movie, it remains important in relation to societal operations and development. This positional essay provides a critique of Robert…

    • 1595 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Food Inc.

    • 587 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Most off our food is handled and processed by somebody else. The truth is Americans don’t have the time to farm and nor do the dirty bits. In America, whoever does the best in the fourth quarter controls how things will run, with the ever growing hunger for wealth there is no limit to what can be achieved. An American Filmmaker, Robert Kenner, released a documentary Food Inc, a perfect example of greed and disregard for what can be considered ethical in the food industry. Kenner was inspired to make this film after reading Fast Food Nation to show how portray the whole supermarket has become industrialized almost resembling the fast-food industries. The documentary Food Inc. is about slaughter houses, food manufacturing, and other food related subsets. The film relies heavily on visuals and also the commentary used statistics and facts creating attitude.…

    • 587 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Lastly, slaughterhouses are morally wrong because people do not take into account the animals emotions or capacity to feel pain. In a deontological view, we as humans should have an obligation to treat these animals with respect, as they are living breathing beings. One’s consciousness should be filled with guilt and shame while hurting or killing the animals at the slaughterhouse. Of course, the shame and guilt create a conflict of interest to the workers because, although some of them may feel these emotions, the workers still allow themselves to act against them. Wether it be for the money, work, or even human nature, workers still end the lives of countless beings.…

    • 112 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    This news report out of Miami-Dade Florida, is full of objective statements and opinions from a variety of people, including workers of this slaughterhouse. Outsiders have filed numerous complaints at not only this slaughterhouse but many across…

    • 207 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Eisnitz, Gail A. Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment. Inside the U.S. Meat Industry. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2007.…

    • 2304 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Factory Farming Debates

    • 1606 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Have you ever thought about where your meat comes from or what kind of life the animal has lived? Almost all the meat stocked in grocery stores and food facilities come from factory farms which are large scale industrial operations that are the home to thousands of animals such as chickens, cows, pigs and turkeys. Such animals are raised strictly for food consumption and never see the light of day, according to (ASPCA 2015). Also, according to dosomething.org (2015) there are approximately 70 billion farm animals raised for food consumption every year across the world. These types of farms dominate the U.S food production along with some other countries in the world. Factory farms employ abusive practices that increase profits at the expense…

    • 1606 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays