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Zulley Martinez
Professor Eric Dinsmore
English 6A
20 November 2015
Beneficial For You
Health is fundamental to living a prolonged life, but how well do you know your food?
Will your eating habits affect your healthy lifestyle to come? Eating animals is split between
perspectives of pros and cons to define what eating food ethnically really means. Consequently,
you make these decisions daily where your best interest lies to eat unhealthy fast foods rather
than locally raised or organic foods. I strongly advise you not to engage in these degrading
actions. It is all part of a never ending chain. Primarily because animals are viewed differently
along their relationships with that of their farmers, corporates, USDA inspectors, slaughterhouse
workers, supermarket as well as fast food chain industries and finally you as their consumer. In
other words, not only are you the last person to eat this animal food ,but on top of that your food
was never once inspected or regulated to the fullest level of consumption. The farfetched idea of
raising an animal and prepping it to a slaughter is not so far off, as it is a gruesome reality. For
example, pigs are subjected to such torturous acts that those who are involved enjoying even a
single strip of bacon on their cheeseburger would not be far off from supporting these malevolent
atrocities. Your food should be better tasting and healthy which is why food options are now
raised humanly! Humanly raised foods are regulated to ensure considerate, compassionate and
sympathetic treatment of animals. Choices you choose to make are beneficial towards your
future well-being, so support humanly grown food and you will feel good about the change you
have made.

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What does this all mean for you as the consumer and how might his respectfully play into
your lifestyle and eating habits? First, you must understand the process of where all pig and other
animal meat come from this underlining how your food came to be, also considering why less
than a handful of slaughter houses exist. Paradise Locker Meats is one of the last bastions of
independent slaughter houses in the Midwest and is a godsend for the local farming community
(Foer 152).These slaughter houses have been closed off and bought by large corporations
forcefully having farmers incorporate into their systems. Thus weakening the farmers minimum
say or no say on the treatment of the animals (Foer153). Once a corporation takes over the
farmer and animal relationship closes off neither giving rights to the farmer or his animals.
Intertwining more conventional ways of farming rather than traditional. There are several
areas of the facility: the shop, the office, two massive coolers, a smoking room, a butchering
room, a pen out back for animals awaiting slaughter but all of the actual killing and breaking
down takes place in one large high-ceilinged room (Foer153). Mario is the owner of Paradise
Locker Meats both Foer and Mario are introduced by the cofounder of Heritage Foods Patrick
Martins. Mario has me put on a white paper suit and hat before passing through the swinging
doors (Foer 153). Holding up a thick hand toward the far corner of the kill floor, he begins to
explain their chosen methods (Foer 153). The chosen methods Mario discusses with Foer
throughout the chapter are the matter that pigs are properly or in accordance with the law
humanly electrically shocked before they are massacred. Again, your consumption is on the
line and to have any other animal be stun gunned before being decapitated sounds to raise plenty
of inhumane red flags. The guy over there is bringing a hog in, and hes going to use a
shocker [a stun gun that renders animals unconscious quickly] once theyre shocked, we pull
em up on the winch and bleed em once, a pig is considered out of the assembly line it is newly

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seen in retrospect as no longer a living thing but rather as an object. What our goal is, what we
have to do under the Humane [Methods of Slaughter] Act, is that the animal has to go down and
it cant be blinking. It has to be put out of commission. (Foer 153). What does the future of
modern farming mean to you? I do not wish for my food at the dinner table to taunt me with
envisioning how it was butchered unconscious and once severed to be considered nonexistent!
Although these pigs are no longer in a farm style setting they are lured into as if they were still in
one. The pigs are herded from semi-outdoor pens in the rear into a rubber-lined chute that opens
into the kill floor (Foer154). As soon as a pig is inside, a door drops behind so the waiting pigs
wont see what is going on. This makes sense not only from the humane perspective but from an
efficiency one the pig will feel afraid if not become dangerous to deal with (Foer 154). As a
consumers perspective the state in which the pig feels overall affects the quality of the pork.
If your food is what really matters and the thoughts about these pigs facing through
hardships are all you can think about. Well then why do these corporations concur with your
feelings and ideas? Bacon is an overwhelming leader customer favorite it is advertised in every
fast food restaurant out there! Your food deserves to be important as well your future well-being.
If your pork or pig is being treated unfairly and unjust then your bacon will not taste genuinely
delicious. These corporations destroy great tasting food by harming you the consumer and the
artistry of traditional farming. These farmers in the documentary King Corn faced losing their
crop harvest after preparing all winter and spring finally arrives to have their crops labeled as
perishable and inedible, sold out by the government corporations. What option was there
else for them to face?
As for faulty regulation for the consumption of these pigs a blocked line of sight prevents
the USDA inspector, Doc, from being able to see the slaughter (Foer 155). This seems

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problematic, as it is his responsibility to inspect the living animal for any illnesses or defects that
would make it unsuitable for human consumption (Foer 155). Also, if you happen to be a pig, it
is his job to ensure that slaughter is humane (Foer 155).Could you believe your food is not
satisfactory regulated that the inspector from the USDA does not even check to see the
potential high risk factors that you may need feel are indeed to be hugely important? Why dont
you reconsider what could be at stake? According to Dave Carney, former USDA inspector and
chairman of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, The way plants are
physically laid out, meat inspection is way down the line. In other words meat supervision does
not even come in second place it is moved to the side until it has its turn, being the last item
checked. A lot of times, inspectors cant even see the slaughter area from their stations. Its
virtually impossible for them to monitor the slaughter area when they are trying to detect
diseases and abnormalities in the carcasses that are whizzing by. (Foer 155) Is it really worth
this type of scrutiny in regards to your benefit as a consumer? An inspector in Indiana echoed
this: We arent in a position to see whats going on. In a lot of plants, the slaughter area is
walled off from the rest of the kill floor. Yes, we should be monitoring slaughter. But how can
you monitor something like that if youre not allowed to leave your station to see whats going
on? Is an inspector not an official employed to ensure that official regulation are obeyed,
especially in public services? And if so these are only a few things that they are upper handedly
neglecting.
In conclusion when Foer last asked Doc about his job his reply was quite the opposite of
melancholy. For years he has scrutinized the guts and organs of the Paradise line. I asked him
how many times hes found something suspicious and had to stop things. He removed his
goggles, told me, Never, and put them back on. In other words these authorized members have

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been at this routine for years and they wont stop at this point, but it sounds maniacal to hear
someone say these words without remorse or emotion, restrain of any kind for these animals. You
are the better consumer and think about whats truly most beneficial for you.

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Works Cited
Foer, Jonathan Safran. Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown, 2009. Print.
Singer, Peter. Bauer, Holly. Food Matters: A Bedford Spotlight Reader.