Advocating Against The Source

            Food Inc. (2008) is a documentary film on the farm and food producing methods of the 21^st century. I had first seen this film my freshman year of college in 2010, but had not taken the time to consider the thoughts presented in the film until taking this course. The documentary displays many stories of real people who have had encounters, bad and good experiences, as well as interviews with actual farmers. The stories in the documentary include force feeding animals to mass produce product, poor care and malnutrition of farm animals, and a tragic food poisoning incident with a young toddler boy and what his family has done to fight the system. This film as directed my attention towards these topics and has motivated me to investigate them further in hopes of coming to a self-realization of caring more about what I put into my own body and what I am helping promote by purchasing certain foods and products. A synopsis of the documentary film can be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/

            The care and poor nutrition farm animals endeavor is a matter that I decided to look into further as the other stories from the documentary typically occurred from the way that the animals were fed and treated. An advocacy group has created a webpage titled stopforcefeeding.com to educate and inform the public on the serious topic of malnutrition for farm animals. Corporately ran farms force feed animals to mass produce the products they supply for fast food restaurants that in turn is fed to our families and friends and leaves a horrible imprint on our own health.

            Another major concern with force feeding animals and the stopforcefeeding.com website is the treatment of mallard ducks and the production of foie gras. The attention is on a particular Foie Gras production farm known as Hudson Valley that the previously noted advocacy website is directing their time towards. Not only do they exploit and abuse the ducks on the farm but they also have been caught with over 300 undocumented workers who actual live in labor camps there.

            After researching briefly on the topics above I have seen correlations to our course textbook when Gardner (2006) describes “changing one’s own mind” (173). By not paying attention or caring more about the purchases I make and feed my body not only put me at a higher health risk but it also promotes a farm or company that abuses animal cruelty and labor rights. Gardner speaks of interpersonal intelligence and describes this as “the part of our intellectual equipment that is engaged in understanding and motivating other people” (178). When others see us eating something they begin to think that they understand our actions and we might even influence their own decisions by witnessing what we are doing. If we take the time to research where our food is coming from and what we are putting into our bodies we have the ability to change our own mind about what we like and care about and in turn influence those around us to do the same.

Resources

Gardner, H. (2006). Changing Minds. Boston: MA., Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data.