AlterNet / By Arun Gupta
comments_imageCOMMENTS: 237

Gonzo Gastronomy: How the Food Industry Has Made Bacon a Weapon of Mass Destruction

The confluence of factory farming, the boom in fast food and manipulation of consumer taste created processed foods that can hook us like drugs.
July 23, 2009  |  
 
 
 
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Among my fondest childhood memories is savoring a strip of perfectly cooked bacon that had just been dragged through a puddle of maple syrup. It was an illicit pleasure; varnishing the fatty, salty, smoky bacon with sweet arboreal sap felt taboo. How could such simple ingredients produce such riotous flavors?

That was then. Today, you don't need to tax yourself applying syrup to bacon -- McDonald's does it for you with the McGriddle. It conveniently takes an egg, American cheese and pork and nestles it between pancakelike biscuits suffused with genuine fake-maple-syrup flavor.

The McGriddle is just one moment in an era of extreme food combinations -- a moment in which bacon plays a starring role, from high cuisine to low.

There is: bacon ice cream; bacon-infused vodka; deep-fried bacon; chocolate-dipped bacon; bacon-wrapped hot dogs filled with cheese (which are fried, then battered and fried again); brioche bread pudding smothered in bacon sauce; hard-boiled eggs coated in mayonnaise encased in bacon -- called, appropriately, the "heart attack snack"; bacon salt; bacon doughnuts, cupcakes and cookies; bacon mints; "baconnaise," which Jon Stewart described as "for people who want to get heart disease but [are] too lazy to actually make bacon"; Wendy's "Baconnator" -- six strips of bacon mounded atop a half-pound cheeseburger -- which sold 25 million in its first eight weeks; and the outlandish bacon explosion -- a barbecued meat brick composed of 2 pounds of bacon wrapped around 2 pounds of sausage.

It's easy to dismiss this gonzo gastronomy as typical American excess best followed with a Lipitor chaser. Behind the proliferation of bacon offerings, however, is a confluence of government policy, factory farming, the boom in fast food and manipulation of consumer taste that has turned bacon into a weapon of mass destruction.  

While bacon's harmful effects were once limited to individual consumers, its production in vast porcine cities has become an environmental disaster. The system of industrialized hog (and beef and poultry) farming that has developed over the last 40 years turns out to be ideal for breeding novel strains of deadly pathogens, such as the current pandemic of swine flu. If a new killer virus appears, like the Spanish flu that killed tens of millions after World War I, factory farms will have played a central role in its genesis. 

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) churn out cheap, but flavorless, meat. However, for the CAFOs to exist there must be demand for the product. That's where the industrial food sector comes in. Chains like McDonald's, Chili's, Taco Bell, Applebee's and Pizza Hut approach the tasteless, limp factory beef, pork and chicken as a blank canvas with which to create highly enticing, even addictive, foods by pumping it full of fat, salt, sugar and chemical flavorings.

The chains lard on bacon in particular as a high-profit method of adding an item that has a "high flavor profile," a "one-of-a-kind product that has no taste substitute." According to David Kessler, author of The End of Overeating, a standard joke in the restaurant chain industry goes, "When in doubt, throw cheese and bacon on it."

More than that, notes Kessler, the food industry uses science and marketing to try to make its products addictive. By manipulating what he calls the "three points of the compass" -- fat, sugar and salt -- the food industry creates highly processed foods that can hook us like drugs. In various countries and regions, the levels of fat, sugar and salt are even calibrated to different "bliss points" to maximize the consumers' pleasure.

Kessler talks to one scientist who studied lab mice that were willing to work nearly as hard to get doses of Ensure, a drink high in fat and sugar, as they were to get hits of cocaine. One food company executive calls his industry "the manipulator of the consumers' minds and desires."

In essence, the food industry has hit on a magic formula: Companies conjure up endless variations on the McGriddle that itself is the mass-produced version of the maple-syrup-soaked bacon strip from our childhoods. 

This points to why our food system is so entrenched and why noble experiments, from food co-ops and community-supported agriculture to organic food and the locavore movement, are fleas on the industrial food elephant.  

The crisis of factory farming has thus become its own solution. We know our food system is killing the planet, killing us with heart disease, diabetes and cancer and threatens to incubate a deadly global pandemic, but how can we resist when it tastes oh so good? 


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Arun Gupta is a founding editor of The Indypendent newspaper. He is writing a book on the decline of American empire for Haymarket Books.
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Just remember, it is the WAY it is produced, not the product.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: pfgetty on Jul 23, 2009 3:08 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Bacon, and all meat, CAN be responsibly produced. Bacon of some sort has been eaten since man has been man..............wild hogs have been hunted and captured, their meat cooked, for tens of thousands of years, far longer than the cooking of wheat or rice. And bacon IS responsibly produced today, if you can find somebody doing it and selling it in your area.

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» Meat is OK, CAFOs are not Posted by: eksommer
» RE: Meat is OK, CAFOs are not Posted by: Amy27605
» Damn, make me feel like an a-hole Posted by: raiders757

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Incompatible all blood types
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Carts on Jul 23, 2009 3:38 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Pig meat is not suitable for any blood type including meat reliant "O" blood

see www.dadamo.com

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» Blood type diet is bunkum. Posted by: Biflspud

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DON'T ASK DON'T TELL
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Posted by: grmartin on Jul 23, 2009 4:07 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In the old days we could see where our food came from, often from our own back 40, or that of the neighbours. Not always pretty, but at least the facts were known. Now it comes from huge and complicated santanic systems and industrial sites well out of view. The final product is designed and packaged to conceal any connection to its source and processing. The whole system depends on us not knowing, and not wanting to know, the nasty facts. Mainstream media is of course a pillar of the conspiracy. Enjoy that Baconator!

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» RE: DON'T ASK DON'T TELL Posted by: Fat Man at the Buffet Line

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I'm glad
[Report this comment]
Posted by: SocoLoco on Jul 23, 2009 4:17 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Alternet has put this issue on the front page where it belongs.

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» Arun Gupta Posted by: Moore Hognutz

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PETA
[Report this comment]
Posted by: richholland on Jul 23, 2009 4:41 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
loves to save fury animals.
hogs and cockroaches belong in the Senate.

A wild pig in the woods and a meat and fat creature in the factory are like virgins and hookers.

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real farmer
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Posted by: jrgjniew on Jul 23, 2009 4:53 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is the most outrageous distortion of facts I have ever seen. I will not waste my time arguing every point. Likely the only truthful statements were the first ones about enjoying bacon and maple syrup. From then on, it is mostly slanderous distortions of history, facts and truth. It is so bad, that I was surprised at the end, we did not find that "thou shall not eat bacon or any meat or animal product from modern farms" was the eleventh commandment----but my guess is the author just has not read that far into the bible to realize there were ten to start with.

Please, I accept a healthy debate about modern agriculture, but this does not warrant even this short response. I would have to write an entire article. ...off to check the pigs.....if the equipment worked correctly..they have already been fed!

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» RE: real farmer Posted by: December5
» Your comment had no meat to it. Posted by: KeepsonTickn
» RE: real farmer Posted by: Moore Hognutz
» RE: real farmer Posted by: Gravity Dancer
» The classic Posted by: Joshua Holland
» RE: real farmer Posted by: soulrebeljc
» disclaimer Posted by: soulrebeljc
» RE: Could you at least argue ONE point? Posted by: ShrubtheWarcriminal
» RE: real farmer Posted by: leftneck
» RE: real farmer Posted by: RuthDBWalker
» on biblical dogma... Posted by: soulrebeljc
» RE: on biblical dogma... Posted by: donl51

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RED MEAT TROLL
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Klaus on Jul 23, 2009 5:09 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Oh my GOD!!! They are not attacking Bacon also!!! I just got done crying about the milk article yesterday (still haven’t been able to poop from all the cheese I ate out of anger; very constipated)!!! I am going to lose my job trying to keyboard combat the Food Nazi’s exposing the truth about my diet!!! I would much rather bury my head in some blood pudding!!! (Mmmmmmmmm blood pudding) Well I will show you Food Nazi’s. I am going to fry up a pound of bacon and eat the whole thing. Take that! Anybody have any Tums?

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» Thanks! Posted by: Joshua Holland
» Then explain to me Posted by: TennMom
» clarifying - my comment Posted by: Shey
» RE: D MEAT TROLL Posted by: ObamaISAmerica
» Your Idea is a fine idea Posted by: donl51
» Thank you!!!! But seriously..... Posted by: ObamaISAmerica

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Here we go loopy de loopy~~AGAIN
[Report this comment]
Posted by: AMERICAN VETERAN on Jul 23, 2009 5:20 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
alterFLAKY is at it AGAIN.
These imbeciles would have us all not drinking water, breathing air, eating ANYTHING, etc~~ad infinitum.

I eat what I enjoy eating and am in good health at 70 Y/O.
I eat raw ground round, rare steaks, pork chops which are NOT burned to a crisp, drink milk, love lamb chops and enjoy ice cream.
Fuck these food nazis.
They've lived on vegetables for so long that that they've BECOME vegetated.

I cannot wait till they start in about my oatmeal and the abuse of oat plants.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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» Here's a better thought Posted by: Shey
» RE: You're completely missing the point. Posted by: AMERICAN VETERAN
» RE: Here we go loopy de loopy~~AGAIN Posted by: Joshua Holland
» MY kinda man!! Posted by: donl51
» RE: MY kinda man!! Posted by: AMERICAN VETERAN
» RE: MY kinda man!! Posted by: donl51
» its not about being a food nazi Posted by: ObamaISAmerica

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Schadenfreude
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Posted by: rds2301 on Jul 23, 2009 5:37 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Philosopher and sociologist Theodor Adorno defined schadenfreude as “largely unanticipated delight in the suffering of another (sentient creature) which is cognized as trivial and/or appropriate.

So if you wanted to enhance your experience of schadenfreude Zoos are great but you can really enhance your viewing pleasure by convincing humans to eat cheap meat from animals (also sentient creatures) tortured in a factory farm.
Don’t get me wrong while I eat a plant-based diet, I don’t have a problem with you eating animals.. As long as you kill it and dismember it yourself.
We don’t eat our dogs and cats so why do we ignore the hypocrisy and let others torture lambs, chickens, cows and possibly the smartest of all farm animals the pig so we can get a hamburger, bacon and chicken nuggets for a dollar.

