Premium Essay

Meat Industry in Need of Reform

In:

Submitted By purucke2
Words 1493
Pages 6
Running Head: IN NEED OF REFORM

The Meat Processing Industry: In Need of Reform
Taylor Purucker
Niles High School

The Meat Processing Industry: In Need of Reform Every day, animals are sent to slaughterhouses to be processed. Packaged meats are shipped from slaughterhouses to various supermarkets, where consumers purchase it fresh, or frozen. Buyers cannot tell whether or not the meat its safe to eat; they rely on US Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations. However, Sustainable Table says in their forum, Food Safety, “...76 million Americans suffer from food poisoning each year, causing 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths” (2009). Interests raise questions whether or not the USDA regulations are strictly enforced. It seems hard to believe since contaminated meat is the main cause for food-born illnesses. The recurrence of sanitary violations isn't the only dilemma; worker safety and animal health is also a problem. Workers are injured during the rapid process of processing animals; slaughterhouses process more animals an hour because of new technology. Animal's health becomes very poor after beatings and lack of nutrition. Robert Longley expresses in his report, USDA Weak in Enforcing Slaughterhouse Rules: GAO on About.com that, “GAO reported that a study of reports of actual cases of noncompliance at slaughter plants revealed 'several' incidents in which inspectors failed to stop plant operations as required by law” (2010). Given the high incidence of worker injury, the recurrence of sanitary violations at meat processing facilities, and continual outbreaks of food-borne illnesses caused by contaminated meat, it is clear the U.S. Meat processing industry is in dire need of reform. Contaminated meat leaving slaughterhouses is the main cause in food related sicknesses. Many diseases can travel with

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Fast Food Nation Analysis

...Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation expose working conditions and animal slaughter in the food industry. Even though these texts were published years apart, they both share similar details and goals. Sinclair is a muckraker who exposed political and social problems during the Progressive Era, and Eric Schlosser is a journalist. Both of these excerpts express the problems that workers faced, mostly immigrants, and the gruesome details of animal slaughter in the food industry. Both publications share similarities and differences in their goals, details to prove their points, and effects of their publication when dealing with the hidden aspects of the food industry. Both excerpts’ goals are to produce outrage...

Words: 1662 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

The Jungle Rhetorical Analysis

...novel The Jungle, Upton Sinclair exposes the unwholesome and unsanitary practices of the meatpacking industry during the early 1900s. Furthemore, Sinclair was a 'muckraker' or journalist who exposed the immoral practices of the meatpacking industry in order to push for mandatory meat inspection; however, President Roosevelt viewed the novel as an exaggeration of the truth of the matter and personally inspected the industry's practices themselves. Thereafter, Roosevelt discovered...

Words: 1374 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

The Meatpacking Industry In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

...food and labor industry were far from perfect. Food was produced in plants that were ridden with diseases and vermin, while workers were exposed to unsafe labor conditions and horrible treatment. To uncover these issues, Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, a novel about the meatpacking industry of Chicago in the early 1900s. His upbringing and what was happening in the country during his life heavily weighed in on his reason to write the novel. Because of his socialist views and realistic writing, Upton Sinclair was able to revolutionize the food industry of his time with his novel, The Jungle. Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1878. As an only child, he grew up in poverty but also experience the privileges...

Words: 1281 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Soviet Economy After Stalin

...to de-Stalinise the USSR and part of his reforms saw him demand changes to an economy that had a less than successful agricultural sector and industries that prioritised heavy machinery over everything else. While some aspects of the Stalinist economy were regarded as successful and therefore continued (for example, heavy industry remained a priority), it was now recognised that other areas were in much need of improvement. Heavy industry had always been favoured over light industry and this led to a severe lack of consumer goods. The brutal methods used by the Stalinist government to collectivise the agricultural sector left millions of peasants bitter and resentful; the agricultural question remained one of the most difficult problems for leaders and policy makers. Moreover, the supposedly planned economy was, in places, more improvised than planned, causing numerous difficulties. Rectifying the problems in the Stalinist economy was crucial for Khrushchev, for the Soviet people and for the Soviet Union. The USSR had to maintain its position as a superpower during the Cold War. This was not only a military consideration but also one of ideological legitimacy, as the USSR had to prove to the world that Soviet socialism was better than the capitalist West. Khrushchev believed that one way of doing this was to replace the excesses of Stalinism with a system that was geared more towards the citizens of the USSR. Agricultural reforms During the power struggle...

