Moo

This is the only picture of a cow I had on my hard drive, and it's actually from something my friend Krista sent me about cows who have been abducted by aliens. (Anywhoooo....)

What it's doing on here, besides taking it's place as picture of the day because I apparently forgot to take a picture and it's a week later (zip it) is acting as the photographic representation of the documentary I watched; Food, Inc.

It was very fascinating and slightly disturbing, but not for the same reasons it probably was to most people. For me, I already knew what sort of conditions our chickens and cows were subjected to. I have read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, I know farmers, I am well versed in that whole, for lack of a better word, "situation". And I can look the other way because when push comes to shove, I like meat. I enjoy throwing a chicken breast on the grill or making some cute boy buy me an overpriced steak at The Met (and yes, The Met will always kick El Gaucho's ass).

What I was grossed out by on the documentary was the amount of additives mixed into their feed to fatten them up more and faster. It is disgusting to think that so many antibiotics are put in the chicken feed that THE FARMER is now completely immune to all antibiotics. It's horrifying to know that they are now using corn to feed farmed salmon and tilapia. And the idea of cows being ground up into hamburger with E coli-laden manure getting accidentally mixed in, E coli, which could be prevented if they were grass fed instead of corn fed? Ewwwwwww.

And then you throw in the additives to corn and soy, and to know that almost every single product in your house (not even limited to food)contains one or the other (and oftentimes, both). Ugh. As someone who is supposed to avoid corn (like most adults actually), it becomes an impossible task unless I decide to start my own farm and become completely self-sufficient. And considering my deep-seated hatred of waking up early and the fact that the smell of cow dung makes me want to vomit, that is highly unlikely.

But the thing that left the worst taste in my mouth, even after all of that, is the corporate corruption which extends all the way into the FDA, the one government entity that is supposed to care more about the people of this country than big business. It not only fails (50,000+ inspections in 1972 vs. 9,000+ in 2006) but it is in fact run by people from the big businesses (McDonald's anyone? How about Tyson? Walmart?) it is supposed to govern. It's really an outrage. This is a time to call everyone to arms and police the police. Hopefully one thing everyone in this country can agree with is providing quality, healthy food for our families.

Okay, soapbox is put away for another day. No more on this topic until the next time someone gets E coli from manure laced hamburger. I'm watching you, FDA.