Abrogating responsibility because someone else tortures and kills is no excuse for our appetite for meat which according to the editors of World Watch “the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future — deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities and the spread of disease.” Lee Hall, the legal director for Friends of Animals, is more succinct: “Behind virtually every great environmental complaint there’s milk and meat.”

Looking for evil in the world, don’t bother with Washington go to Arkansas, known as the Rockefeller state and home of Wal-Mart and Tyson Chicken.

Authors page for Robert Singer

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» RE: Schadenfreude Posted by: teel

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Tastebuds
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Posted by: LeaderofMen on Jul 23, 2009 6:18 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Once again, it's all about consumer knowledge.

The fact of the matter is that the taste of bacon, just like sugar, has a receptor on the human tongue. Properly cured bacon is heaven.

And that's where consumer knowledge steps in. The food industry analysts know that people who love bacon, sugar and other foods/drinks that can hurt and kill you, are like the Republican base in the US. Most are stupid, medicated, alcoholic, and undereducated. Thus, these marketers entice them with the worst things possible to get you to BUY THEM. The name of the game is MARKETING. The food industry knows that the least knowledgeable consumers are the most easily enticed with crap.

That goes for marketing cars, umbrellas, etc. Anything that has a marketer behind it has a stupid consumer ready to buy it.

In all actuality, bacon in small quantities is perfectly okay to eat. Sugar in *small* quantities is perfectly okay to consume. Etc. Etc.

Moderation for the things that will kill you is what the consumer needs.

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» Good post ..'leaderofmen ' Posted by: donl51
» RE: Tastebuds Posted by: maglindracia

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pork,a bad thing?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: colinsyme on Jul 23, 2009 6:22 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
l grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood and mainly because l ate in Jewish housholds and my mother went to great lengths to ensure that she served up Kosher foods to my Jewish friends l never ate bacon until l was much older. The truth is l hated the taste of it and never ate pork again.

Was l deprived? am l depriving myself of a wonderful food? well l don't think so, l am living proof that a diet without pork does one no harm at all.

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» And you point is??? Posted by: donl51

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By keeping the populace hooked to the wrong foods with dangerous chemicals that alter their brains,
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Lex Thomas on Jul 23, 2009 6:31 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the elites can continue to laugh their ways to the bank. Without the food industries for the past 50 years, Wall Street wouldn't be thriving but we would enjoy more local food production and not be the gluttons most of us are today.

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» I know Few Gluttons Posted by: Gravitas
» RE: I know Few Gluttons Posted by: JenniferBedingfield
» RE: I know Few Gluttons Posted by: Shey

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Meat for the Masses
[Report this comment]
Posted by: maxfrisson on Jul 23, 2009 6:34 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Like Henry Ford made the auto available to the masses through efficient manufacturing so the pioneers of factory farming made pork, beef, chicken and catfish cheap and available. As auto makers had to improve processes so will farmers.
The relative cost of beef to personal income has fallen dramatically since 1950s. The vast majority of citizens are happy with the system and really don't give a damned about how happy a life a pig or a chicken lives before in hits the table. I grew up in rural Virginia, we slaughtered a couple of hogs a year and chickens every week. I used to love chicken night because it was my job to catch and kill. Cook scalded and plucked. We gigged frogs for fresh frog legs, caught bass from our pond. We have a couple acres planted each year in various veggies and several types of berries, some apples and persimmons. It took 150 acres and a staff of 3 or 4 plus family and we still bought groceries at A&P weekly.
Today I get everything at the market, I can eat frog legs year round, fried chicken isn't an all day affair and my veggie variety isn't seasonal. It's all much better now and the small complaints are easy to correct.
Do you want $25 a pound beef? bacon you can only afford as a rare treat?

FYI - the obesity "crisis" is so much pig shit! In 1998 at the urging of WHO the standard for what defined overweight was changed so that over night 50 million Americans went from normal to fat.

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» RE: Meat for the Masses Posted by: dogtor

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Let's not forget how SODIUM NITRATE has made it possible to ...
[Report this comment]
Posted by: TarryFaster on Jul 23, 2009 6:36 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
keep bacon (along with a LOT of other foods) on the shelves a lot longer than they should be.

ALSO, here is a quote that should set you up --

"If you're aiming for a raging case of cancer, the first thing you've got to do is start consuming food ingredients that actually promote cancer. One of the most powerful cancer-promoting food ingredients of all is called sodium nitrate."

http://www.naturalnews.com/002079.html

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Bad food article week at Alternet
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Posted by: kungfoofighterx on Jul 23, 2009 6:41 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is the second main story in a row dealing with food. I did like the bacon hand grenades. They are cleaver. This article is about the hazards of factory farms. They must publish these article to anger people so alternet can sell more adds.

I recommend to everyone that they stop by a state or region fair and see the hogs that are as big as small cars. ~1000lbs. It is truly amazing what one can do with quantitative genetics. I bet they get a lot more than bacon from those lean beasts.

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» RE: Bad food article week at Alternet Posted by: Fat Man at the Buffet Line

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I DON'T CARE!!!! Bacon is the most delicious food on the planet
[Report this comment]
Posted by: olderworker on Jul 23, 2009 6:57 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
And it livens up disgusting-tasting vegetables, such as brussels sprouts. So I will continue to eat it. Thank you for your tolerance.

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FYI vegans and vegetarians, factory farming is a problem for you too!!!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Quist on Jul 23, 2009 6:59 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
From the heading of the article...

"The confluence of factory farming, the boom in fast food and manipulation of consumer taste created processed foods that can hook us like drugs."

Factory farming is in EVERY aspect of our diets; including soy, wheat, rice, tea, spice, fruit, vegetable, and nut farming and production.

I have grown weary of vegan extremists always trying to demonstate that THEIR lifestyle is environmentally friendly and healthy while ignoring the facts that their lifestyle can also be environmentally destructive, unhealthy, and unsustainable. BTW, I am sure these pompous and hypocritical individuals all grow their own food organically while taking into consideration all the environmental issues of their choices. Oh wait...that would be, for the most part, FALSE.

I know many omnivores who are more aware of where their food comes from, are healthier, have a strong grasp of nutrition and health, and are more conscious of their diets than many vegetarians and vegans.

So to all you militant and extreme vegans and vegetarians, CHILL.

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Ironic
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Denver Dem on Jul 23, 2009 7:02 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I like how this story is accompanied by an advertisement for A1 Steak Sauce.

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» RE: Ironic Posted by: popeurbanxxiii
» RE: Ironic Posted by: Joshua Holland
» RE: Ironic Posted by: AMERICAN VETERAN

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Bacon
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Posted by: aazippo5 on Jul 23, 2009 7:11 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Dude, bacon is just SO good! I love bacon but oNLY if it is crispy!

RT
Ultimate Anonymity

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» RE: Bacon Posted by: simulacra

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environmental reasons to go veg
[Report this comment]
Posted by: vasumurti on Jul 23, 2009 7:12 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The following quotes, facts, figures and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:

"A reduction in beef and other meat consumption is the most potent single act you can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our natural resources. Our choices do matter: What's healthiest for each of us personally is also healthiest for the life support system of our precious, but wounded planet."

---John Robbins, author, Diet for a New America, and President, EarthSave Foundation

One study puts animal waste in the United States to between 2.4 trillion to 3.9 trillion pounds per year. The United states produces 15,000 pounds of manure per person. This is 130 times the amount of waste produced by the entire human population of the United States.

A 1,000-cow dairy can produce approximately 120,000 pounds of waste per day. This is the functional equivalent of the amount of sanitary waste produced by a city of 20,000 people.

A 20,000-chicken factory produces about 2.4 million pounds of manure a year. Poultry factories are one of the fastest growing industries throughout Asia.

One pig excretes nearly three gallons of waste per day, or 2.5 times the average human's daily total. One hog farm with 50,000 pigs in France produces more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles, and some pig farms are much larger.

Factory farm pollution is the primary source of damage to coastal waters in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Scientists report that over sixty percent of the coastal waters in the United States are moderately to severely degraded from factory farm nutrient pollution. This pollution creates oxygen-depleted dead zones, which are huge areas of ocean devoid of aquatic life.

Meat production causes deforestation, which then contributes to global warming. Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and the destruction of forests around the globe to make room for grazing cattle furthers the greenhouse effect. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations reports that the annual rate of tropical deforestation has increased from 9 million hectares in 1980 to 16.8 million hectares in 1990, and unfortunately, this destruction has accelerated since then. By 1994, a staggering 200 million hectares of rainforest had been destroyed in South America just for cattle.

"The impact of countless hooves and mouths over the years has done more to alter the type of vegetation and land forms of the West than all the water projects, strip mines, power plants, freeways, and sub-division developments combined."

---Philip Fradkin, in Audubon, National Audubon Society, New York

Agricultural meat production generates air pollution. As manure decomposes, it releases over 400 volatile organic compounds, many of which are extremely harmful to human health. Nitrogen, a major by-product of animal wastes, changes to ammonia as it escapes into the air, and this is a major source of acid rain. Worldwide, livestock produce over 30 million tons of ammonia. Hydrogen sulfide, another chemical released from animal waste, can cause irreversible neurological damage, even at low levels.

The World Conservation Union lists over 1,000 different fish species that are threatened or endangered. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 60 percent of the world's fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. Commercial fish populations of cod, hake, haddock, and flounder have fallen by as much as 95 percent in the north Atlantic.

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» RE: environmental reasons to go veg Posted by: wrinklemomma

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environmental reasons to go veg (cont'd)
[Report this comment]
Posted by: vasumurti on Jul 23, 2009 7:13 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The United States and Europe lose several billion tons of topsoil each year from cropland and grazing land, and 84 percent of this erosion is caused by livestock agriculture. While this soil is theoretically a renewable resource, we are losing soil at a much faster rate than we are able to replace it. It takes 100 to 500 years to produce one inch of topsoil, but due to livestock grazing and feeding, farming areas can lose up to six inches of topsoil a year.

