We’ll be watching Food Inc. over the next four days. Each day there will be a response to post on your blog. This will be our Semester Post. All posts must be done on time!
Fast Food to All Food:
• Are there any rights that all animals should have?
• If animals should have certain rights, do you think those rights also apply to animals we raise for food, like chickens or pigs? Are there any rights that these farm animals should have? If so, what are they?
• How do you think farm animals should be treated? How do your ideas compare to what you saw in the film?
•Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council says in the film, “In a way, we’re not producing chickens, we’re producing food.” What does this statement mean? Do you agree or disagree with it? How might this perspective affect the way that chickens are raised?
• If we are in consensus that even food animals deserve to have a certain quality of life, who has the responsibility to oversee the treatment of chickens or other food animals? What responsibility do individuals and consumers have? The government? Companies?
• If we are in consensus that food animals should not have rights to a certain quality of life, what might be some repercussions of that position?
• As consumers, do we have the right to know how the chickens we eat are being raised? Do we want to know?
• As portrayed by the film, consumers wanting faster, cheaper food has altered the way chickens are raised. Can you think of parallel situations where consumers wanted certain products or experiences, and industry responded to meet the demand? (For example, we want to have inexpensive clothes,so companies hire low-wage workers in other countries to make them; when people became increasingly concerned about air pollution from vehicles, companies created hybrid-fueled cars.)
• We’ve been talking about the rights of food animals. What did the film bring up about people’s rights?
A Cornucopia of Choices:
• In the film, food science professor Larry Johnson says, “If you go and look on the supermarket shelf, I’ll bet you 90 percent of [the products] would contain either a corn or soybean ingredient. And most of the time, it’ll contain both.”
Why might it be a problem that the majority of our food is made mostly from just corn and soybeans—so that nearly everything we eat contains them?
Why might it be a problem that the majority of our food is made mostly from just corn and soybeans—so that nearly everything we eat contains them?
• Many of us were surprised to learn that corn is so prevalent in our foods. Why do you think we were so surprised? Do you think the government and food producers have kept it a secret? Why don’t more people know this fact?
• Whose responsibility do you think it is to inform us about what is in our food?
• Is it our responsibility to find out, the producer’s responsibility to make it more clear, or both? Why do you think so?
• If people are responsible for informing themselves about what is in their food,what would help them be more informed? If producers are responsible, what would be the more effective ways for them to inform people?
• The movie points out that cows and farm-raised fish, which are not biologically suited to eating corn, are now given a modified diet that is based on corn. Do you think people’s diets have been modified in a similar way? How do you feel about the possibility of your food being modified without you being aware of it?
Your post is due Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 8:15 a.m.
