ENGLISH B50
WHEN IS FOOD A SOCIAL ISSUE
YOUR EXPERIENCES
• What do you typically eat for breakfast? Lunch?
Dinner? Take a minute and jot down a typical daily
menu. If your typical menu includes particulars (maybe
your breakfast sandwich has to come from Burger King,
or your favorite type of cereal is Corn Flakes), mention
those, too.
• Now turn and share with a partner. How does their
menu differ from yours? How is it similar? Discuss.
• Are there any potential problems you see arising due to
your diet? Try to think beyond the obvious here—are
there any ethical concerns? Environmental? Political?
Take a minute to jot them down.
SAMPLE MENU
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Breakfast: Orange juice, bagel or cereal with fruit
Lunch: Frozen entrée, usually some sort of pasta
Dinner: Crock pot veggie soup with garlic bread
Potential Issues:
Health?
Financial?
Environmental?
Ethical?
THE IMPACT OF FOOD
• Food has a much bigger implication in our lives than
many of us realize.
• We’ll be exploring the weight of our food choices.
What are the true consequences of our diets?
Should we change them? If so, how? These are
some of the issues we’ll be tackling in this unit.
ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS: WORKERS
RIGHTS
• Many of the foods we consume are manufactured by
companies whose business practices are unethical and
endanger their employees.
• “Like most agricultural employees, factory farm workers
struggle to avoid hazards in the workplace and to earn a living
wage. Their work is plagued by a variety of chronic health
conditions that persist long after their workday is over.
Physicians often encourage workers to leave their jobs,
however, most feel they are unqualified for other lines of work.
Motivated by the need to support their family, most workers
choose to continue working in conditions that pose serious
short-term and long-term health risks. The fact that these
workers must compromise their physical health in order to
achieve financial security is an indictment of both the
industry’s ethics and the priorities of state and federal labor
agencies” (Food Is Power).
ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS: TREATMENT
OF ANIMALS
• Whether we choose to consume animals products or
not, the ethical treatment of farmed animals is still an
area of concern for many.
• “At 14-16 months old, the 1,200 pound cattle are
rounded up and transported to a slaughterhouse. . . The
process of transporting cattle from a feedlot to a
slaughterhouse is extremely stressful. Like all animals,
cattle have an innate fear of unfamiliar surroundings.
Current laws allow transporters to travel up to 28
consecutive hours without a rest period. . . During this
time, the animals are deprived of food and water, and
vomiting and diarrhea are common due to hours of
vibration and maneuvering” (Food is Power).
ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS: EQUITY OF
RESOURCES
• Food shortages, even in the United States, are
common, and still much of the food we produce is
wasted.
• “An estimated 50 million
Americans do not have
Access to enough food”
(epa.gov).
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS
• Many of our farming practices pollute our air and water.
• “Many of the agricultural chemicals approved by the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contain
ingredients that are known carcinogens, while others
cause severe allergies, birth defects and various health
problems. . . and animal waste itself contains residues
from the massive doses of . . . antibiotics and artificial
growth hormones that animals are routinely fed or
injected with to prevent illness and accelerate weight
gain. Ultimately, the dangerous compounds found in
agrichemicals end up as pollutants when wind and rain
disperse them into the environment” (Food is Power).
POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS
• Corporations with great economic means are essentially
paying for the right to take and/or destroy resources in
impoverished nations.
• “Water is a right and can be conserved for the benefit of
all, yet the animal agriculture industry uses and pollutes a
disproportionate share of this essential resource even
while millions of people die every year for lack of clean
water. But as scarcity increases, water’s value as an
economic commodity rises—and multinational
conglomerates are only too eager to profit from this
deteriorating situation by buying up water rights on
every continent. Like the animal agriculture industry’s
overuse of water, privatization is another major threat to
the world’s freshwater supply” (Food is Power).
HEALTH IMPLICATIONS
• As many of us know, diets that are high in
processed foods are detrimental to our health.
• “People with diets that promote inflammation -such as those high in sugar and saturated fats -- are
at increased risk for early death from all causes,
including gastrointestinal tract cancers, a new study
suggests” (US News World Report)
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
• While reading the articles in this unit, keep in mind
the implications we discussed today. Think about
your own diet, the diet of the majority of Americans,
and what we feel we should change, if anything.