Livestock production affects a startling 70 to 85 percent of the land area of the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union. That includes the public and private rangeland used for grazing, as well as the land used to produce the crops that feed the animals. By comparison, urbanization only affects 3 percent of the United States land area, slightly larger for the European Union and the United Kingdom. Meat production consumes the world's land resources.

Half of all fresh water worldwide is used for thirsty livestock. Producing eight ounces of beef requires an unimaginable 25,000 liters of water, or the water necessary for one pound of steak equals the water consumption of the average household for a year.

The United States government spends $10 million each year to kill an estimated 100,000 wild animals, including coyotes, foxes, bobcats, badgers, bears, and mountain lions just to placate ranchers who don't want these animals killing their livestock. The cost far outweighs the damage to livestock that these predators cause.

The Worldwatch Institute estimates one pound of steak from a steer raised in a feedlot costs: five pounds of grain, a whopping 2,500 gallons of water, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about 34 pounds of topsoil.

33 percent of our nation's raw materials and fossil fuels go into livestock destined for slaughter. In a vegan economy, only 2 percent of our resources will go to the production of food.

"It seems disingenuous for the intellectual elite of the first world to dwell on the subject of too many babies being born in the second- and third-world nations while virtually ignoring the overpopulation of cattle and the realities of a food chain that robs the poor of sustenance to feed the rich a steady diet of grain-fed meat."

---Jeremy Rifkin, author, Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, and president of the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

Lester Brown of the Overseas Development Council calculates that if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent per year, it would free at least 12 million tons of grain for human consumption--or enough to feed 60 million people.

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If you take away my bacon...
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Posted by: soulrebeljc on Jul 23, 2009 7:14 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I have nothing left. A man's bacon is his castle. Bacon, bacon, my kingdom for some bacon. Bacon is so good that other foods are wrapped in it to make them taste better. I have the highest reverence for pigs. They are the only animals that can do magic. They eat garbage and *presto* they turn it into bacon. (Jim Gaffigan does a whole segment on the wonders of bacon in his newest release King Baby.) I love bacon so much that given the opportunity I actually would marry it.

P.S. If you take away bacon, I will become a lifeless and joyless soul. And then I'll start voting Republican.

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» RE: THIS is an editor's pick?! Posted by: ShrubtheWarcriminal
» RE: THIS is an editor's pick?! Posted by: soulrebeljc

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gimmie shelter
[Report this comment]
Posted by: gimmie shelter on Jul 23, 2009 7:34 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If anyone thinks that what was written in this article is false please have the guts to watch a 90 minute video called "Earthlings", which is free to watch, just Google it. Next try reading "Fast Food Nation", your stomach will turn.

What you see or what you will read is not the farming of animals but rather the manufacturing of and then the disposal of animals.

I dare you to watch all of "Earthlings", and than make a comment.

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» RE: gimmie shelter Posted by: soulrebeljc
» RE: gimmie shelter Posted by: gimmie shelter
» OK, I watched it Posted by: AdamG
» RE: OK, I watched it Posted by: gimmie shelter

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Food for thought
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Posted by: mooresart on Jul 23, 2009 7:36 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
According to the Gospel of Thomas (a gnostic) it's not what you put into your mouth that kills you; it's what comes out of it which I take to mean judgmental words, angry words, etc., etc. I can't afford meat so have stopped buying it and eating it except on occasion (ham and eggs on my once-a-month Sunday breakfast out) and have felt no adverse affects at all. I'm also learning to curb my tongue.

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Anthony D'Auria
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Posted by: Tony D on Jul 23, 2009 7:38 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"We know our food system is killing the planet, killing us with heart disease, diabetes and cancer and threatens to incubate a deadly global pandemic, but how can we resist when it tastes oh so good?"

The detrimental affect of food on our health in a country where we have fairly good control of bacterial and parasitic organisms has been over estimated.

The diseases mentioned, diabetes, heart disease and cancer will some day be found to be caused by susceptibility to certain viruses. The food we ingest in a sanitary environment like that found in this country is hardly something to scare the hell out of people.

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» RE: Anthony D'Auria Posted by: gimmie shelter

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Greasy Gut Syndrome America's biggest killer
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Posted by: azelb on Jul 23, 2009 8:51 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The coating of the upper intestine with grease has three consequences:
1. It prevents absorption of protein and other large molecule substances
2. It clogs the pancreas and bile ducts thus preventing thier functioning
3. It provides a breeding ground for bacteria including disease germs
This is the largest cause of disease in our country.

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Not Relevant But I HATE Bacon
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Posted by: Gravitas on Jul 23, 2009 9:38 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is not the most relevant comment but I HATE bacon. Have always hated it and resented having to eat it on Sundays when my grandmother made it. Never ate it as an adult. Don't even like soy bacon. Won't eat anything with bacon in it. I also don't like pork in general. I guess I was just born out of step with everyone else.

What disturbs me most in the article is the loss of family farms. That the population is getting heart disease does not alarm me. I don't think it is just caused by bad food, but at any rate I am not sure heart disease is such a terrible thing. The world is too populated and we can reduce population by people exiting at a reasonable time at the end of their lives as well as thru family planning. Not that anyone should be forced to. With food, they know the risks and if they eat it anyway that is their choice. There should be no health crusades trying to save us from ourselves. Pollution is a different story, because those who do want to maximize longevity can choose only organic, but it is much harder to breath selectively.

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animal lib
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Posted by: vasumurti on Jul 23, 2009 10:23 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Keith Akers writes in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983):

"Livestock agriculture is far less efficient in its use of land resources than plant food agriculture. This is one of the oldest arguments in favor of vegetarianism. It played a role in Plato's Republic. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley invoked the argument in his discussions of 'natural diet.' Mikkel Hindhede used the argument to help persuade Denmark to adopt a lacto-vegetarian diet when Denmark was blockaded by the Allies as a result of World War I. 'If Central Europe had adopted a similar diet,' he said, alluding to the disastrous German agricultural policies which emphasized meat production, 'I doubt that anyone would have starved.'"

In her 1971 bestseller, Diet for a Small Planet, author Frances Moore Lappe pointed out that it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. Most of the arable land in this country is used to grow feed for animals. Mathematics professor Dr. Richard Schwartz, author of Judaism and Vegetarianism, writes about the "insanity" of animal agriculture.

In his book Consuming Passions, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes:

"The case for vegetarianism is at its strongest when we see it as a moral protest against our use of animals as mere things, to be exploited for our convenience in whatever way makes them most cheaply available to us. Only the tiniest fraction of the tens of billions of farm animals slaughtered for food each year--the figure for the United States alone is nine billion--were treated during their lives in ways that respected their interests. Questions about the wrongness of killing in itself are not relevant to the moral issue of eating meat or eggs from factory-farmed animals, as most people in developed countries do.

"Even when animals are roaming freely over large areas, as sheep and cattle do in Australia, operations like hot-iron branding, castration, and dehorning are carried out without any regard for the animals' capacity to suffer. The same is true of handling and transport prior to slaughter. In the light of these facts, the issue to focus on is not whether there are some circumstances in which it could be right to eat meat, but on what we can do to avoid contributing to this immense amount of animal suffering.

"The answer is to boycott all meat and eggs produced by large-scale commercial methods of animal production, and encourage others to do the same. Consideration for the interests of animals alone is enough justification for this response, but the case is further strengthened by the environmental problems that the meat industry causes...

"Environmentalists are increasingly recognizing that the choice of what we eat is an environmental issue. Animals raised in sheds or on feedlots eat grains or soybeans...To convert eight or nine kilos of grain protein into a single kilo of animal protein wastes land, energy, and water. On a crowded planet with a growing human population, that is a luxury that we are becoming increasingly unable to afford.

"Intensive animal production is a heavy user of fossil fuels and a major source of pollution of both air and water. It releases large quantities of methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We are risking unpredictable changes to the climate of our planet...for the sake of more hamburgers. A diet heavy in animal products, catered to by intensive animal production, is a disaster for animals, the environment, and the health of those who eat it."

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» RE: animal lib Posted by: PillarKY
» vegetarianism shrinks you brain Posted by: maxfrisson
» RE: vegetarianism shrinks you brain Posted by: gimmie shelter

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"real farmer" take two
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Posted by: PillarKY on Jul 23, 2009 10:46 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
this is a great article, well researched and well laid out. it is a good look at corporate "farming" and the general effect that the industrial model (aka, capitalism) has had on the food system and food culture.

the only thing missing is the expose of the alternative models, which the author alludes to by dwarfing them next to the industrial models. and he's right, they are dwarfs compared to CAFO's.

but, it remains to be said that right alongside all the collapsing elements of our economy and culture, small, localized, and "sustainable" farms are one of the few things growing. the number of small farms is growing, the number of small farmers is growing, the age dynamics in agriculture is shifting...in short, something IS afoot. it hasn't reached many of the stats yet, but there is a strong and steady movement towards a sane food system.

to me, the old debates of eat this vs. don't eat this (meat vs. no meat, gluten vs. no gluten, milk vs. no milk, etc, etc, etc) are flawed. the new debate is: how was this food, regardless of what it is, produced? from what soil did it come from, and how is that soil's fertility managed? how are the animals and plants of that farm treated, and with what measures do we determine plant and animal health?

if we can't answer these very simple questions about any of our food, then how do we know where we are headed?

lastly, before we all start applauding our purchases of local or sustainable meat, allow me to say something. i've been trying to make it as a small farmer for some time now, and the line we keep hearing is that pastured poultry, pigs, or beef is the sure way to get a steady paycheck. we are lured by pretty pictures of animals on pasture, getting a fresh salad every day. what we don't see is the undeniable reality that to "make it" as a farmer who produces meat, you have to send animals to slaughter every week. and there is no way around it, that is a lot of death. i don't care how good it is for the farm economy, we should all limit our meat consumption. slaughter is harsh, to say the least, and too much meat is consumed, and produced, even inside the localvore/sustainable movements.

