IFS paper

Guido Gonzalez
Food Class
Industrial Food Paper

Describe:
The Industrial Food System is a food system in which food products are mass produced in factories in the cheapest way possible. Almost everyone is involved; the workers producing it, the company owners making a profit off it, and everyone who buys/eats it. This industry is treated like any other industry; its only goal is optimum efficiency. My experience with it, like most people, had been unknown to me until recently. I had eaten industrialized food my whole life giving no thought to it. Even the food bought at the supermarkets comes from industrialized food companies. Obvious as it was, I had never noticed or given any thought to that. Almost every American eats with only that in mind; eating. They don’t think about where their food comes from or how it tastes, only about fulfilling their appetite.
Analyze:
The IFS is the primary source of U.S. nutrition because it is so fast, easily produced, and so cheap. Most Americans are so busy during their work day, they have to look for the most convenient, cheapest source of food. It is for this reason that the IFS is so successful.
There are many issues with the IFS, one of which being the diet of the animals. Corn is the main source of nutrition for these, the reason being that corn is the cheapest and easiest to grow, and it helps the animals grow fatter and faster. The animal’s stomachs are adept to digesting grass, they cannot digest the corn properly. Eventually, it causes their manure to become so toxic that it cannot be used to fertilize crops. The manure is instead dumped into a large pool of waste called “Manure Lagoons”. When it rains, this waste is leaked into rivers and eventually leads back to us. What once was a system in which there was essentially no waste, there is now almost nothing but waste.
These animals are also fed other animals, causing disease to spread (i.e. mad cow disease.) Because the main goal of the IFS is speed, mistakes are often made in cutting the meat. This causes the contents of the intestines to spill out all over the meat; shit is getting in our meat. The treatment of the animals is also a big issue in the IFS. They are crammed into small spaces with up to thousands of other animals, making disease much easier to spread. In the entire process, they are treated as though they’re already meat.
Another problem is with the workers in the factories and the fields of these plants. Most of the workers are immigrants, 2 million per year, having to work 10-12 hour shifts with no breaks for water or to use the bathroom. To earn minimum wage, they have to pick at least 4,000-5,000 pounds of tomatoes. The work pace is so intense and fast, that some of the workers begin taking methamphetamine in order to deal with the work conditions. A lot of them end up getting injured because of it. The essence of IFS is the most efficient, productive, cheapest way of achieving mass genocide.
Evaluation:
Any profit made goes to the owners of the companies. For the American community, the IFS seems to make more waste than profit. IFS got to where it is today because of America’s obsession with speed and money, and lack of morality. This tells us that, if we had morality to begin with, most of it has been lost and replaced with the motive for money and efficiency.