P7: Food Production and History

Pollan’s “An Animal’s Place,” the introduction to Estabrook’s Tomatoland, and Cook’s “Fowl Trouble” all address the production of food in the United States. Pollan addresses the ongoing animal rights movement in our country, and examines the ethics of eating meat. He does this using various lenses- the consideration of the history of humankind’s consumption of meat, the moral standpoint of animal suffering, and a brief examination of farming practices. He comes to the conclusion that the only meat it is ethically right to eat, at least in his eyes, is that which is guaranteed to be humanely grown. What this means is meat and poultry that come from animals who were treated well during their lifespan, not trapped in tiny battery cages like industrial egg-laying chickens or forced to have their tails clipped like many pigs in these large-scale operations do. Estabrook and Cook take a somewhat different approach. Estabrook’s piece shifts to a different topic entirely- tomatoes. Although the reading was only the introduction of an entire novel dedicated to the topic, tomato growing practices and the premise of his argument are outlined well. Estabrook describes how Florida tomatoes are grown and harvested. This is relevant to any tomato-eating consumer, as a majority of the tomatoes shipped across the U.S. are from the Sunshine State. They are engineered to be perfectly round, red, and tough. But they aren’t even picked when they are ripe- instead, they are removed from the plant when still entirely green, and gassed with ethylene to force-ripen them. But what is perhaps more stomach-turning is Estabrook’s description of the people who work to harvest the tomatoes. Most of them are Hispanic immigrants who work for next to nothing in questionable conditions, living in shantytowns close to the fields. There are even people who are enslaved, held against their will and forced to work in the tomato fields, beaten if they misbehave. Cook takes an approach much like Estabrook’s, but he is addressing, like Pollan, the meat industry. Cook’s focus, though, is entirely on chicken processing plants. Similarly to the Tomatoland intro, Cook tells us about the conditions for workers in chicken plants. With a more statistical analysis, Cook illustrates the health conditions that many of these workers develops, and paints a frankly disgusting picture of what goes on in the production of one of our most popular meats. A particularly horrid detail is that heads and other inedible parts of the chicken are ground up, processed, and then fed to other chickens.

Pollan’s article comes to a mostly positive conclusion. Consuming meat is fine, as long as it was raised responsibly and humanely. The other two pieces have much more negative implications. From the descriptions of the workers in Florida’s tomato fields and the poor conditions and filth in chicken plants, a reader isn’t exactly eager to go buy tomatoes or chicken breasts. Either way, all of these readings leave me wanting to know more about the food I eat, and based off this small glimpse, I have a feeling that researching it would lead to less than pleasant findings.