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» RE: "real farmer" take two Posted by: fazedandcontused
» RE: "real farmer" take two Posted by: maglindracia

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Creationist article.
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Posted by: ABetterFuture on Jul 23, 2009 10:54 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The system of industrialized hog (and beef and poultry) farming that has developed over the last 40 years turns out to be ideal for breeding novel strains of deadly pathogens, such as the current pandemic of swine flu.

Bullspit. Organic bullspit, even.

There are some valid reasons to oppose genetically bottlenecking the animals we depend on for food. Making things up doesn't help your cause of limiting or ameliorating that potential eventuality.

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Had to stop reading this article
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Posted by: bettyn on Jul 23, 2009 11:11 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I was getting chest pains just looking at it.

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» LOL! ROTFLMAO! Posted by: GuitarBill

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GOOD NEWS from yer western, liberal friend!
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Posted by: blurider on Jul 23, 2009 11:52 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
More accurate information and more solutions - less indictment is needed here!

Not an article about diet??

Didn't you catch the sly reference to the Lipitor chaser? Or notice the bacon wrapped hand-grenade, graphic? Most of the dietary references pertained to 'fast' and processed foods but all the same made pigs appear to be 'the enemy'.

If the author had been content with his revelations (nothing new but certainly true) about factory farming I'd rank the article B++ but when it comes to diet he's a real wimp and a lightweight!

First, the latest science reveals that fat does not make you fat! Starches (metabolized as sugar) and sugar make you fat. Sugar and cheap, processed carbohydrates are responsible for our nation's obesity epedemic. The 'coincidence' of a diabetes ebedemic alongside our obesity epedemic is no coincidence at all! Much like the 'coincidence' of overweight and diabetes in individuals.

A reasonable amount of animal fat in the diet along with plenty of 'healthy' fats (unsaturated - high density lipids) are necessary to good health, hair, skin and joint function.

The latest science about heart disease suggests that animal fat doesn't cause cholesterol and cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease either! See 'balance' above. Trans fats are also a serious problem - just one more harmful, processed, manufactured, food-like substance!

Protein is necessary for muscle mass and muscle mass increases the metabolism levels so with enough muscle mass you are losing weight while you sleep or watch TV. Loss of muscle mass is one of the biggest problems of aging and age related injury and disease.

The environmantal damage caused by veggies raised in the winter months in tropical climes is just as great, just as 'bad' as the factory farm pollution - it just isn't as concentrated and doesn't stink like shit!

The outcries of the veggie/vegan/peta crowd shouldn't be allowed to silence the sane voices for health and balance nor to prevent Gupta or another Alternet author from writing a balanced, truly helpful - truly healthful - article about how we might improve our world and our individual health with a locally grown, omniverous diet which includes a variety of naturally, humanely raised meats.

More accurate information and more solutions - less indictment is needed here!

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ANYONE NOTICE THE 'PORCINE IRONY' OF THE J D'S BACON SALT AD?...
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Posted by: blurider on Jul 23, 2009 1:43 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...posted in the left hand column? Says it makes everything taste like ..... wait for it .....


BACON!!

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Food for Thought
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Posted by: stellabloo on Jul 23, 2009 2:08 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Yes, factory farming is unsustainable. Yes, everything you see advertised on television is garbage. Yes, cancer rates are reaching epidemic proportions - but even an exclusively organic diet won't save your blood from testing positive for an entire slew of ubiquitous and carcinogenic man-made chemicals. In fact, nothing is as simple as it seems - for example, the assertion that CAFOs led to the "Swine Flu Pandemic".

Yes, CAFOs are fertile ground for transmission of infectious disease. It was actually an attempt to factory farm elk - normally a wild animal - that led to disastrous mutation of ovine Scrapies aka CJD aka Mad Cow Disease into Chronic Wasting Disease - currently ravaging elk and deer across North America. Confirmed cases of prion disease in humans have tripled in North America in the last 10 years, but that - is not news. Never you mind.

Back to the Swine Flu (which, of course, has some other politically correct name by now). The funny thing about swine flu is that it doesn't behave like other flus. It isn't particular dangerous to caucasians, for example, but is currently wreaking havoc on First Nations reserves.

First Nations call for State of Emergency.

Then there's that other thing about the flu selectively targeting the under-50 crowd, as opposed to most flus which only kill off the very young and the very old.

Oddly enough, one of Bush's final acts of indignity, er, office, last October was a meeting " with GlaxoSmithKline CEO Jean-Pierre Garnier and CEOs of other vaccine manufacturers to review ways in which the industry can support the US Government in its plans to respond to potential global flu pandemic.
 ".

The first case of swine flu appeared last April. GSK, coincidentally, had just invested $2 billion in upgrading its research and production facilities. Well, their investment will pay off handsomely this fall as we all stampede to get our flu shot. How prescient and sensible of Bush - as opposed to his notable habit of ignoring expert advice in most other areas such as, say, emergency preparedness for hurricane season or concerns over impending hijacking attempts.

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» RE: Food for Thought Posted by: mrogs

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Turkey for me Turkey for you.
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Posted by: kib on Jul 23, 2009 3:02 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I have become a fan of turkey bacon, it has less fat, it's a bit dry at times but low fat maple syrup helps out. lean mean

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Wow, there's a lot of venom in the comments
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Posted by: Alenna on Jul 23, 2009 4:44 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
from people who've obviously not even bothered to read the article.

The author doesn't tell anybody what to eat or not to eat. He/She is pointing out that the BigFood industries are creating processed foods using our sense of taste and desires for fat, sugar and salt - and especially the "taste" of bacon. Much of what is in processed foods is not the real thing, but chemically created to taste like it.

Then the second part goes into the environmental and potential heath problems caused by factory farming. Does anybody really think factory farms create good healthy food? Most of it is about production and profit for the companies. The environment can go to hell. Add chemicals to extend the food's shelf life. Add chemicals, sugar, fat, and salt because the food they are producing is tasteless, bland and even unhealthy. Add antibiotics to keep the animals from getting sick in confinement. Is this really what people want their food to be?

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rgd
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Posted by: rgd on Jul 23, 2009 6:22 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
My micro professor talked about the Indians--OOPS, Native Americans, particularly the Plains Native Americans who consisted mainly on the Bison. They ate the whole thing. This professor pointed out the vitamins and minerals each organ and parts of the Bison held. The Plains Native American recieved a balanced diet from the Buffalo as there was not a whole lot of greens to eat. (The Buffalo ate all the greens) I am also aware that the Bison was grass fed and healthier than their feed-lot cousins.
From an environmental standpoint, there was an estimated 60 million Bison prior to the Anglo-American arrival. How much methane gas do 60 million grass-fed Bison produce? What did this do to the health and well-being of the Native American population not to mention the ozone and the climate. Did the Anglo-American help save the environment by slaughtering the ozone destroying Bison? Stay tuned for the next info-packed, spine-tingling article from the writers at Alternet.

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The Wisdom of Pulp Fiction
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Posted by: doctorsquared on Jul 23, 2009 8:45 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Vincent Vega: Bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste good.

Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfuckers. Pigs sleep and root in shit. That's a filthy animal. I ain't eating nothing that ain't got sense enough to disregard his own feces.

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» You like raddishes? Posted by: donl51
» RE: The Wisdom of Pulp Fiction Posted by: cowboyup1876

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Those grenade pictures are about the grossest thing I've ever seen. (n/t)
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Posted by: clresu on Jul 23, 2009 9:01 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
.

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blare premire
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Posted by: itouch backup on Jul 24, 2009 1:26 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

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Pandemic lie
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Posted by: uncleeddie on Jul 24, 2009 12:56 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This author has a lot of balls insinuating that deadly pandemics are the result of farming. Like hoof and mouth disease released by a lab and the fact that the 1918 real and 1967 so called pandemics started on military bases where forced inoculations are a fact of life. No need to look at farming practices as the culprit since the real villain wears a lab coat. I am not worried as much of animals being packed into cages, as vile as that is, as I am of Baxter mistakenly mixing normal H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 deadly virus possibly starting a world wide pandemic. The latest so called swine flu although a dud by most standards contains bird, swine and human components that make the chances that it is natural highly unlikely. Some attempt was made to blame a pig farm but inconvenient facts quickly snuffed that story out. Of course a good percentage of Americans still believe Saddam was behind 9-11 and had weapons of mass destruction so don't be surprised to see guys like Gupta get lots of media attention falsely proposing animal farms are the source of virus outbreaks.

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government is not our friend
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Posted by: local food on Jul 24, 2009 5:08 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
once again, food is a bi-partisan issue.

get the government out of agriculture and many of these egregious economic, environmental, and health troubles would pass away...

but conservatives just want to hate Alternet, even when Alternet agrees with them...

read Joel Salatin, go to his website...

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gimmie shelter
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Posted by: gimmie shelter on Jul 25, 2009 5:25 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Hey Local Food are you dreaming? Like getting government out of anything helped, remember Wall Street. Break up the power of the corporations and then things would get better. While we do need smaller government that is only after they do their jobs again and by enforcing the rules and laws.

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SORRY, gimmie but getting government INTO agriculture had the same effect as DEREGULATING WALL ST.
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Posted by: blurider on Jul 26, 2009 3:12 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Especially inviting them into regulation of the organic market!

I take your point about Wall St. but ten years ago 'Organic' farming was a good thing, the standards of which simply needed more teeth - MORE TRUTH in advertising. Clearly, a few years later the involvement of Uncle - the REGULATION - has had the same effect as DEREG did in the banking industry - putting THE FOX in charge of the hen house!

I suspect that's because of the incestuous relationship which already existed between government agencies and big, mega Ag! Today, numerous artisanal, organic farmers find themselves actually handicapped by the involvement of the Dept of Agriculture and the scales tipped in favor of huge, so-called-organic growers - even Chinese - about whom we know nothing except that they have the USDA's stamp of approval. Meanwhile their methods seem much less 'caring' or careful, more like the 'factory' model and their compliance with organic standards more technical, while less 'heartfelt'.

It seems likely that the close relationship the government always had with big Ag just led to them discovering one more niche market, one more profit center for the big boys, already in bed with government and benefitting from the arrangement.

