Commercial Food

The three articles we read are all about different things, however they all serve to explain the same overarching problem.  We simply care more about cost than we do about anything else with regards to food.  In the article about tomatoes, it is explained chillingly the awful conditions the workers have to deal with so that we can get our tomatoes as cheaply as possible at anytime of the year.  What was very startling to me was learning that they are artificially ripened.  Todays tomatoes, possibly in connection to the artificial ripening, contain only a fraction of the nutrients a tomato sixty years ago would have had. 

         An Animal’s Place talks about not just how animals are brought from the factories to the dinner plates, but the very ethics behind eating these animals in the first place.  One of the main points it makes is that just because animals aren’t humans, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be treated with the same respect and kindness that we would treat the everyday human.

         Cook, in his article Fowl Trouble, is much more factual and provides good information about how awful it is for humans working in a chicken plant.  He makes the point that employees can very easily catch infection, get carpel tunnel, amongst other things. 

         All in all, these articles are simply a cry for reform in the way we consume food.  They all seek to show how our obsession with cheap-ness leads to food being produced