From watching the videos of “Meatrix” “Animal Cruelty” and more videos in class, it reminds me of one of the TV shows that I watched when I went back to China last summer. My sister and I accidentally switch to a channel about agriculture and farming, and it shows how the meat are being organized and send to the markets now a day, and how efficient those machinery has done all the work. Therefore, I was not surprised when I see how the animals are being killed now a day into meats that we buy in the supermarkets. But I do remember the first time I saw those images from the television, I totally feel disgusted about it and both me and my sister have to switch to other channels from looking at those “images” of cutting a pig from head to organs, then the feet…etc. We both think it is extremely cruel and it creates a picture of how human will look like if we would have been cut like those pigs hanging on those machinery. Perhaps the pigs are big and similar to human size that caused me and my sister to think about it, I still remember that we both screamed out the words, “EW…I WILL NOT EAT MEAT ANYMORE”. I guess that is the reaction that many people have the first time they seen it. But usually after awhile, these images would easily goes away from our mind, because we do not want to believe that is the reality.
What I do not know is how the animals are being treated in the so called “farms”. Is not like I do not know how the pigs are being squeezed into a crowded place, but I never thought of it actually affects them in a negative way. Before being exposed to these truths about animals, I thought that animals are doing okay as long as people feed them and they have a place to live. I never thought of they are being stuck into a place that they barely can move. Looking at the Meatrix videos, it caused me to realize that the animals that we are eating are actually unhealthy or sick meats. In addition to that, I noticed that the baby cows are being separated from their mom and they are fed with cow’s blood. It is extremely disgusted and cruel to the animals that they have to spend their whole life in an industrial farm. Other than the issue of animal cruelty, it also caused massive pollution and destroying community for the purpose of efficient and fast by using machinery with fossil fueled. 
After being exposed to these truth facts about the meats that I am eating, I expect myself to feel disgust about it and start avoiding meat from dinners or lunch. But it turned out that I am eating okay. I did not feel disgusted from eating meat even those videos came up to me while I am eating. I came to a reason why I turned out this way was that perhaps I has eat meat for more than 10 years, and it has been a habit like brushing my teeth as daily routine. This habit of eating meat seems to be natural to me, and I do not really have a strong feeling towards it since I have eat it for many years. In addition, I am being raised with meat in my daily life, and a sudden change is not that easy for me to adapt. More importantly, I still did not find a good reason for myself to stop eating meat as a dramatic change in my life from knowing these truths about the animals.
Lead to further thinking, I find it unbelievable that the labels on the milk carton and on the meat packages actually affect the way people look at what they eat. Such as looking at the milk that I drink at home, with a nice green pastures at a farm with cows, it actually makes me to think the milk taste fine although I know that is not how those milks are being produced. Same to the meat, I do know how they treat the animals and how meats are being cut. I still will look at the labels and think the animals are doing fine. I realized that psychologically, it is very easy for people to forget these truths behind the food that we are eating. Like the culture’s dominant food ways, what most people care is whether the food looks nice or tastes good? How many people actually thought of the truths behind the food they are eating? Or even go to the extreme, do people have the time to think about these facts even these truths are being exposed online like the ones we saw. Do people even bother to figure out where the meat on their dish came from? Which it leads to another question, do people really think about the food they are eating in this culture? I felt that in this culture, the way the food looks is more important than where the food came from.
Another thought about animal cruelty is that in spite the fact that the animals are being treated that way, (cutting off cow’s tail, being put into a crowded space…etc.) Why shouldn't we eat meat and why it matters throughout our lives? I understand that the way the animals are being treat is extremely unacceptable, but I also think that if the pig/cow is going to get killed anyway, why it matters they are being treat badly. Such as human life, when we die, what it really matters after all? Same to the animals, once it dies, and we eat it. What is it left there after all? We all know and seen that the animals are being torture in the “factory farm”, but “if” from eating those meats from sick/unhealthy animals do not affect our health, why not? This might sound very cruel, but other than feeling sympathetic for how the animals are being treated, why it matters other than the meat might not taste good or it is not healthy for us.