Sometimes government is amazingly flexible - if they can't screw us one way, they'll find another!

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Don Quixote
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Posted by: Don Quixot on Jul 27, 2009 3:26 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The future of mankind if vegetarianism. If we all became vegetarians, this would help a lot of environmental problems. It takes ten times more surface to produce a ton of animal protein than vegetable protein, which does not contain hormones nor antibiotics nor toxines, which are the only things animal food has and plant food doesn't.

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La Gloria's (and Smithfield's) Mexico hog farm
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Posted by: Lea on Jul 27, 2009 1:53 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I believe there was a connection made between the swine flu outbreak this past spring and hog CAFOs, as I wrote about on EcoHearth.com. Of course, if it hadn't been for NAFTA and shipping our dirty operations where regulation is weak, this ecological and public health disaster would have been noticed earlier.

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hr
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Posted by: itouch backup on Jul 28, 2009 8:39 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

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hr
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Posted by: itouch backup on Jul 28, 2009 8:39 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

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Flawed Science=Good Scare Tactics
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Posted by: cowboyup1876 on Jul 29, 2009 9:46 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As one in the livestock veterinary business, I would like to share with the author and readers why pigs are produced in so-called "factory farms". Throughout the history of this country, pigs were raised in small herds outdoors. While this has a quaint appeal, it caused disasters throughout the country in the form of hog cholera. Whole herds would succumb to the disease in a short time, and farms needed to be quarantined, otherwise it would quickly spread to other farms. Other diseases would wreak similar effects.

Producers changed production practices to protect their pigs from disease by raising them inside and administering vaccines and antibiotics early. Unlike the claim by the author, the use of these antibiotics would limit E. coli in a herd; the disease is not caused by being raised indoors.

Instead of demonizing production practices we use to make our animals safer and healthier, you should thank you local family farmers (the vast majority of agriculture is done by farm families) for providing you with a safe, nutritious, and humanely raised food source.

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» RE: Flawed Science=Good Scare Tactics Posted by: gimmie shelter

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Zune Video Converter
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Posted by: boay on Aug 17, 2009 6:45 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Zune Video Converter is really a fantastic Zune helper, which can convert video files to Zune supported formats without bothering you.

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Alternet Comments:

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Just remember, it is the WAY it is produced, not the product.
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Posted by: pfgetty on Jul 23, 2009 3:08 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Bacon, and all meat, CAN be responsibly produced. Bacon of some sort has been eaten since man has been man..............wild hogs have been hunted and captured, their meat cooked, for tens of thousands of years, far longer than the cooking of wheat or rice. And bacon IS responsibly produced today, if you can find somebody doing it and selling it in your area.

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» Meat is OK, CAFOs are not Posted by: eksommer
» RE: Meat is OK, CAFOs are not Posted by: Amy27605
» Damn, make me feel like an a-hole Posted by: raiders757

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Incompatible all blood types
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Posted by: Carts on Jul 23, 2009 3:38 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Pig meat is not suitable for any blood type including meat reliant "O" blood

see www.dadamo.com

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» Blood type diet is bunkum. Posted by: Biflspud

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DON'T ASK DON'T TELL
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Posted by: grmartin on Jul 23, 2009 4:07 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In the old days we could see where our food came from, often from our own back 40, or that of the neighbours. Not always pretty, but at least the facts were known. Now it comes from huge and complicated santanic systems and industrial sites well out of view. The final product is designed and packaged to conceal any connection to its source and processing. The whole system depends on us not knowing, and not wanting to know, the nasty facts. Mainstream media is of course a pillar of the conspiracy. Enjoy that Baconator!

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» RE: DON'T ASK DON'T TELL Posted by: Fat Man at the Buffet Line

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I'm glad
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Posted by: SocoLoco on Jul 23, 2009 4:17 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Alternet has put this issue on the front page where it belongs.

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» Arun Gupta Posted by: Moore Hognutz

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PETA
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Posted by: richholland on Jul 23, 2009 4:41 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
loves to save fury animals.
hogs and cockroaches belong in the Senate.

A wild pig in the woods and a meat and fat creature in the factory are like virgins and hookers.

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real farmer
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Posted by: jrgjniew on Jul 23, 2009 4:53 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is the most outrageous distortion of facts I have ever seen. I will not waste my time arguing every point. Likely the only truthful statements were the first ones about enjoying bacon and maple syrup. From then on, it is mostly slanderous distortions of history, facts and truth. It is so bad, that I was surprised at the end, we did not find that "thou shall not eat bacon or any meat or animal product from modern farms" was the eleventh commandment----but my guess is the author just has not read that far into the bible to realize there were ten to start with.

Please, I accept a healthy debate about modern agriculture, but this does not warrant even this short response. I would have to write an entire article. ...off to check the pigs.....if the equipment worked correctly..they have already been fed!

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» RE: real farmer Posted by: December5
» Your comment had no meat to it. Posted by: KeepsonTickn
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» RE: real farmer Posted by: Gravity Dancer
» The classic Posted by: Joshua Holland
» RE: real farmer Posted by: soulrebeljc
» disclaimer Posted by: soulrebeljc
» RE: Could you at least argue ONE point? Posted by: ShrubtheWarcriminal
» RE: real farmer Posted by: leftneck
» RE: real farmer Posted by: RuthDBWalker
» on biblical dogma... Posted by: soulrebeljc
» RE: on biblical dogma... Posted by: donl51

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RED MEAT TROLL
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Posted by: Klaus on Jul 23, 2009 5:09 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Oh my GOD!!! They are not attacking Bacon also!!! I just got done crying about the milk article yesterday (still haven’t been able to poop from all the cheese I ate out of anger; very constipated)!!! I am going to lose my job trying to keyboard combat the Food Nazi’s exposing the truth about my diet!!! I would much rather bury my head in some blood pudding!!! (Mmmmmmmmm blood pudding) Well I will show you Food Nazi’s. I am going to fry up a pound of bacon and eat the whole thing. Take that! Anybody have any Tums?

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» Thanks! Posted by: Joshua Holland
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» clarifying - my comment Posted by: Shey
» RE: D MEAT TROLL Posted by: ObamaISAmerica
» Your Idea is a fine idea Posted by: donl51
» Thank you!!!! But seriously..... Posted by: ObamaISAmerica

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Here we go loopy de loopy~~AGAIN
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Posted by: AMERICAN VETERAN on Jul 23, 2009 5:20 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
alterFLAKY is at it AGAIN.
These imbeciles would have us all not drinking water, breathing air, eating ANYTHING, etc~~ad infinitum.

I eat what I enjoy eating and am in good health at 70 Y/O.
I eat raw ground round, rare steaks, pork chops which are NOT burned to a crisp, drink milk, love lamb chops and enjoy ice cream.
Fuck these food nazis.
They've lived on vegetables for so long that that they've BECOME vegetated.

I cannot wait till they start in about my oatmeal and the abuse of oat plants.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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» Here's a better thought Posted by: Shey
» RE: You're completely missing the point. Posted by: AMERICAN VETERAN
» RE: Here we go loopy de loopy~~AGAIN Posted by: Joshua Holland
» MY kinda man!! Posted by: donl51
» RE: MY kinda man!! Posted by: AMERICAN VETERAN
» RE: MY kinda man!! Posted by: donl51
» its not about being a food nazi Posted by: ObamaISAmerica

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Schadenfreude
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Posted by: rds2301 on Jul 23, 2009 5:37 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Philosopher and sociologist Theodor Adorno defined schadenfreude as “largely unanticipated delight in the suffering of another (sentient creature) which is cognized as trivial and/or appropriate.

So if you wanted to enhance your experience of schadenfreude Zoos are great but you can really enhance your viewing pleasure by convincing humans to eat cheap meat from animals (also sentient creatures) tortured in a factory farm.
Don’t get me wrong while I eat a plant-based diet, I don’t have a problem with you eating animals.. As long as you kill it and dismember it yourself.
We don’t eat our dogs and cats so why do we ignore the hypocrisy and let others torture lambs, chickens, cows and possibly the smartest of all farm animals the pig so we can get a hamburger, bacon and chicken nuggets for a dollar.

Abrogating responsibility because someone else tortures and kills is no excuse for our appetite for meat which according to the editors of World Watch “the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future — deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities and the spread of disease.” Lee Hall, the legal director for Friends of Animals, is more succinct: “Behind virtually every great environmental complaint there’s milk and meat.”

Looking for evil in the world, don’t bother with Washington go to Arkansas, known as the Rockefeller state and home of Wal-Mart and Tyson Chicken.

Authors page for Robert Singer

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» RE: Schadenfreude Posted by: teel

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Tastebuds
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Posted by: LeaderofMen on Jul 23, 2009 6:18 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Once again, it's all about consumer knowledge.

The fact of the matter is that the taste of bacon, just like sugar, has a receptor on the human tongue. Properly cured bacon is heaven.

And that's where consumer knowledge steps in. The food industry analysts know that people who love bacon, sugar and other foods/drinks that can hurt and kill you, are like the Republican base in the US. Most are stupid, medicated, alcoholic, and undereducated. Thus, these marketers entice them with the worst things possible to get you to BUY THEM. The name of the game is MARKETING. The food industry knows that the least knowledgeable consumers are the most easily enticed with crap.

That goes for marketing cars, umbrellas, etc. Anything that has a marketer behind it has a stupid consumer ready to buy it.

In all actuality, bacon in small quantities is perfectly okay to eat. Sugar in *small* quantities is perfectly okay to consume. Etc. Etc.

Moderation for the things that will kill you is what the consumer needs.

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» Good post ..'leaderofmen ' Posted by: donl51
» RE: Tastebuds Posted by: maglindracia

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pork,a bad thing?
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Posted by: colinsyme on Jul 23, 2009 6:22 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
l grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood and mainly because l ate in Jewish housholds and my mother went to great lengths to ensure that she served up Kosher foods to my Jewish friends l never ate bacon until l was much older. The truth is l hated the taste of it and never ate pork again.

Was l deprived? am l depriving myself of a wonderful food? well l don't think so, l am living proof that a diet without pork does one no harm at all.