Words: 2536 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

Muckraking In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

...Muckraking is a form of journalism that reports scandalous information to the public. The term comes from President Theodore Roosevelt to describe the writers of the time like John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. If the novel was about Sinclair’s muckraking abilities, then he succeeds twice over. He single handily exposed the meat packing industry, bringing down an empire of corruption. The original intension of The Jungle can be compared to Jacob Rii’s How the Other Half Lives, which is a novel about poor immigrants horrible living conditions in tenement houses. Immigrants in there tenement houses were crammed into small apartments with numerous other people, with no safety features, and no indoor plumbing. They lived in the cold and in filth. They both argue for social reform to help the poor immigrants who were taken advantage of by wealthy Americans. Both novels look at the harsh living conditions of immigrants and how their poor wealth keeps them in terrible conditions. Another novel The Jungle can be compared to is Jane Addams’ Twenty Years at Hull-House, a documentary of Jane Addams’ life at Hull House which was a settlement house in Chicago, the same city Jurgis lived in. In chapter twenty-one, young Juozapas met a settlement house worker while raking through garbage looking for food...

Words: 2352 - Pages: 10

Premium Essay

The Meatpacking Industry In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

...The meatpacking industry has changed over the years, for good, and then back to bad. Prior to the 1920s, meatpacking plants were one of the worst places to work and served gruesome meat. Once Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, people started to take notice of the horrible conditions that the meatpacking industry had. President Roosevelt even sent out a representative to see if the conditions were really that bad, and he reported back that some of the conditions were even worse than Sinclair had described. Sinclair had written in The Jungle a list of practices that would be used in the plant: “The routine slaughter of diseased animals, the use of chemicals such as borax and glycerine to disguise the smell of spoiled beef, the deliberate mislabeling of canned meat, the tendency of workers to urinate and defecate on the kill floor” (Schlosser 204). Recalling meat back then was never a thought in these companies’ minds. Whatever way made the most money was the practice they...

Words: 1951 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

The Meatpacking Industry In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

...The Jungle Book was written by a famous writer named Upton Sinclair who was into a type of journalism called muckraking. His book started an uproar in the meatpacking industry and the labor reform. To fix these problems you would need to have better pay and a safer environment where these problems will not persist such as cutting your hand. “And there is a fearful gash, and it would not be so bad only for the deadly contagion.” Through these problems made a clear path to integrate the “Pure Food and Drug Act”. The first major problem was with the meatpacking industry was the unsanitary conditions of the meat they sold to the people. “The flesh of the that is about to calve, or has just calved, is not fit for food” (p63) They used a lot every day when it came to the packing houses. But if anyone noticed it they would tell the boss who would start up a conversation with the inspector, and make it seem like nothing was wrong. The solution for this is basically add a policy to not mix everything together and should not be processed together. A Law could be placed in order to follow a stricter guideline for the industry....

Words: 450 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Dr.Whitaker and Food

...Law Mr. Peter Barton Hutt Harvard Law School Winter 2004 Introduction In 1906 Congress passed two landmark pieces of legislation: the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. The acts emerged from the reformist ethos of the Progressive Era, a time when the federal government took on a new and much more active role in the everyday lives of ordinary Americans. Of all the laws passed during the Progressive Era, no legislation proved more successful and more enduring than the 1906 food and drug legislation. The acts established the foundations of modern American food and drug law, and gave birth to the Food and Drug Administration. For the first time, the federal government assumed permanent and comprehensive responsibility for the health and safety of the American food and drug supply. Although the statutes have been revised many times since 1906, the essence of modern food and drug law remains consistent with the principles of federal responsibility for consumer safety that underlay the first statutes a century ago. The passage of the 1906 food and drug legislation stemmed from the actions of many people across the political landscape, ranging from Senator Albert Beveridge to socialist writer Upton Sinclair. But no indi- 1 viduals played a larger public role in the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act than Theodore Roosevelt and Harvey Wiley. Roosevelt, as president of the United States, and Wiley, as chief chemist of the Agriculture...

Words: 11660 - Pages: 47

Premium Essay

India Competitive Advantages

...with Central Government having absolute control of distribution. The policies defined by Government were primarily protectionist and this giving rise to extensive bureaucracy, red tape, unnecessary regulations and trade barriers. These policies coupled with financial burden of partition, closed market policies, poor FDI reforms resulted in underperforming growth rate of 2-3.5% over the period till 1990, much below the potential. Although the policies and reforms were devised to alleviate poverty, the opposite became true to due to the high population rates, high imports, huge public sectors, multiple wars & state intervention in matters that included industries, business, labour and financial markets – all this factors started to put pressure on the fiscal deficit. The shortage in self reliability & dependency on imports on several essential products and services - such as oil, defense manufacturing, combined with agricultural subsidies gave way for higher fiscal deficit prompting the country to take the extreme step of borrowing finance from external sources. From 1980-85, half of our financing needs were met with external assistance and the debt grew as much to 40% of GDP in 1991-92, finally reaching the worst tipping point of ‘Balance of Payment Crisis’. Liberalization of 1992: Under the new government, the country embarked on liberalization policies under the visionary goals to remove unnecessary bureaucratic controls...

