revised IFS paper

The industrial food system is the system in which mass food production occurs. To understand it you have to break it down, industrial (machines) and food system. It is a food system that is operated by machines and the corporations run the machines. The truth however is the food system is simply the mass production of food in all civilizations. In many countries food production is made easy with the use of machines. These machines cause a lot of problems, manure in meat, pesticides on vegetables, and harm to workers. The machines control the entire procedure. They are oppressors on society, because of all the problems that they cause and because they give people no alternative in food. The point of the industrial food system is to make food in the most efficient way, make as much food to compile the biggest financial income. (Pollan)
All foods are processed in different ways. Most foods however originate on a farm. One of the best ways to describe the industrial food system is by giving the example of one of its most lucrative processes, meat production. Cows start out on a farm, where they are separated from their mothers at birth and their father is just a tube of seamen. For feeding purposes when they are young they drink liquids that are derived from the mothers’ blood. Once they are old enough they are taken to a feedlot where they are fed 25 pounds of genetically modified corn a day and a variety of antibiotics. They are fed antibiotics because corn is not food they are accustomed to eating, thus it is detrimental to their health. During their time at the feedlot they are living in their own feces and disease is inevitable. Once they weigh about 1300 pounds and they are dying from all the acid eating away at their stomachs and livers, they are brought to a slaughterhouse to be killed and packaged. (Pollan) After they are killed they are place on a mechanical line where their intestines are cut out and often are broken so that their feces spill all over the meat. This is just one example of cows at one slaughter house in the country. None of this would even be imaginable on a grand scale without oil.
With oil corn would not be able to be the cornerstone for the industrial system. Oil and corn are not directly connected; oil and pesticides are. And the high amounts of pesticides used on growing corn would make it simply impossible to keep up the huge amounts of corn being grown in this country. The amount of corn grown in the country is astronomical. The reason for this is the government gives money to the farmers to grow as much corn as possible and then sell it to everyone from feed lots to corporations needing corn. Then these corporations make these “junk” food products that are processed corn and sell them to supermarkets. Then at feed lots they feed the cows’ corn to fatten them up and then sell the meat to the supermarkets and fast food companies. Everyone is getting rich and the government is keeping the same guys in office because the voters all getting a cut of the money so the voters re-elect the guys in office. (Snyder) The reason this allowed to happen is because of pesticides. Without pesticides farmers would not have any corn and no corn means, no money. With people who are in this business hear no money they get angry and find dog eat dog way to make money. We live in a capitalist society and they will try to make money at any cost.