PSA: Don't watch "Fast Food Nation" late at night if you're pregnant

[jan_andrea]

Or anytime, really. I'd read the book a few years ago, and swore off fast food for a year. After that, we'd stop for FF only sporadically, and rarely at that. But reading about something, and seeing it re-enacted on the screen are two entirely different things. I don't think I'll ever eat FF again, and am certainly off red meat for a long, long time. Not quite as much for the way the animals are treated (which is pretty awful, but they're also pretty stupid, and even a huge feedlot is not a terrible life for a cow), but for the way the processing plants treat their workers. That was what really struck me when I read the book, and again when I saw the film. I'd still have a steak if I knew it had been processed by a facility that didn't also treat its employees like disposable meat, but that really rules out pretty much anything from the grocery store. I'll have to see where "The Meat House" gets its meat. It's pricey, but maybe they don't get it from a huge corporation. I'm sure the chicken processing places are even worse, which is a pity, since chicken breasts are so easy. But then, we buy it only when it's $1.99/lb or less, and of course, if the price is that low, then the workers probably aren't getting what they should be.

I finished watching the movie at 11 last night, and then spent the next 2-3 hours tossing and turning, thinking about how the majority of our food is probably produced this way -- cheap labor, which means someone is getting the shaft, whether it's poor hours, no healthcare, or hiring illegal immigrants who have no recourse to the law if the working conditions are inhumane. I have a box of strawberries in the fridge, and I know they were picked by migrant workers who probably got $.50/bushel if they were lucky, and of course no health care and 12 hour days. I have oranges, probably the same deal. Lettuce? Check. Bread? Who knows? Did the farmer get a fair price for his wheat... or was it farmed by a giant agribusiness? I wish I could buy all-organic or just shop at co-ops when I think about things like this. How else do you know where your food comes from or if it's humanely-produced?

I'm always more stressed about things like this at night, and it was particularly bad after seeing that movie. It gets really gruesome towards the end. I lay awake wondering how I can bring another child into this world when there's so much evil around. Alas.

Comments

[bean77.livejournal.com]

My aunts in Montpelier shop at a co-op...It's really nice and the people are wonderful. I really like going there.

[jan-andrea.livejournal.com]

I need to seek out local co-ops. I know there's occasionally one in Durham, and there must be one around here, too. And every year, I intend to join a CSA and then forget until it's too late. Will have to call soon and find out if I can get in on a summer one.

[lemmings-world.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I need to go to our farmer's market more often as well. Lately I've been trying to follow a 'make it versus buy it' for some things in the house, like granola bars. (Alex will eat them 24/7 if allowed. :P ) Now if I can get him to eat homeade chicken nuggets then I'm on a roll.

I may have missed it, but how is your husband fairing? Is he back home yet?

[jan-andrea.livejournal.com]

Homemade chicken nuggets... good idea.

David has been back for a few weeks, and is much better now that he's home! He was scheduled to go back again this month, but luckily a co-worker volunteered to go in his place, so he doesn't have to go there ever again. He will have to go to Texas sometime this summer, though.

[brunahildm.livejournal.com]

For other reasons*, I recently did a similar search and found the Concord Cooperative Market. It looks AWESOME!! It's all either fair trade or from local farms, including the meat (click on products and it lists the farms they buy from). I plan to join and start shopping there every week or two. I know it's a lot more convenient for me than for you, but we could go together for sister time :)

* I've recently decided that it's just stupid to have my food trucked across the country, so I want to buy local.

[joy-disaster.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way : / I want to get a home with a little tiny bit of land so badly... just so I can grow a little of your own food and sell at farmers markets. At the Topsfield Fair I found a place that feeds their cattle grass on open fields, so the steak is "grass fed" which is the healthiest kind and it didn't appear they used anything other than themselves as labor. I forgot the name though.

[the-leh.livejournal.com]

vegan outreach.org is what horrified me on a similar level. Unfortunately I'm an ADDICT and I don't think I could give up fast food forever.

Corporate America is an evil, evil thing. And it's not just the fast food stuff, it's our clothing, electronics, furniture, appliances....everything we consume is cheaply made (usually outsourced) by some worker getting the shaft. The minimum wage won't even feed a family of 1, let alone 4. Health care is a business and is increidibly expensive. The very small precentage of rich people keep getting smaller and smaller and richer and richer; whereas the middle class is disappearing into a very large population of people living near, at, or even below the poverty line. Whoredoms abound and we have people like Lindsay Lohan going to kids shows wearing no panties and short skirts, it's pretty much commonplace -expected, even- to be promiscuous, pretty much everyone drinks alcohol -and binge drinking amongst young people is on the rise, methamphetamine addiction is being called a "national plague" because it's so common, meanwhile the country is divided politically between the right wing Christian Republicans and the Liberal left wing Democrats -nearly 50/50, and we have a president who'd rather dick around with our Millitary in the middle east rather than make things better for Americans.

*sigh* it's scary out there.

[oopidsnot.livejournal.com]

(sorry for the long post)

I grew up on a farm where my parents dedicated a half acre to a vegetable and berry garden, a half acre to an orchard, several acres to raise cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and sheep, and several acres to grow grains and hay for the animals. The whole farm was worked by my family (big family) and only my mom worked out of home to support us. A lot goes into a farm, and little profit is made.

Unfortunately, where I live, new laws have come into effect. My dad was no longer allowed to butcher his own animals. He had to pay for someone to pick them up and ship them away to a major slaughter house. There are so many things wrong with that. Everything you mentioned above, as well as our animals being injected with all kinds of things, and then when we get the meat back, we can't be sure if it was from the same animal we sent in.

The laws also said we couldn't advertise that we had things to sell. My parents were forced to sell all their livestock because they couldn't afford to pay for the shipping of their animals and for the organic certification. He couldn't do it under the table because all locally run big freezers were being shut down. My dad sold 7 full grown cattle with two calves for $1400. If he were allowed to butcher his animals himself and sell the meat, that's what he would have gotten for one cow.

Big corporations are evil. They're shutting down small farms which doesn't make any sense. Small farms are where you're going to get the best quality and you know the workers are treated well because they're most likely part of the family. The animals on small farms are treated better, and it's easier to pick out a sick cow from a group of 10 than it is from a group of 200+.

I suppose this is a sensitive issue for me.

My parents have shrunk their garden down to a size that only feeds the family. They have no more animals, save a few chickens they use for eggs. My dad has been working hard these past few years to convert the pastures into hay crops. That means he has to plow the ground and pick out all the rocks and sticks several times before the first seeding. Depending on the earth, it can be three years of plowing and rock picking before the seeding. He does it because it's the only way he can maintain a farm status, otherwise he's going to have to pay a heck of a lot more for taxes on 86 acres which he can't afford, and then they'd have to sell the farm.

It's difficult to find produce and meat products that haven't been tampered with sprays and injections, let alone in a good work environment. It's very sad, and scary.

[jan-andrea.livejournal.com]

That's really messed up! I'm sorry the laws are going that way -- that's totally the opposite of what they should be doing :( How wretched.