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» And you point is??? Posted by: donl51

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By keeping the populace hooked to the wrong foods with dangerous chemicals that alter their brains,
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Lex Thomas on Jul 23, 2009 6:31 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the elites can continue to laugh their ways to the bank. Without the food industries for the past 50 years, Wall Street wouldn't be thriving but we would enjoy more local food production and not be the gluttons most of us are today.

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» I know Few Gluttons Posted by: Gravitas
» RE: I know Few Gluttons Posted by: JenniferBedingfield
» RE: I know Few Gluttons Posted by: Shey

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Meat for the Masses
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Posted by: maxfrisson on Jul 23, 2009 6:34 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Like Henry Ford made the auto available to the masses through efficient manufacturing so the pioneers of factory farming made pork, beef, chicken and catfish cheap and available. As auto makers had to improve processes so will farmers.
The relative cost of beef to personal income has fallen dramatically since 1950s. The vast majority of citizens are happy with the system and really don't give a damned about how happy a life a pig or a chicken lives before in hits the table. I grew up in rural Virginia, we slaughtered a couple of hogs a year and chickens every week. I used to love chicken night because it was my job to catch and kill. Cook scalded and plucked. We gigged frogs for fresh frog legs, caught bass from our pond. We have a couple acres planted each year in various veggies and several types of berries, some apples and persimmons. It took 150 acres and a staff of 3 or 4 plus family and we still bought groceries at A&P weekly.
Today I get everything at the market, I can eat frog legs year round, fried chicken isn't an all day affair and my veggie variety isn't seasonal. It's all much better now and the small complaints are easy to correct.
Do you want $25 a pound beef? bacon you can only afford as a rare treat?

FYI - the obesity "crisis" is so much pig shit! In 1998 at the urging of WHO the standard for what defined overweight was changed so that over night 50 million Americans went from normal to fat.

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» RE: Meat for the Masses Posted by: dogtor

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Let's not forget how SODIUM NITRATE has made it possible to ...
[Report this comment]
Posted by: TarryFaster on Jul 23, 2009 6:36 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
keep bacon (along with a LOT of other foods) on the shelves a lot longer than they should be.

ALSO, here is a quote that should set you up --

"If you're aiming for a raging case of cancer, the first thing you've got to do is start consuming food ingredients that actually promote cancer. One of the most powerful cancer-promoting food ingredients of all is called sodium nitrate."

http://www.naturalnews.com/002079.html

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Bad food article week at Alternet
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Posted by: kungfoofighterx on Jul 23, 2009 6:41 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is the second main story in a row dealing with food. I did like the bacon hand grenades. They are cleaver. This article is about the hazards of factory farms. They must publish these article to anger people so alternet can sell more adds.

I recommend to everyone that they stop by a state or region fair and see the hogs that are as big as small cars. ~1000lbs. It is truly amazing what one can do with quantitative genetics. I bet they get a lot more than bacon from those lean beasts.

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» RE: Bad food article week at Alternet Posted by: Fat Man at the Buffet Line

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I DON'T CARE!!!! Bacon is the most delicious food on the planet
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Posted by: olderworker on Jul 23, 2009 6:57 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
And it livens up disgusting-tasting vegetables, such as brussels sprouts. So I will continue to eat it. Thank you for your tolerance.

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FYI vegans and vegetarians, factory farming is a problem for you too!!!
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Posted by: Quist on Jul 23, 2009 6:59 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
From the heading of the article...

"The confluence of factory farming, the boom in fast food and manipulation of consumer taste created processed foods that can hook us like drugs."

Factory farming is in EVERY aspect of our diets; including soy, wheat, rice, tea, spice, fruit, vegetable, and nut farming and production.

I have grown weary of vegan extremists always trying to demonstate that THEIR lifestyle is environmentally friendly and healthy while ignoring the facts that their lifestyle can also be environmentally destructive, unhealthy, and unsustainable. BTW, I am sure these pompous and hypocritical individuals all grow their own food organically while taking into consideration all the environmental issues of their choices. Oh wait...that would be, for the most part, FALSE.

I know many omnivores who are more aware of where their food comes from, are healthier, have a strong grasp of nutrition and health, and are more conscious of their diets than many vegetarians and vegans.

So to all you militant and extreme vegans and vegetarians, CHILL.

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Ironic
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Posted by: Denver Dem on Jul 23, 2009 7:02 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I like how this story is accompanied by an advertisement for A1 Steak Sauce.

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» RE: Ironic Posted by: popeurbanxxiii
» RE: Ironic Posted by: Joshua Holland
» RE: Ironic Posted by: AMERICAN VETERAN

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Bacon
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Posted by: aazippo5 on Jul 23, 2009 7:11 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Dude, bacon is just SO good! I love bacon but oNLY if it is crispy!

RT
Ultimate Anonymity

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» RE: Bacon Posted by: simulacra

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environmental reasons to go veg
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Posted by: vasumurti on Jul 23, 2009 7:12 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The following quotes, facts, figures and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:

"A reduction in beef and other meat consumption is the most potent single act you can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our natural resources. Our choices do matter: What's healthiest for each of us personally is also healthiest for the life support system of our precious, but wounded planet."

---John Robbins, author, Diet for a New America, and President, EarthSave Foundation

One study puts animal waste in the United States to between 2.4 trillion to 3.9 trillion pounds per year. The United states produces 15,000 pounds of manure per person. This is 130 times the amount of waste produced by the entire human population of the United States.

A 1,000-cow dairy can produce approximately 120,000 pounds of waste per day. This is the functional equivalent of the amount of sanitary waste produced by a city of 20,000 people.

A 20,000-chicken factory produces about 2.4 million pounds of manure a year. Poultry factories are one of the fastest growing industries throughout Asia.

One pig excretes nearly three gallons of waste per day, or 2.5 times the average human's daily total. One hog farm with 50,000 pigs in France produces more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles, and some pig farms are much larger.

Factory farm pollution is the primary source of damage to coastal waters in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Scientists report that over sixty percent of the coastal waters in the United States are moderately to severely degraded from factory farm nutrient pollution. This pollution creates oxygen-depleted dead zones, which are huge areas of ocean devoid of aquatic life.

Meat production causes deforestation, which then contributes to global warming. Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and the destruction of forests around the globe to make room for grazing cattle furthers the greenhouse effect. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations reports that the annual rate of tropical deforestation has increased from 9 million hectares in 1980 to 16.8 million hectares in 1990, and unfortunately, this destruction has accelerated since then. By 1994, a staggering 200 million hectares of rainforest had been destroyed in South America just for cattle.

"The impact of countless hooves and mouths over the years has done more to alter the type of vegetation and land forms of the West than all the water projects, strip mines, power plants, freeways, and sub-division developments combined."

---Philip Fradkin, in Audubon, National Audubon Society, New York

Agricultural meat production generates air pollution. As manure decomposes, it releases over 400 volatile organic compounds, many of which are extremely harmful to human health. Nitrogen, a major by-product of animal wastes, changes to ammonia as it escapes into the air, and this is a major source of acid rain. Worldwide, livestock produce over 30 million tons of ammonia. Hydrogen sulfide, another chemical released from animal waste, can cause irreversible neurological damage, even at low levels.

The World Conservation Union lists over 1,000 different fish species that are threatened or endangered. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 60 percent of the world's fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. Commercial fish populations of cod, hake, haddock, and flounder have fallen by as much as 95 percent in the north Atlantic.

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» RE: environmental reasons to go veg Posted by: wrinklemomma

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environmental reasons to go veg (cont'd)
[Report this comment]
Posted by: vasumurti on Jul 23, 2009 7:13 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The United States and Europe lose several billion tons of topsoil each year from cropland and grazing land, and 84 percent of this erosion is caused by livestock agriculture. While this soil is theoretically a renewable resource, we are losing soil at a much faster rate than we are able to replace it. It takes 100 to 500 years to produce one inch of topsoil, but due to livestock grazing and feeding, farming areas can lose up to six inches of topsoil a year.

Livestock production affects a startling 70 to 85 percent of the land area of the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union. That includes the public and private rangeland used for grazing, as well as the land used to produce the crops that feed the animals. By comparison, urbanization only affects 3 percent of the United States land area, slightly larger for the European Union and the United Kingdom. Meat production consumes the world's land resources.

Half of all fresh water worldwide is used for thirsty livestock. Producing eight ounces of beef requires an unimaginable 25,000 liters of water, or the water necessary for one pound of steak equals the water consumption of the average household for a year.

The United States government spends $10 million each year to kill an estimated 100,000 wild animals, including coyotes, foxes, bobcats, badgers, bears, and mountain lions just to placate ranchers who don't want these animals killing their livestock. The cost far outweighs the damage to livestock that these predators cause.

The Worldwatch Institute estimates one pound of steak from a steer raised in a feedlot costs: five pounds of grain, a whopping 2,500 gallons of water, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about 34 pounds of topsoil.

33 percent of our nation's raw materials and fossil fuels go into livestock destined for slaughter. In a vegan economy, only 2 percent of our resources will go to the production of food.

"It seems disingenuous for the intellectual elite of the first world to dwell on the subject of too many babies being born in the second- and third-world nations while virtually ignoring the overpopulation of cattle and the realities of a food chain that robs the poor of sustenance to feed the rich a steady diet of grain-fed meat."

---Jeremy Rifkin, author, Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, and president of the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

Lester Brown of the Overseas Development Council calculates that if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent per year, it would free at least 12 million tons of grain for human consumption--or enough to feed 60 million people.

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If you take away my bacon...
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Posted by: soulrebeljc on Jul 23, 2009 7:14 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I have nothing left. A man's bacon is his castle. Bacon, bacon, my kingdom for some bacon. Bacon is so good that other foods are wrapped in it to make them taste better. I have the highest reverence for pigs. They are the only animals that can do magic. They eat garbage and *presto* they turn it into bacon. (Jim Gaffigan does a whole segment on the wonders of bacon in his newest release King Baby.) I love bacon so much that given the opportunity I actually would marry it.

