User:Rubballmkhann/sandbox

When you eat a hamburger, what goes through your mind while eating it? The gruesome truth of the matter is that one in four Americans eats fast food every day. In America alone, we eat one million animals every hour. Sixty percent of America is either obese or over weight (8). These numbers are increasing at a staggering rate, yet people ignore the obvious for a quick convenient meal where there is no proper preparation needed. One of the top sellers in the fast food industry are beef hamburgers. The cows slaughtered for the meat are sick steroidal animals that are fed grain rather than grass. During this process, the cows are abused and put through factory farming. Factory farming is the practice of raising overcrowded livestock in a confined space (otherwise known as “confinement at high stocking density” or “CAFOs”). CAFOs are designed to produce the highest output for the lowest cost by relying on “economies of scale” (the cost advantages that a business obtains due to expansion), modern machinery, biotechnology, and global trade (6, 9). A typical day for one of these livestock is sitting in their own manure on top of one another with no space to roam, while occasionally getting beat and forced to eat antibiotics. These antibiotics keep the livestock alive by killing intestinal bacteria long enough for them to be sent to the slaughterhouse (6). Cows are fed grain because it speeds up their developmental process, generally ready to be slaughtered and sold by twelve to fourteen months (9). This is a big convenience for the fast food companies purchasing these animals because it lowers their value. Growth hormones, antimicrobial agents, and breeding programs produce animals more suited to the confined conditions, but less suited for the dinner table (6). To save money on feed, some factory farmed livestock are trained early on to eat only genetically engineered (GMO) corn by locking them into pens and feeding them nothing else. Either they eat the GMO corn or they starve. Cattle do not have the genetic ability to digest corn which ferments in at least one of the four stomach compartments. GMO corn feed is one of the root causes of the bacteria, E. coli. Many scientists argue that mad cow disease also derives from the feeding of GMO corn to cattle (6). These inhumane conditions are used with many other animals such as pigs and chickens. Chickens are cooped up in cages for most of their short lives, while also being fed growth hormones, some chickens grow so large that their legs don’t keep up with their fast paced development so they break (2, 7). Pigs are also victims of abuse; newborns are neutered with no medication or proper tools. Premature babies who have no chance in being big enough for slaughter are killed brutally by workers taking them by their hind legs and slamming their heads on the ground (2). Not only do these conditions affect the animals, but the workers who are working in these unsanitary conditions are suffering as well. The current stats of the employees working at factory farms are: 1 in 3 women will have cancer in their lifetime and 1 in 2 men in their lifetime. There is no other rational explanation for the increase in these statistics (6). During the winter season, nearly all of America’s tomatoes are grown in Florida. On these farms where there are toxic pesticides used frequently, workers have to through back breaking labor under blazing hot conditions while abused verbally and physically all for a mere salary of less than twelve thousand per year (10). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.  9. 10.