after reading the Omnivores Dilemma and watching Food Inc. fully informed of everything unsaid, i was horrified. when i began reading the book i was shocked but not at all surprised at corn industry and how nearly everything Americans eat is corn. and it's all because a bunch of greedy corporate fat cats wanted to make more money that they already had. of course growing up with a very open and liberal mind in America i already knew that is how things work here and i also already had a good idea of the iron curtain covering the food industry, but i really had no idea what was behind it. i guess i knew a lot more than most people to begin with, i knew about CAFO's and hormones and antibiotics and the life of those animals, to an extent, but learning and seeing what i did in the book and movie repulsed me to the point of no return. when i was a kid at summer camp there was this cow, Daisy i named her (i know what a cliché cow name but give me a brake i was 10.) we had rescued her from a nearby farm, she was caked in feces from head to toe, and riddled with pneumonia. since cows have always been my favorite and back then i always wanted to be a Vet i would go see her every day. we couldn't clean her for a while or shed die of the cold before she even dried so we waited for her to get better. ell i waited, no one els really had hope for her but still every day id go and walk her around the grass for a bit, let her feast, and even animals need company. eventually she got better and she lived at the camp for the next 5 years i went there. Daisy is what made me stop eating meat back then, and now i cant help but wonder of maybe Daisy came from one of those CAFOs, tossed out because they had tainted her meat with sickness... but its the thought of hundreds of thousands of other Daisy's, and pigs and chicken and maybe other animals, who weren't lucky enough to get sick, that have made me once again stop eating meat.
i have no problem with eating meat, its part of nature and its quite delicious, but i do have a huge problem with the way we eat meat in america. the industrial food system that is just brutally and wrongly disgusting. Im becoming a vegetarian for me, not because i think it will help cause, but because i don't want to be a part of the gruesome food chain that is industrial agriculture, and while i know that is marginally impossible, i don't want to take part in eating the beings that suffer the most due to it.
my mother, who always tried to buy us organic food even with its costs and had tried to avoid feeding me and my sister junk food (aka corn) until it was really no longer possible, was with me on my feelings about the food industry. i asked her what she thought those cage free chickens actually did with their days. she said what most people would, and what the businesses want you to believe, all grass and sunshine. but no. i told her what they really do with their dark and crudely numbered days.
but just not eating meat and trying to avoid processed and genetically modified corn as much as possible simply isn't good enough. sure maybe your helping yourself, the the problem is still getting worse and worse. i think you teaching about this stuff, the whole normal is weird basis you your course, is one of the best steps I've seen toward change. if every teacher in america was teaching this, and every student in america really learned it, maybe it would be able to undo some of the brainwashing thats been so successfully corrupting my generation. if it was commonly taught in schools, what out government really does for us, maybe the youth wouldn't just brush you off ac crazy when you spoke of how much we needed change. maybe they would care more about getting things done and fixing out crumbling country, instead of worrying about video games and celebrities. Im hoping to be more than just radical ideas. Im hoping to make a difference, and inspire people to do the same. Im hoping to spur the rebirth of revolutionaries.
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