The High Price of Cheap Food

[jeffrey]

Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed in so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped off so they won't bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics. The waste produced by the pig and his thousands of pen mates on the factory farm where they live goes into manure lagoons that blanket neighboring communities with air pollution and a stomach-churning stench. He's fed on American corn that was grown with the help of government subsidies and millions of tons of chemical fertilizer. When the pig is slaughtered, at about 5 months of age, he'll become sausage or bacon that will sell cheap, feeding an American addiction to meat that has contributed to an obesity epidemic currently afflicting more than two-thirds of the population. And when the rains come, the excess fertilizer that coaxed so much corn from the ground will be washed into the Mississippi River and down into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will help kill fish for miles and miles around. That's the state of your bacon — circa 2009...

Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food - TIME

[Save Money Hound]

Thanks for the link.

We seem to be stuck in a vicious cycle which will be hard to break.
But to be sustainable into the future, something will have to change.

It's too easy these days to go the supermarket without giving any thought to what we buy.

Have a watch of the film "The Future of Food".

[cptacek]

A differing viewpoint:
The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

[kenyantykoon]

This Is Disgusting Man

[KTP]

"It seems that turkeys, at least young ones, are not smart enough to come in out of the rain, and will stand outside in a downpour, with beaks open and eyes skyward, until they drown. One night Niemann lost 4,000 turkeys to drowning, along with his dream, and his farm."

Aw come on now, is this for real? I mean I have heard of dumb animals, but that really sounds far fetched.

I am thinking about sending that one into Myth Busters.

[GREENBACK]

"It seems that turkeys, at least young ones, are not smart enough to come in out of the rain, and will stand outside in a downpour, with beaks open and eyes skyward, until they drown. One night Niemann lost 4,000 turkeys to drowning, along with his dream, and his farm."

Aw come on now, is this for real? I mean I have heard of dumb animals, but that really sounds far fetched.

I am thinking about sending that one into Myth Busters.

This isn't a myth but may be a slight exageration. Domestic turkeys are a little stupid when it comes to common sense things like this. Horses can be a little dull too. Pigs are probably the "Einsteins" of the barnyard.


When the barn catches fire you can bet the pigs are the first ones out. The horses stand around waiting on the farmer to tell them to leave. The Turkeys probably run toward it

[whitestripe]

see, now this is one of the reasons why i no longer eat meat (although i have never eaten pig in my life - can't stand the smell eugh!)

[SteveM]

"It seems that turkeys, at least young ones, are not smart enough to come in out of the rain, and will stand outside in a downpour, with beaks open and eyes skyward, until they drown. One night Niemann lost 4,000 turkeys to drowning, along with his dream, and his farm."

Aw come on now, is this for real? I mean I have heard of dumb animals, but that really sounds far fetched.

I am thinking about sending that one into Myth Busters.

You don't need the MythBusters when you have Snopes... I'm not allowed to post a link (too few posts), but a google for turkeys drowning snopes will take you there.

[cptacek]

I think you are missing the point. The point is that it costs money to build a building to house turkeys and farmers wouldn't do it just to torment turkeys, as some seem to think. They build them to protect them from predators, weather, diseases, etc.

[momula]

yuck yet interesting