P7

For my understanding, all the three articles point out the conflicts between the industrialization of modern food production caused by out increasing demand for food and the right way we should produce the food, from a traditional and humanity’s perspective.

In Christopher Cook’s info graphic, “Fowl Trouble,” he introduces how the workers in the chicken production industry were treated resulted by the increasing demand for chicken. As more and more chicken were requested and consumed and in order to make the demand and supply meet, USA upgrade the limited level of bird which focused on inspector’s capability of exanimating the bird, but fail to consider the amount that a farm work could handle. Underpayment, serious working environment, and excessive working burden leading to the unhealthy of worker’s physical condition, as well as their mental condition. It is ironical to admit that such a fact runs contrary to the initial health-conscious consideration-chicken is healthier than red meat.  

    In Michael Pollan’s piece, “An Animal’s Place,” he claims about how the industrialization changes the treatment of animals over time. Cited the example that how pigs and dogs used to get Christmas gifts, Pollan seriously questions the attitude we have towards to animals.  With the progress and prosperous the industry revolution bring to us, people were becoming more focusing on own benefit than any other time. By illustrating that some animals are sentenced to a life of suffering in our history, he makes an argument about whether or not it is acceptable to breed animals for a life of suffering and whether or not people should care about the procedure how their food were produced.

  In Barry Estabrook’s Introduction to “Tomatoland,” he write about how the demand and mass production changes the way the tomato was originally produced. In his article, Barry cites that tomato was initial found in northern Peru and southern Ecuador, which are very dry regions that facilitate the growth of tomatoes. Now one third of tomatoes are now grown in Florida in order to keep up with global demand. Florida is humidity and not suitable for tomato’s growth, worker should spear more effect to prevent the tomato from unharvest. Large demand and “severe” drive down the working condition seriously.

In comparison, all the three pieces talked about the change in the production procedure in mass-producing factories. Estabrook and Cook talk about the worker quality, such as low wages, as well as the mental and physical harm that comes with working in a modern day food factory.   And Pollan and Cook both talk about the mistreatment of animals. All in all, the three article are similar since they talk about the negative effects caused by modern mass production of food and such effect will continue to pass and a more wider range of stakeholders will suffer if the prevent phenomena are unchanged.