Cogs in the Great Machine

1. Cogs in the Great Machine

2. Authors Intent • Reveal the corruption in the meat packing industry • Inform readers about what animals are fed and given prior to slaughter • Illustrate how our fast food nation has changed the meat packing industry

3. Main Findings • Cows are treated inhumanely and fed unnecessary substances in meat production process • Upton Sinclair wrote “The Jungle” which exposed the corruption of the meat packing industry • Led congress to enact food safety legislation in 1906 • IBP revolution • Started using assembly line in meat production process to be more efficient • Booming packinghouses in Chicago started closing down • Companies started moving west to rural states for cheap labor

4. Important Evidence • Describes the town of Greeley: “Others cant stop thinking about the smell, even after years; it permeated everything, gives them headaches, makes them nauseous, interferes with their sleep.” • Three months prior to slaughter cows are fed grains in order to make them gain weight. Anabolic steroids are also planted in there ears. • IBP revolution gave Chicago meatpackers no choice but to move west. When the companies moved out west they followed IBP’s example. Paid very low wages.

5. Important Evidence Cont’d • IBP revolution gave Chicago meatpackers no choice but to move west. When the companies moved out west they followed IBP’s example. Towns like Greely were invaded. • IBP recruited migrant labor because they realized those people would work for lower wages and would be reluctant toward joining unions. • IBP opened a slaughterhouse in Lexington. A year later the town had the highest crime rate in the state of Nebraska. Within a decade the number of serious crimes doubled. Became the center for distribution of illegal drugs. • Under the influence of the meatpacking giants, small towns and rural areas now have their own ghettos, poverty, drug abuse, and increasing rates of crime.

6. Important Evidence Cont’d • The smell that permeates Lexington is even worse than the smell of Greely. “We have three odors,” a Lexington resident told a reporter: “burning hair and blood, that greasy smell, and the odor of rotten eggs.” • Huge amounts of manure are generated but, unlike human waste, they are not sent to treatment plants, but rather dumped into pits, huge pools of excrement called “lagoons.” • ConAgra and other companies have been convicted of price-fixing, misgrading of crops, and adding water to grain.

7. Relevancy • Places like Greeley are where the billions of hamburgers come from every year. • Monfort was purchased by ConAgra. Today, ConAgra is the largest foodservice supplier in North America. Number one producer of French fries. Sells its food to consumer brands such as Swiss Miss, Orville Redenbacher’s, Health Choice, and Hunt’s.

8. Relevancy Cont’d • Today roughtly two-thirds of the workers at the beef plant in Greely cannot speak English. Most workers are immigrants, many of them illegals, from Mexico, Central America, and Southeast Asia. Turnover rate at Greely is about 80 percent. A higher turnover rate means that the work force is harder to unionize. • In the US we rely largely on migrant industrial workforce.

9. Author Bias and Effectiveness • No opinionated phrases • Facts that illustrate corruption of meat packing companies • Overall was very effective by revealing startling facts • The evidence may cause consumers to think twice before they consume meat