October 18, 2014
Final Persuasive Essay: Money Hungry People go to the grocery store everyday and usually want to buy a good product for
cheap, but may not think about what goes in the food they are about to eat, or where it actually comes from. How can people tell if they are getting what they really paid for or if they are being ripped off? In the documentary film called Food Inc., the evolution of food manufacturing has really surpassed the perceptions of most Americans. Filmmaker Robert
Kenner is right about corporations being irresponsible and selfish, because his film shows that money has been the only incentive in mass food production. Kenner’s proposition on exploitation of corporations’ own resources is extremely useful because it sheds insight on a lot of consumers who are still not aware of this controversial issue, while it continues to grow and keep companies successful. Making profit the companies’ first priority has ignored the safety and health of the animals in production, the environment, and people.
The entire start of the process begins with animals that are essentially the source of
our meats. Factory farmed animals are specifically bred for mass production, as opposed to regular traditional farming which only produces a limited amount in smaller periods of time, such as quoted in Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA):
“It is common for the 9 million dairy cows in the U.S. to produce 100 pounds of milk per day ten times more than they would produce naturally”. In order to grow great variety of animals, their diet needs to change. According to the film, since most of our food such as starches, vegetables, pesticides etc. originally comes from corn, companies have made the decision to feed it to livestock as well (Food Inc.). Corn is the cheapest, easiest, fastest food staple to grow, and at the same time makes animals grow bigger and faster as well. If corn is