Rhetorical Analysis: Food Inc
Rhetorical Analysis: Food Inc. Have we ever wondered where our foods in America come from or “it is a world deliberately hidden from us”. Our daily consumption of food is trusted on few big capitalized corporations who run the food industry, what do we know about them? Robert Kenner and Eric Schlosser illustrates the true facts about our food industry by a documentary named Food, Inc. This documentary is more or less broken down in a ¬¬form of chapters, using supportive authors of several books on food industry, interviewing knowledgeable individuals, safety advocates, and farmers to advocate the reality of food industry.
The documentary first illustrations a supermarket filled with different food items. As the camera focuses on the fruits and vegetable the speaker states “The tomatoes you buy in the grocery store are picked when green and then ripened with ethylene gas. ” The process of food production has changed in the eyes of many, over the years. Many of us don’t know where the food comes from. Since 1950’s the fast food industry have had transformed the current method of raw food production.
The goal is, “production of large quantities of food at low direct inputs (most often subsidized) resulting in enormous profits, which in turn results in greater control of the global supply of food sources within these few companies. ” Only top four companies are handling the meat industry, which are implacable to the animals, workers and environment. The consumption of meat by an average American has raised tremendously so has the demand of fast foods. The methods of production have whole new level. First, thirty percent of American land is based on corn.
The government policy pays farmers more to overproduce this easy-to-store crop. The corn is then modified in different chemical forms, which is used ninety percent in most of our industrial foods. The farm animals are feed corn to increase their weight for high dense meat. The cows, chicken, pigs and more over they are even teaching the fish to eat corn. Corn is so vastly produced it is known to be the cheapest and highly utilized food item. Candy, soda, chips are much cheaper than the produce as it is highly subtilized with corn. A cheeseburger at McDonalds cost a dollar comparing to a broccoli at a super market.
This is why many low-income families suffer from diabetics and obesity. One of the examples the filmmaker exposes is a family in Los Angeles. Orozco the father suffers from Diabetics; the family cannot afford costly produce. They find a cheeseburger from McDonalds cost less than the fresh produced foods at the store. The family has to make a decision between buying healthy costly foods or his medication. When McDonald’s “Dollar Menu” a readymade cheeseburger cost less than the produce there is something alarming indication to be considered.
No wonder why obesity is now a sign of poverty, not wealth and excess. The most deadly disease is the E. Coli that is manly found in the corn feed cows. E. Coli has even been found in spinach and apple juice because of the run off from factory farms. Some companies cleanse the meat with ammonia hydroxide to help kill E. Coli. Furthermore, the documentary focuses on the production of the chickens. The chickens are being raised within frothy-five days with growth hormones and more. In fact it takes three months to raise a chicken.
Due to the demand of the consumers of preference to the white meat, scientists have managed to redesign the chicken to have bigger breasts. Chickens farms produce a lot chickens in small amount of land with no sunlight and no ventilation. These chickens are so closely impacted and are designed to grow larger in size, they are unable to stand and move. Corn the cheapest grain, feed to these chickens to produce more weight. Consumers buy bone less chicken with large breast for cheaper cost with the price of health care cost. Meats are not the only food that is inflected. Many seeds are also genetically modified.