Words: 561 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle'

...Hassaan Zainul Ms. Luongo English 10 2 November 2015 Upton Sinclair is one of the most recognized authors in history for his writing of “The Jungle”. Upton Sinclair was born is Baltimore, Maryland and he was raised in New York City. His parents were poor while his grandparents were rich and his aunt was wealthy marrying a millionaire. Sinclair often spent night at his grandparents’ house this allowing him insight on how the rich and the poor lived. Sinclair was a keen student, he entered New York City College at the age of fourteen, and he funded his education by writing newspaper and magazine stories. By the age of seventeen he was adequately successful at that time, owning his own apartment and able to give financial support to his parents....

Words: 401 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Muckrakers By John Sprago Analysis

...One muckraker openly criticized an institution for causing many of the country’s problems and all he done was give the institution a fictional name in his work. This can be seen in Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” where he models the fictional company Dunham’s after the real Armour Meat Company. Sinclair stated, “It was stuff such as this that made the embalmed beef that had killed several times as many United States soldiers as the bullets of the Spaniard’s;” (Sinclair Source 2). Sinclair is blaming the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers on the poor quality of meat product being produced by Dunham meat company. Sinclair describes in horrific detail the conditions that many Americans were having to face by working in these meatpacking industries. Other muckrakers targeted big businessmen as people to hold responsible for the country’s problems. Lincoln Steffens is an example of a muckraker that believed that businessmen were the ones that needed to be held accountable for the problems that were prominent in the country. Steffens stated, “The typical businessman is a bad citizen; he is busy. If he is a big businessman and very busy, he does not neglect, he is busy with politics, oh very busy and very businesslike.” (Steffens Source 4). Steffens is supporting...

Words: 1584 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Analysis Of Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle'

...As a youth Sinclair found his zeal for social and moral justice, these ideas were fostered by Reverend W.W. Moir who had a great influence over him.1 Sinclair was an unremitting force exposing societal issues in an era of progressive reform. The quote “Good literature substitutes for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through." means that works of literature can substitute for an experience in which we the reader have not endured ourselves. His most notable work was The Jungle in which he exposed the American public to the inhumane and hazardous conditions of the meat packing industry and the injustices faced by immigrants. Upton Sinclair was born on September 20, 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland to an alcoholic father whom he was named after and his...

Words: 1217 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Economics

...study of individual behaviour – individual industry like education, meat industry, tourism and agriculture. Choose any ONE industry in Australia from this list and discuss the reforms been done in that industry. • Cost of production- in any industry in Australia where costs of production are an important issue and analyse what is being done in the industry. May be the industry is switching to technology or/and some substitutes have been used to overcome this problem ! • Demand and supply of certain resources in Australia and factors other than price which affect demand and supply • Market structures like Monopoly, Duopoly, Oligopoly and Monopolistic competition in any industry in Australia. Structure of the Essay • Introduction – which topic 200 words • Body- Discuss the topic in the article and with some theory -700 words • Conclusion 100 words • Reference (Harvard Reference Style) Note= - More marks for research – choosing a good article on something specific topic from the above list - There is no need to explain the theory/concepts in the essay on its own - More marks for application and your comments on the topic - You need to attach the copy of the articles with your essay. Also attach the safe assignment report with your essay. - Upload the soft copy on BB by FRI 5pm week 4. - You also need to submit hard copy of your assignment on...

Words: 278 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Djcjx

...study of individual behaviour – individual industry like education, meat industry, tourism and agriculture. Choose any ONE industry in Australia from this list and discuss the reforms been done in that industry. • Cost of production- in any industry in Australia where costs of production are an important issue and analyse what is being done in the industry. May be the industry is switching to technology or/and some substitutes have been used to overcome this problem ! • Demand and supply of certain resources in Australia and factors other than price which affect demand and supply • Market structures like Monopoly, Duopoly, Oligopoly and Monopolistic competition in any industry in Australia. Structure of the Essay • Introduction – which topic 200 words • Body- Discuss the topic in the article and with some theory -700 words • Conclusion 100 words • Reference (Harvard Reference Style) Note= - More marks for research – choosing a good article on something specific topic from the above list - There is no need to explain the theory/concepts in the essay on its own - More marks for application and your comments on the topic - You need to attach the copy of the articles with your essay. Also attach the safe assignment report with your essay. - Upload the soft copy on BB by FRI 5pm week 4. - You also need to submit hard copy of your assignment on...

Words: 291 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

New Deal Dbq

...such as helping the less fortunate, social reform, political reform and economic effects of the New Deal. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President of the United States in 1933, immediately after he was elected he set up the ‘Alphabet Agencies’ as a means of providing relief to those affected by the depression and to help the less fortunate. One ‘Alphabet Agency’ was the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), it was set up to provide clothing grants and soup kitchens for the poor....

Words: 2134 - Pages: 9