One reason would be not killing the animals/be a vegetarian. Like what we discussed in class before about this issue, if less people consume eating meat, then everything will get slower and the animals will not be treated cruelly because less people buy it. The reason why the animals are being treated this way is because a lot of people eat meat, and by using machinery, squeezing the animals together would help everything to get faster, therefore, the corporations could earn great profits. I also thought of pollution from looking at the videos. Since now a day what we eat is all industrially produced, it actually harms the environment. Of course, workers are not as fast as machines with fossil fueled, but this mistake has already been made. Rather than discussing does it worth it, what should we do in the long term?
Another reason to response to the question why shouldn't we eat meat would be that antibiotic are being overuse that changes the natural way that animals used to grow. In this case, natural would be how the animals use to live. Now a day, people are trying to rush the growth of animals by giving them shots and medicines to boost the speed of how animals grow. Additionally, the workers are getting injuries from fast speed of working. I think form this reason; it caused me to change a little about eating meat.
My last thought about these issues was that the animal’s size seems to matter. Compare to kill a cow and a chicken, I felt less guilty for killing a chicken than a cow/pig. I did not do further search to find out why, but I guess the size of the animals do matters in some way.
In conclusion, after watching the videos in class and online, I has chosen the second choice that we discussed in class that I will be aware of this issue, but not to make any difference. First of all, I still felt powerless to make a change, and I often felt just myself stop eating meat will not make a big difference due to the issue. Second of all, I feel like I am doing fine in these 17 years from eating meat, and perhaps it might caused some serious problem in the future, at least from now, I am doing okay with eating meat. Lastly, I do understand all these issues that we discussed in class are serious and important, but I still feel like I do not have enough knowledge or ability to lead to a further step to make a right change. Therefore, I choose to be aware of these issues, but not to make any change from my daily life.
The link above is a movie about a teacher who decides to raised a pig with his class then eat it when they graduate, which later on the class has a very powerful debate over whether to eat the pig or not, and I felt that the students have great arguments to support their sides. (It is just a trailer, not the whole movie)
A further thought on Pollan’s argument was that although America does not have a stable food culture like Italians/French does, that might not be the reason why we rely on the experts. It could be simply because of American’s healthiness such as diabetes, heart disease’s rates are extremely higher than the others, that’s why we are so concern with what we eat and rely on the experts. Is not like we wanted to, but the things that we are eating is definitely an issue that we should be aware of regarding on health.
In my family, my parents do listen to certain experts to decide what we should eat, but my daily food habits do not have a dramatic change because of what the experts said. To me, it feels like the way we eat is really depending on how our ancestors had passed down to us. We still eat rice, with side dishes of some meat, soup, and vegetables. But what my mom concerns the most is obesity/body health. She does not want us to eat more meat than vegetables, because too much meat will cause us to be fat or even overweight. Also eating food that is too sweet or salty is another thing that she concerns regarding on eating healthy. Overall, we do not really eat depending on commercials or books. Compared to my grandparents, they are the ones who absolutely ignored what the food ads told them to eat. They been farmers and they used to grow their own food, so they sort of know what to eat and have their own food habits from their own knowledge of food instead of relying on what others said. Therefore, it shows that a person’s knowledge on food definitely has to do with how they eat.
What I found out in the grocery store is that they organized the food in certain place. Such as the vegetables and fruits in a group, the grains, condiment, meat, beverages, frozen things, things in boxes. The way they "push" certain food/products to the consumers is either to put it in a place that is easily for people to see, or having a sign saying "on sale". For some food, like the vegetables and fruits, they will specially put them in a neat pile for people to choose. So the food will look nice and people will buy it. The labels on the products also matters, such as a picture of how it looks like in the box or the outcome of making the food, the ones that looks better compare to the other products will be the one that people will buy if they haven't try those food before. All these different kinds of methods that the grocery stores use often succeed in pushing the products to the customers.
