Documentary Midterm

I found the documentary Food Inc. to be quite disturbing and saddening. It is very sad that some farmers, such as the chicken farmers, have to live in fear of their contracts to the large meat companies being terminated if they do not follow every rule the companies create. Such as the chicken farmer lady whose contract was terminated because she would not use the dark chicken houses. It is disgusting that her contract was terminated because she refused to basically torture the chickens by not allowing them to ever see daylight. Another sad aspect was how easily e. coli can spread. If the companies would take care of the cows and other animals before they slaughter them, by simply cleaning their stalls or hosing the manure off of their hide, then e. coli would not be spread so easily. Because so many different chunks of thousands of different cows are mixed together, if just one of those cows has e. coli then the whole batch gets e. coli. But, because it only takes one cow in thousands to contaminate the whole batch of meat it is often hard to detect when the meat is contaminated until it is too late. E. coli poisoning can often be confused with less serious stomach problems so many people do not seek medical attention until it is almost too late, or in some cases do not seek medical attention at all. Then after it is evident that someone has e. coli it is difficult to trace where they picked it up from, and many more cases often arise before the source is found. This can often result in many deaths from e. coli poisoning that could be prevented if the meat packing companies would take better care that no e. coli carrying contaminants, such as manure, can enter the meat. But instead they are too busy trying to find ways to chops up the animal carcases faster and making more money. It disgusts me that the companies that make our food do not care if it kills us so long as they get their paycheck. And the worst part is that those lives could be saved if the company would take a little extra care and time to prevent the contamination.