P.S. If you take away bacon, I will become a lifeless and joyless soul. And then I'll start voting Republican.

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» RE: THIS is an editor's pick?! Posted by: ShrubtheWarcriminal
» RE: THIS is an editor's pick?! Posted by: soulrebeljc

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gimmie shelter
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Posted by: gimmie shelter on Jul 23, 2009 7:34 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If anyone thinks that what was written in this article is false please have the guts to watch a 90 minute video called "Earthlings", which is free to watch, just Google it. Next try reading "Fast Food Nation", your stomach will turn.

What you see or what you will read is not the farming of animals but rather the manufacturing of and then the disposal of animals.

I dare you to watch all of "Earthlings", and than make a comment.

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» RE: gimmie shelter Posted by: soulrebeljc
» RE: gimmie shelter Posted by: gimmie shelter
» OK, I watched it Posted by: AdamG
» RE: OK, I watched it Posted by: gimmie shelter

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Food for thought
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Posted by: mooresart on Jul 23, 2009 7:36 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
According to the Gospel of Thomas (a gnostic) it's not what you put into your mouth that kills you; it's what comes out of it which I take to mean judgmental words, angry words, etc., etc. I can't afford meat so have stopped buying it and eating it except on occasion (ham and eggs on my once-a-month Sunday breakfast out) and have felt no adverse affects at all. I'm also learning to curb my tongue.

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Anthony D'Auria
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Posted by: Tony D on Jul 23, 2009 7:38 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"We know our food system is killing the planet, killing us with heart disease, diabetes and cancer and threatens to incubate a deadly global pandemic, but how can we resist when it tastes oh so good?"

The detrimental affect of food on our health in a country where we have fairly good control of bacterial and parasitic organisms has been over estimated.

The diseases mentioned, diabetes, heart disease and cancer will some day be found to be caused by susceptibility to certain viruses. The food we ingest in a sanitary environment like that found in this country is hardly something to scare the hell out of people.

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» RE: Anthony D'Auria Posted by: gimmie shelter

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Greasy Gut Syndrome America's biggest killer
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Posted by: azelb on Jul 23, 2009 8:51 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The coating of the upper intestine with grease has three consequences:
1. It prevents absorption of protein and other large molecule substances
2. It clogs the pancreas and bile ducts thus preventing thier functioning
3. It provides a breeding ground for bacteria including disease germs
This is the largest cause of disease in our country.

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Not Relevant But I HATE Bacon
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Posted by: Gravitas on Jul 23, 2009 9:38 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is not the most relevant comment but I HATE bacon. Have always hated it and resented having to eat it on Sundays when my grandmother made it. Never ate it as an adult. Don't even like soy bacon. Won't eat anything with bacon in it. I also don't like pork in general. I guess I was just born out of step with everyone else.

What disturbs me most in the article is the loss of family farms. That the population is getting heart disease does not alarm me. I don't think it is just caused by bad food, but at any rate I am not sure heart disease is such a terrible thing. The world is too populated and we can reduce population by people exiting at a reasonable time at the end of their lives as well as thru family planning. Not that anyone should be forced to. With food, they know the risks and if they eat it anyway that is their choice. There should be no health crusades trying to save us from ourselves. Pollution is a different story, because those who do want to maximize longevity can choose only organic, but it is much harder to breath selectively.

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animal lib
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Posted by: vasumurti on Jul 23, 2009 10:23 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Keith Akers writes in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983):

"Livestock agriculture is far less efficient in its use of land resources than plant food agriculture. This is one of the oldest arguments in favor of vegetarianism. It played a role in Plato's Republic. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley invoked the argument in his discussions of 'natural diet.' Mikkel Hindhede used the argument to help persuade Denmark to adopt a lacto-vegetarian diet when Denmark was blockaded by the Allies as a result of World War I. 'If Central Europe had adopted a similar diet,' he said, alluding to the disastrous German agricultural policies which emphasized meat production, 'I doubt that anyone would have starved.'"

In her 1971 bestseller, Diet for a Small Planet, author Frances Moore Lappe pointed out that it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. Most of the arable land in this country is used to grow feed for animals. Mathematics professor Dr. Richard Schwartz, author of Judaism and Vegetarianism, writes about the "insanity" of animal agriculture.

In his book Consuming Passions, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes:

"The case for vegetarianism is at its strongest when we see it as a moral protest against our use of animals as mere things, to be exploited for our convenience in whatever way makes them most cheaply available to us. Only the tiniest fraction of the tens of billions of farm animals slaughtered for food each year--the figure for the United States alone is nine billion--were treated during their lives in ways that respected their interests. Questions about the wrongness of killing in itself are not relevant to the moral issue of eating meat or eggs from factory-farmed animals, as most people in developed countries do.

"Even when animals are roaming freely over large areas, as sheep and cattle do in Australia, operations like hot-iron branding, castration, and dehorning are carried out without any regard for the animals' capacity to suffer. The same is true of handling and transport prior to slaughter. In the light of these facts, the issue to focus on is not whether there are some circumstances in which it could be right to eat meat, but on what we can do to avoid contributing to this immense amount of animal suffering.

"The answer is to boycott all meat and eggs produced by large-scale commercial methods of animal production, and encourage others to do the same. Consideration for the interests of animals alone is enough justification for this response, but the case is further strengthened by the environmental problems that the meat industry causes...

"Environmentalists are increasingly recognizing that the choice of what we eat is an environmental issue. Animals raised in sheds or on feedlots eat grains or soybeans...To convert eight or nine kilos of grain protein into a single kilo of animal protein wastes land, energy, and water. On a crowded planet with a growing human population, that is a luxury that we are becoming increasingly unable to afford.

"Intensive animal production is a heavy user of fossil fuels and a major source of pollution of both air and water. It releases large quantities of methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We are risking unpredictable changes to the climate of our planet...for the sake of more hamburgers. A diet heavy in animal products, catered to by intensive animal production, is a disaster for animals, the environment, and the health of those who eat it."

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» RE: animal lib Posted by: PillarKY
» vegetarianism shrinks you brain Posted by: maxfrisson
» RE: vegetarianism shrinks you brain Posted by: gimmie shelter

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"real farmer" take two
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Posted by: PillarKY on Jul 23, 2009 10:46 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
this is a great article, well researched and well laid out. it is a good look at corporate "farming" and the general effect that the industrial model (aka, capitalism) has had on the food system and food culture.

the only thing missing is the expose of the alternative models, which the author alludes to by dwarfing them next to the industrial models. and he's right, they are dwarfs compared to CAFO's.

but, it remains to be said that right alongside all the collapsing elements of our economy and culture, small, localized, and "sustainable" farms are one of the few things growing. the number of small farms is growing, the number of small farmers is growing, the age dynamics in agriculture is shifting...in short, something IS afoot. it hasn't reached many of the stats yet, but there is a strong and steady movement towards a sane food system.

to me, the old debates of eat this vs. don't eat this (meat vs. no meat, gluten vs. no gluten, milk vs. no milk, etc, etc, etc) are flawed. the new debate is: how was this food, regardless of what it is, produced? from what soil did it come from, and how is that soil's fertility managed? how are the animals and plants of that farm treated, and with what measures do we determine plant and animal health?

if we can't answer these very simple questions about any of our food, then how do we know where we are headed?

lastly, before we all start applauding our purchases of local or sustainable meat, allow me to say something. i've been trying to make it as a small farmer for some time now, and the line we keep hearing is that pastured poultry, pigs, or beef is the sure way to get a steady paycheck. we are lured by pretty pictures of animals on pasture, getting a fresh salad every day. what we don't see is the undeniable reality that to "make it" as a farmer who produces meat, you have to send animals to slaughter every week. and there is no way around it, that is a lot of death. i don't care how good it is for the farm economy, we should all limit our meat consumption. slaughter is harsh, to say the least, and too much meat is consumed, and produced, even inside the localvore/sustainable movements.

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» RE: "real farmer" take two Posted by: fazedandcontused
» RE: "real farmer" take two Posted by: maglindracia

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Creationist article.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: ABetterFuture on Jul 23, 2009 10:54 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The system of industrialized hog (and beef and poultry) farming that has developed over the last 40 years turns out to be ideal for breeding novel strains of deadly pathogens, such as the current pandemic of swine flu.

Bullspit. Organic bullspit, even.

There are some valid reasons to oppose genetically bottlenecking the animals we depend on for food. Making things up doesn't help your cause of limiting or ameliorating that potential eventuality.

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Had to stop reading this article
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Posted by: bettyn on Jul 23, 2009 11:11 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I was getting chest pains just looking at it.

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» LOL! ROTFLMAO! Posted by: GuitarBill

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GOOD NEWS from yer western, liberal friend!
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Posted by: blurider on Jul 23, 2009 11:52 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
More accurate information and more solutions - less indictment is needed here!

Not an article about diet??

Didn't you catch the sly reference to the Lipitor chaser? Or notice the bacon wrapped hand-grenade, graphic? Most of the dietary references pertained to 'fast' and processed foods but all the same made pigs appear to be 'the enemy'.

If the author had been content with his revelations (nothing new but certainly true) about factory farming I'd rank the article B++ but when it comes to diet he's a real wimp and a lightweight!

First, the latest science reveals that fat does not make you fat! Starches (metabolized as sugar) and sugar make you fat. Sugar and cheap, processed carbohydrates are responsible for our nation's obesity epedemic. The 'coincidence' of a diabetes ebedemic alongside our obesity epedemic is no coincidence at all! Much like the 'coincidence' of overweight and diabetes in individuals.

A reasonable amount of animal fat in the diet along with plenty of 'healthy' fats (unsaturated - high density lipids) are necessary to good health, hair, skin and joint function.

The latest science about heart disease suggests that animal fat doesn't cause cholesterol and cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease either! See 'balance' above. Trans fats are also a serious problem - just one more harmful, processed, manufactured, food-like substance!

Protein is necessary for muscle mass and muscle mass increases the metabolism levels so with enough muscle mass you are losing weight while you sleep or watch TV. Loss of muscle mass is one of the biggest problems of aging and age related injury and disease.

