I watched Food Inc. for the first time in class last week and it was very eye-opening, to say the least. I’ve never had the thought of becoming a vegetarian or to cut out a lot of meat or to even just research where my meat was coming from but after watching the film I felt like I should start.  I’ve always been an advocate of meat and always thought vegetarianism was in some ways “lame” but after watching this film I’ve really changed my stance on it. I understand where vegetarians are coming from when they talk about animal cruelty and them being mistreated.  The way those animals were treated while being “grown” was pretty horrific and for the first time in my life actually made me feel in some way kind of bad for the animals. It changed my perspective on the meat industry entirely.

One thing that really stood out to me was the fact that there were four or five companies controlling the meat industry and it was also startling how they have such control over the farmers they get their meat from. These companies like Tyson or Smithfield treated their employees almost as bad as the animals. These “farms” that are more like factories have unsafe conditions that no one should have to work in.

Another big thing that stood out to me was the use of antibiotics on the animals in order to grow them quicker and bigger. This would cause the animals to grow quickly and in turn, their organs weren’t sustaining the same growth as their body and it caused them not to be able to walk right and in some cases, they couldn’t take more than a few steps which to me was really sad. These animals deserve to live in much better conditions and need to be treated like they are more than just ‘food’.

The other thing that really stood out to me (and grossed me out) was that one beef patty could have something like 200 strands of a different cow in it instead of one beef patty coming from one cow. That was just mind boggling to me. While I’m not going to go completely vegetarian (I love chicken), I think that I’m done with red meat. After watching this film I just don’t think I could ever eat a hamburger again. The thought of it grosses me out now.

I think that there needs to be a better way for the food industry to go about the way they grow their food. Farms don’t need to be factories. I’m really glad we got to watch this film, it was eye-opening, to say the least.