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Tyarra Lundy
ENG101
Professor Smith
6-8-2014
Research Paper
Factory Farming
How do you feel knowing the animals we eat has to go through awful
conditions just to be sold to us? Factory farm animals are being terribly
treated. Stated in article Farm Sanctuary,
Factory farms dominate U.S. food production, employing abusive practices
that maximize agribusiness profits at the expense of the environment, our
communities, animal welfare, and even our health. The amount of waste being
created by raising so many animals in on area pollutes our water, land, and
air. However the health challenges for animals are caused by lack of space,
attention and unsanitary living conditions. Antibiotics are used extensively on
factory farms, which can create drug-resistant bacteria and put humans health
at risk (Farm Sanctuary). Eating factory farm products causes
deadly illnesses due to presence of viruses like E. coli and salmonellosis.
Therefore we should be more cautious and read the labels.
Factory farm animals
are being maltreated. Cows, calves, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and
other animals are being crammed by the thousands into dirty
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windowless sheds and confined to wire
cages, gestation crates, barren dirt lots, and other cruel confinement
systems (PETA). Being crammed into tiny spaces often leads to most of the
animals getting sick and sometimes dying. They are also being underprivileged of exercise so that all their bodies’ energy goes toward producing
flesh, eggs, or milk for human consumption (PETA). Furthermore they are fed
drugs to fatten them faster and keep them alive in conditions that could later
kill them (PETA). These animals go through so much during factory farming that
they will never get the chance to raise their families, play in the soil, build
nests, or do anything that is important to them. Therefore, animals do not get
to absorb any sun, or breathe fresh air until the day they are loaded onto
trucks to go to the slaughterhouse. Animals should not have to live in these
extremely stressful conditions.
As Schlosser explains “The slaughterhouse is an immense building,
gray and square, about three stories high, with no windows in the front”
emphasizing the unsanitary living condition for animals (pg.169). Animals are
brought to the slaughterhouse after being at the factory farm. The
slaughterhouse is a facility where animals are killed
for consumption as food.
Stated in wiki/Slaughterhouse around
nine billion animals are
slaughtered every year in the United States, including 35 million cattle and
buffalo, 111 million pigs and 8.9 billion poultry. Investigations have exposed
the fact that farm animals are routinely mutilated while still fully conscious (HFA’S).
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As the animals
are being slaughtered and processed several dangerous issues come ahead. First,
is the presence of fecal matter from slaughtered animals, which can contaminate
meat with high levels of bacteria such as E. coli (GRACE). Diseases like
salmonella are caused by sanitation errors that can harm our food as well
animals. Mad cow disease is another food safety hazard that happens in the
slaughterhouse (GRACE). Federal Health
Authorities have estimated that foodborne disease sicken 48 million people,
cause 128,000 hospitalizations, and kill 3,000 Americans every year. The USDA determined that 7.5% of the beef
samples were contaminated with Salmonella, 11.7% were contaminated with
Listeria monocytogenes, 30% were contaminated with Staphylococcus Aureus, and
53.3% were contaminated with Clostridium perfringens. These high levels of
contamination are caused by the crowded conditions the animals have to live in,
and the high speed in which the meat is processed (GRACE).
Viruses such as
Salmonella and Escherichia Coli are found in factory farm meat, fruits and
vegetables. Food poisoning can take up to hours or days before any signs
of symptoms (ACCEPTA). Depending on the amount of poison being produced the
bacteria sticks to the lining of the intestine and destroys the cells (ACCEPTA).
Stated by Accepta Advanced Environmental
Technologies “the bacteria that enters the body through the digestive
system, symptoms will generally be in this part of the body are nausea,
vomiting, abdominal cramps and diarrhea.” E. coli normally lives in the
intestines of humans and animals. A particular E. coli strain called 0157 can
cause severe diarrhea
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and kidney damage (ACCEPTA). Besides,
E. coli Salmonella is the second most common cause of food poisoning (ACCEPTA).
Not only can Salmonella can be found in raw milk, egg products, and meats it
can also be found in food if it is not cooked properly. Nevertheless if
infected you should be precautious and not spread the bacteria by having good
hygiene, because another person can get infected when in contact with each
other. In a number of cases, food poisoning can cause very serious illness or
even death (ACCEPTA).
Bovine
spongiform encephalopathy also known as mad cow disease affects a cow’s nervous
system, which causes a cow to act strangely and lose control of its abilities
to do normal things (Hirsch). Mad cow dieses cause a cows brain to waste away
and become spongy. Stated in Kids Health researchers
believe the infection comes from a certain food given to cows, which is the
remains such as the brains and spinal cords of dead cows that had the
infection. If a person eats meat from an infected cow they are at risk for
getting a disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or vCJD (Hirsch). It has be
known only three people in the United States have ever gotten vCJD, which is
not contagious so a person cannot catch it from someone that has it.(Hirsch).
Brains and spinal cords should not be used to make food products.
Animal should
be treated better than how they are treated in factory farming and in the
slaughterhouse. The antibiotic given to animals’ leaves us eating more
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chemicals therefore we get sick and
have diseases. Every year in America is and outbreak with diseases such as E.
coli and salmonella killing many people. To prevent further sickness and
death, we should take precaution and try organic food or switch to vegetarian.
Paying attention to food logos is another way to increase your safety by
choosing your foods wisely. However our food should always be safe for us to
eat.
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Works Cited
"accepta advanced environmental
technologies." Food Poisoning Bacteria . N.p., n.d.
Web. 28 May 2014.
<http://www.accepta.com/environmental-water-
wastewater-knowledge/pathogen-control-knowledge/297-food-poisoning-
bacteria-salmonella-listeria-e-coli-0157-campylobacter>.
"Factory Farming: Cruelty to Animals." PETA.
N.p., n.d. Web. 26 May 2014.
<http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming/>.
"Farm Sanctuary." Farm Sanctuary. N.p., n.d.
Web. 26 May 2014.
<http://www.farmsanctuary.org/learn/factory-farming/#>.
"Food Processing & Slaughterhouses." GRACE
Communications Foundation. N.p., n.d.
Web. 28 May 2014.
<http://www.sustainabletable.org/279/food-processing-
slaughterhouses>.
"HFA's Campaign to Stop Slaughterhouse
Abuse." HFA's Campaign to Stop
Slaughterhouse Abuse. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 May 2014.
<http://www.hfa.org/slaughterhouse.html>.
Hirsch, Larissa. "What's Mad Cow Disease?."
KidsHealth - the Web's most visited site about
children's
health. The Nemours Foundation, 1 Oct. 2013. Web. 28 May 2014.
<http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/mad_cow>.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of
All-American Meal. New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Reprint.
"Slaughterhouse." Wikipedia. Wikimedia
Foundation, 23 May 2014. Web. 27 May 2014.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse>.
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