Chapter 12

The title of Chapter 12, "Slaughter" is very fitting. The process in which chickens are killed on Joel's farm seem like animal cruelty to me but I guess all anyone cares about is how quickly and efficiently chickens can be harvested. The fact that they are manhandled to the slaughter line and allowed to bleed out seems like a fairly horrible way to go to me. "Daniel explained that you wanted to sever only the artery, not the head, so that the heart would continue to beat and pump out the blood." I think that this very graphic quote makes it fairly evident that the animal's suffering is taking a back seat to killing the animal as quickly and efficiently as possible. I think that the USDA should regulate animal processing and require all farmers to process livestock in official facilities because on farm processing seems fairly secretive and can't be thoroughly inspected to find forms of animal abuse and cruelty. I also found it very interesting how towards the end of the chapter Joel defends the way in which chickens are killed by referring to the Bible. Maybe it makes him feel better about what he's doing or how he's doing it?

Post #1

I found Chapter 6 from The Omnivore's Dilemma to be particularly interesting out of the reading. Pollan starts off by commenting on how American obesity can be traced back to the 1970's with the rise of fast food restaurants. Aiding human obesity in this day in age can be attributed to the human body's ability at eating more than it needs to build fat restores for a future famine, which never comes in our society in which access to calories rich food in generally far too easy. He also says how our diets consist of too much corn and how people are getting the majority of their high fructose corn syrup through soft drinks and the like. In this day in age, it is more efficient for someone to consume soft drinks than juice from concentrate from a calorie/dollar perspective. I found this quote to back his statement up, "Since 1985, Americans annual consumption of HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) has gone from 45 pounds to 66 pounds" per year. Pollan then states that farmers in Iowa, for example, are producing far more calories than we need. However, the fault doesn't totally lie on the farmers. It is more calorie efficient for them to produce corn in Iowa than anything else, so that's what they produce. Pollan puts part of the blame on the government for aiding corn's dominance in our diet through subsidiaries and other means.