If you are, as they say, what you eat, shouldn’t you know what goes into your food? Most Americans understand that there are some unhealthy and potentially toxic foods out there, but do they really know what goes on to make the foods they consume each day and how it might affect their health? How are the animals handled? In many cases, both the workers and the animals are treated without respect or dignity. The processes of most major food industries (including GMOs, mud pits and chemicals) can harm the workers, the environment, the animals…and you.

What are GMOs? GMOs are chemicals that are more drought and disease resistant, yielding a larger crop and a cheaper price at the stores. Industrial food processes cause a lot of pollution in today’s world! The pollution causes coral reefs to get bleached (damaged), and by 2100 scientists estimate that most coral reefs will be completely destroyed. Farming contributes to the air and soil pollution. The ground gets all dried up and robbed of its minerals, so when a windy day happens, all the dust goes into the air. Farming can also lead to erosion and plants suck all the minerals out of the ground. Some farmers use pesticides and when the wind picks up, it carries it to other pieces of land. The pesticide kills many plants and animals. We all need food, but can’t we harm the environment less? Companies and consumers could argue that without the major amounts of food more people would starve, but we as a nation waste a lot of food. In the olden days, most farms were family owned. There are some true farms left, but most of today’s “farms” are actually feed lots and single crop megafarms controlled by the food industry factories. There is also a great demand for quantity not quality.

What goes on behind the scenes in the way your food is made can make you and the farm workers producing our food ill. Once farmers sign a contract, they must do everything that the company says and buy new equipment, otherwise their contract gets terminated. The average farmer goes into over $500,000 of debt.

The conditions in which most livestock live could be classified as animal abuse. The 8th amendment to the Bill of Rights states that there may not be any “cruel and unusual punishments” when a person is being sentenced. Why does it apply just to the people? Most chickens are fed chemicals that make them fatter, so fat that some of the chickens’ respiratory systems fail and they die. The chickens that die this way are almost always thrown out. In the middle of the night, some workers come and grab the chickens to get them slaughtered. The chickens sometimes never see light because they are stuffed into dark rooms from the time they hatch to the time they die. Cows have similar conditions as chickens. The cows are normally put in mud pits and fattened up so much that some cows die from the use of chemicals. Cows and chickens are fed corn instead of grass and grains, and this messes with their digestive systems. Over time, the use of the GMO corn has created an ultra-powerful strain of E. coli which is very toxic to humans. Corn is also in almost every product around you because it is so cheap.

What is really in that hamburger and chicken nuggets you had for lunch? From 1982-2002, 350 outbreaks of E. coli in 49 states occurred and 8,598 cases were reported. E. coli can be spread from animals to people because of poor conditions and undercooking of the meat. If meat is cooked properly, the E. coli dies and it is safe to eat.