The environmantal damage caused by veggies raised in the winter months in tropical climes is just as great, just as 'bad' as the factory farm pollution - it just isn't as concentrated and doesn't stink like shit!

The outcries of the veggie/vegan/peta crowd shouldn't be allowed to silence the sane voices for health and balance nor to prevent Gupta or another Alternet author from writing a balanced, truly helpful - truly healthful - article about how we might improve our world and our individual health with a locally grown, omniverous diet which includes a variety of naturally, humanely raised meats.

More accurate information and more solutions - less indictment is needed here!

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ANYONE NOTICE THE 'PORCINE IRONY' OF THE J D'S BACON SALT AD?...
[Report this comment]
Posted by: blurider on Jul 23, 2009 1:43 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...posted in the left hand column? Says it makes everything taste like ..... wait for it .....


BACON!!

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Food for Thought
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Posted by: stellabloo on Jul 23, 2009 2:08 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Yes, factory farming is unsustainable. Yes, everything you see advertised on television is garbage. Yes, cancer rates are reaching epidemic proportions - but even an exclusively organic diet won't save your blood from testing positive for an entire slew of ubiquitous and carcinogenic man-made chemicals. In fact, nothing is as simple as it seems - for example, the assertion that CAFOs led to the "Swine Flu Pandemic".

Yes, CAFOs are fertile ground for transmission of infectious disease. It was actually an attempt to factory farm elk - normally a wild animal - that led to disastrous mutation of ovine Scrapies aka CJD aka Mad Cow Disease into Chronic Wasting Disease - currently ravaging elk and deer across North America. Confirmed cases of prion disease in humans have tripled in North America in the last 10 years, but that - is not news. Never you mind.

Back to the Swine Flu (which, of course, has some other politically correct name by now). The funny thing about swine flu is that it doesn't behave like other flus. It isn't particular dangerous to caucasians, for example, but is currently wreaking havoc on First Nations reserves.

First Nations call for State of Emergency.

Then there's that other thing about the flu selectively targeting the under-50 crowd, as opposed to most flus which only kill off the very young and the very old.

Oddly enough, one of Bush's final acts of indignity, er, office, last October was a meeting " with GlaxoSmithKline CEO Jean-Pierre Garnier and CEOs of other vaccine manufacturers to review ways in which the industry can support the US Government in its plans to respond to potential global flu pandemic.
 ".

The first case of swine flu appeared last April. GSK, coincidentally, had just invested $2 billion in upgrading its research and production facilities. Well, their investment will pay off handsomely this fall as we all stampede to get our flu shot. How prescient and sensible of Bush - as opposed to his notable habit of ignoring expert advice in most other areas such as, say, emergency preparedness for hurricane season or concerns over impending hijacking attempts.

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» RE: Food for Thought Posted by: mrogs

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Turkey for me Turkey for you.
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Posted by: kib on Jul 23, 2009 3:02 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I have become a fan of turkey bacon, it has less fat, it's a bit dry at times but low fat maple syrup helps out. lean mean

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Wow, there's a lot of venom in the comments
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Posted by: Alenna on Jul 23, 2009 4:44 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
from people who've obviously not even bothered to read the article.

The author doesn't tell anybody what to eat or not to eat. He/She is pointing out that the BigFood industries are creating processed foods using our sense of taste and desires for fat, sugar and salt - and especially the "taste" of bacon. Much of what is in processed foods is not the real thing, but chemically created to taste like it.

Then the second part goes into the environmental and potential heath problems caused by factory farming. Does anybody really think factory farms create good healthy food? Most of it is about production and profit for the companies. The environment can go to hell. Add chemicals to extend the food's shelf life. Add chemicals, sugar, fat, and salt because the food they are producing is tasteless, bland and even unhealthy. Add antibiotics to keep the animals from getting sick in confinement. Is this really what people want their food to be?

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rgd
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Posted by: rgd on Jul 23, 2009 6:22 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
My micro professor talked about the Indians--OOPS, Native Americans, particularly the Plains Native Americans who consisted mainly on the Bison. They ate the whole thing. This professor pointed out the vitamins and minerals each organ and parts of the Bison held. The Plains Native American recieved a balanced diet from the Buffalo as there was not a whole lot of greens to eat. (The Buffalo ate all the greens) I am also aware that the Bison was grass fed and healthier than their feed-lot cousins.
From an environmental standpoint, there was an estimated 60 million Bison prior to the Anglo-American arrival. How much methane gas do 60 million grass-fed Bison produce? What did this do to the health and well-being of the Native American population not to mention the ozone and the climate. Did the Anglo-American help save the environment by slaughtering the ozone destroying Bison? Stay tuned for the next info-packed, spine-tingling article from the writers at Alternet.

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The Wisdom of Pulp Fiction
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Posted by: doctorsquared on Jul 23, 2009 8:45 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Vincent Vega: Bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste good.

Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfuckers. Pigs sleep and root in shit. That's a filthy animal. I ain't eating nothing that ain't got sense enough to disregard his own feces.

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» You like raddishes? Posted by: donl51
» RE: The Wisdom of Pulp Fiction Posted by: cowboyup1876

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Those grenade pictures are about the grossest thing I've ever seen. (n/t)
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Posted by: clresu on Jul 23, 2009 9:01 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
.

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blare premire
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Posted by: itouch backup on Jul 24, 2009 1:26 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

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Pandemic lie
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Posted by: uncleeddie on Jul 24, 2009 12:56 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This author has a lot of balls insinuating that deadly pandemics are the result of farming. Like hoof and mouth disease released by a lab and the fact that the 1918 real and 1967 so called pandemics started on military bases where forced inoculations are a fact of life. No need to look at farming practices as the culprit since the real villain wears a lab coat. I am not worried as much of animals being packed into cages, as vile as that is, as I am of Baxter mistakenly mixing normal H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 deadly virus possibly starting a world wide pandemic. The latest so called swine flu although a dud by most standards contains bird, swine and human components that make the chances that it is natural highly unlikely. Some attempt was made to blame a pig farm but inconvenient facts quickly snuffed that story out. Of course a good percentage of Americans still believe Saddam was behind 9-11 and had weapons of mass destruction so don't be surprised to see guys like Gupta get lots of media attention falsely proposing animal farms are the source of virus outbreaks.

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government is not our friend
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Posted by: local food on Jul 24, 2009 5:08 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
once again, food is a bi-partisan issue.

get the government out of agriculture and many of these egregious economic, environmental, and health troubles would pass away...

but conservatives just want to hate Alternet, even when Alternet agrees with them...

read Joel Salatin, go to his website...

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gimmie shelter
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Posted by: gimmie shelter on Jul 25, 2009 5:25 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Hey Local Food are you dreaming? Like getting government out of anything helped, remember Wall Street. Break up the power of the corporations and then things would get better. While we do need smaller government that is only after they do their jobs again and by enforcing the rules and laws.

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SORRY, gimmie but getting government INTO agriculture had the same effect as DEREGULATING WALL ST.
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Posted by: blurider on Jul 26, 2009 3:12 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Especially inviting them into regulation of the organic market!

I take your point about Wall St. but ten years ago 'Organic' farming was a good thing, the standards of which simply needed more teeth - MORE TRUTH in advertising. Clearly, a few years later the involvement of Uncle - the REGULATION - has had the same effect as DEREG did in the banking industry - putting THE FOX in charge of the hen house!

I suspect that's because of the incestuous relationship which already existed between government agencies and big, mega Ag! Today, numerous artisanal, organic farmers find themselves actually handicapped by the involvement of the Dept of Agriculture and the scales tipped in favor of huge, so-called-organic growers - even Chinese - about whom we know nothing except that they have the USDA's stamp of approval. Meanwhile their methods seem much less 'caring' or careful, more like the 'factory' model and their compliance with organic standards more technical, while less 'heartfelt'.

It seems likely that the close relationship the government always had with big Ag just led to them discovering one more niche market, one more profit center for the big boys, already in bed with government and benefitting from the arrangement.

Sometimes government is amazingly flexible - if they can't screw us one way, they'll find another!

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Don Quixote
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Posted by: Don Quixot on Jul 27, 2009 3:26 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The future of mankind if vegetarianism. If we all became vegetarians, this would help a lot of environmental problems. It takes ten times more surface to produce a ton of animal protein than vegetable protein, which does not contain hormones nor antibiotics nor toxines, which are the only things animal food has and plant food doesn't.

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La Gloria's (and Smithfield's) Mexico hog farm
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Posted by: Lea on Jul 27, 2009 1:53 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I believe there was a connection made between the swine flu outbreak this past spring and hog CAFOs, as I wrote about on EcoHearth.com. Of course, if it hadn't been for NAFTA and shipping our dirty operations where regulation is weak, this ecological and public health disaster would have been noticed earlier.

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hr
[Report this comment]
Posted by: itouch backup on Jul 28, 2009 8:39 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

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hr
[Report this comment]
Posted by: itouch backup on Jul 28, 2009 8:39 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

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Flawed Science=Good Scare Tactics
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Posted by: cowboyup1876 on Jul 29, 2009 9:46 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As one in the livestock veterinary business, I would like to share with the author and readers why pigs are produced in so-called "factory farms". Throughout the history of this country, pigs were raised in small herds outdoors. While this has a quaint appeal, it caused disasters throughout the country in the form of hog cholera. Whole herds would succumb to the disease in a short time, and farms needed to be quarantined, otherwise it would quickly spread to other farms. Other diseases would wreak similar effects.

Producers changed production practices to protect their pigs from disease by raising them inside and administering vaccines and antibiotics early. Unlike the claim by the author, the use of these antibiotics would limit E. coli in a herd; the disease is not caused by being raised indoors.

Instead of demonizing production practices we use to make our animals safer and healthier, you should thank you local family farmers (the vast majority of agriculture is done by farm families) for providing you with a safe, nutritious, and humanely raised food source.

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» RE: Flawed Science=Good Scare Tactics Posted by: gimmie shelter

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Zune Video Converter
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Posted by: boay on Aug 17, 2009 6:45 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Zune Video Converter is really a fantastic Zune helper, which can convert video files to Zune supported formats without bothering you.

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