Food Inc. Reflection

Food Inc Reflection

After watching Food Inc, what are your impressions of how science, technology, and society are interrelated?  

Now I know that much of our society relies on engineering from scientists. Also we rely greatly as society on technology to eliminate dirty work or make our lives in general more pleasant for us. If scientists hadn’t genetically engineered chickens to make them grow faster, be larger and have larger chicken breasts, maybe the Chicken McNugget would not exist or would be expensive.

How did the film describe science & technology as a positive or negative impact on society or the environment?  

The film showed science and technology in both a negative light5. However, it focused less on the good side, because when you are presented with the positive facts of science and technology, it is easy to figure out why it is good. For example, when you learn that chickens have steroids in their diet to make them grow faster, it is easy to figure out that growing faster results in more chickens flowing in/out of the feedlots at a higher rate, which means more efficiency and cheaper, more easily available chickens.

How do our consumer choices affect what is out on the market and therefore, our own survival?  

When we buy something at a supermarket, what we purchase is saved in a database.  The database is later analyzed to see what is purchased most frequently so they can stock more of it, and what is purchased the least, so they can stop stocking it. When you stop buying milk from cows with steroids, the store will have less incentive to keep stocking it. If it stops stocking it or decreases how much it stocks, the farmer making the milk will make less or switch to a different type of food (e.g. milk from cows without steroids), because he sees he is not selling the milk from the cows with steroids.

How are we as humans connected to how the Earth is used?  

Whatever we consume has to come directly or indirectly from the earth. When you eat a carrot cake, there is a carrot in there that comes from the earth. Even totally artificial foods are made from things from the earth. When we eat things that are made in a sustainable way, then the way they were made is not harming the environment, and that is good. However, when we eat something that relies on nonreliable resources or was produced in a non-sustainable way, then

it harms the environment, which is bad.

A few ideas that popped up in conversation throughout the movie were:  

When do we say no to more high tech devices and go back to what caused the problem in the first place?  Why are we only into the "HOW" and not the "WHY?"

Sometimes it is easier to eliminate the effect of the problem than to eliminate the cause. If you take cold medicine that eliminates your symptoms, it doesn’t completely heal you, but it does make your cold go away for a while. In a similar way, it is easier to irradiate meat to kill germs than to implement a massive change in the way we grow and slaughter meat, because the massive change requires revamping farms and slaughterhouses, while irradiation is only another step in the manufacturing process. In that way, we are addressing the “How?”, and not the “Why?”, mainly because it is easier to address. However, sometimes if you cannot completely or effectively address the “How?”, you should address the “Why?” instead of trying complicated and ineffective solutions for “How?”. I disagree with the question here, because it suggests that addressing the “Why?”  is better to do than addressing the “How?”, yet that is not always the case.

What is the difference between natural farming and industrial farming?  Which is better?  Are they both necessary?  

Natural farming is the kind of farming that is usually small-scale, and doesn’t use growth hormones. The animals in a natural farm are usually fed the foods that that their bodies are meant to be fed and that they can digest. Industrial farming is focused more on speed of growth and quantity. Because of that, they use growth hormones and steroids to make the animals on an industrial farm grow faster. There is no easy way to define the “better” of the two, because they both have their advantages and disadvantages. Natural farming is safer and more natural, yet it is more expensive and produces less food. Industrial farming is less safe and has a slightly higher risk of disease in the food, but has a high output and is the more viable and cost effective way of feeding many people for a low price. Both are necessary, because in some situations (in a fancy, expensive restaurant), more expensive, higher quality food is needed, but in other situations, (a fast food restaurant), lower quality, cheaper food is needed. If the whole world used natural farming, food would be much more expensive, and I doubt that it would be possible to produce the amount of food that we need using natural farming.

If technology and industry have improved so much that we are getting faster, fatter, bigger, and cheaper, how are science and technology involved in our survival? 

Without the technologies that enable us to make plants and animals “faster, fatter, bigger and cheaper”, producing enough food for the entire world would be nearly impossible. With these technologies, we can grow more food in the same time and space than using traditional farming methods. Without the technologies, sustaining all 6.8 billion people in the world would be mighty difficult.

What economic costs, environmental costs, ethical costs, health costs, and cultural costs did you observe while watching the film?  

With the abundance and extremely low price of fast food, it is a quick and easy option for a meal. However, fast food contains a lot of sugar, salt, fats and other things that are not good in excessive quantities for the human body. Because fast food is so appealing, ubiquitous and cheap, people consume it often, and that causes people to get fat and be negatively affected in terms of health. In America, heart disease is the number one killer of people every year. A large cause of heart disease, but not the only one, is eating fast food. If there were no fast food in the world, many million people fewer would not die.