Awes Gorges

English 9th
6th Hour
May 12th, 2017
The Horrors Of The Food Industry

In the past, the food industry was completely unsanitary and disgusting. Thanks to
publications that were written about the food industry, improvements have been made. Such
books include The Jungle and Fast Food Nation. The Jungle was published in February 26,
1906, by Upton Sinclair, while Fast Food Nation was published in January 17, 2001, by Eric
Schlosser. Both excerpts share the similar goal of trying to reach out to the public about how
gruesome and unsafe the meatpacking industry was and how it still sort-of is. Before either of
these publications were written, the nation was almost completely unaware of the awful state of
the food they were consuming.
The Jungles main focus was to reveal the horrific truth about the meat-packaging
industry. Upton Sinclair clearly states it as stupefying, brutalizing work. Sinclair also describes
how foul the process of packaging and preparing the meat truly was, ... rats were nuisances, and
the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and
meat would go into the hoppers together. Reports like this are what made the public really open
their eyes and see the disgusting truth about how their food is really handled. As The Jungle got
more popular, people started referring investigative writers who uncovered the dark side of
society as muckrakers, such as Upton Sinclair. Also, thanks to The Jungle, President Roosevelt
called the conditions revealed in the special commission's report "revolting." This led to new
federal food safety laws to be put in order. An example of one of these laws include is the Meat
Inspection Act of 1906. This act authorized inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture
to stop any bad or mislabeled meat from entering interstate and foreign commerce.
On the other hand, Fast Food Nations main focus was to show how dangerous and
unsafe certain jobs are, specifically those that are within a slaughterhouse. Today some plants
slaughter up to 400 cattle an hour-about half a dozen animals every minute, sent down a single
production line, carved by workers desperate not to fall behind. Schlosser did an outstanding
job describing how cruel and difficult it is to work in such conditions, as you just read. However,
unlike The Jungle, Fast Food Nation did not really change people's views on the matter as much.
Eric Schlosser even reflected on his work and its effect on the nation, but was left very
disappointed. According to him, The annual revenues of Americas fast-food industry, adjusted
for inflation, have risen by about 20 percent since 2001. Yet through all this, Schlosser still stays
optimistic that this epidemic can still be resolved eventually. Despite what was just mentioned,
there has been an increase in movements against fast food, thanks to Fast Food Nation. Likewise,
parents are now trying to kick junk food out of their school's lunch, and it discussed more often
in mainstream media.
Many advancements have been made in the past century for the food industry. However,
if it werent for Upton Sinclair and Eric Schlosser, its doubtful that any of those improvements
would have been introduced. There is still much more to be done in the future to further diminish
this problem. But thanks to The Jungle and Fast Food Nation, our nation has a strong foundation
to build off of.