Miranda 1

Pauline Anne Miranda

Professor Holly Batty

English 101

10 December 2019

“Give Us Mercy!”: The Unethical Production Of Food

Most consumption played a big part in the survival of the human race. It has been the

center of our tables during holidays ever since the early ages. And so, we cannot avoid but to

incorporate it into our daily meals. However, it is a known fact that excessive consumption of

meat can lead to health issues, and thus some people choose to be vegetarians. Of course, that

alone do not push people to be vegetarians. There are controversial issues whether being

vegetarian must be pushed in our society. But this is not the main issue that we must look into. A

bigger issue is how meat and other animal products are produced. This issue concerns animal

rights and our safety on consuming their products. Mass production of animal products can be

very ruthless and people find it extremely concerning. Although some defenders might claim that

these production processes are necessary as the demand for these products are continuously

rising, I argue that these industries are sacrificing the animals’ rights to lower their cost of

production, increase their profit, and speed up the production to meet the demand. Giving these

animals a proper way of growing and reproducing can also give consumers a healthier and safer

products. Providing the animals a “decent life” (Singer) before killing them can decrease some

health issues Americans are dealing with today.

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At almost every fast food chain and restaurant in America, chicken is always an option.

Thus, this leads to the high demand of chicken. To meet this demand, producers submit to

methods that are very violent and inconsiderate. In his article “The Ethics Of Eating,'' Peter

Singer described how chickens are bred, and that they are forced to live in small cages where

there are immense amount of their own excrement. This shows that these chickens were not

grown in a sanitary environment and that their growth was not achieved naturally. Also,

exposing chickens to this type of environment can cause them to develop bacterial diseases or

viral infection, which they can carry after their death and ultimately be passed on to consumers.

Singer also mentioned that pigs go through the same painful process of reproduction. He

stated that, “...in today’s factory farms, pregnant sows are kept in crated so narrow that they

cannot turn around… the piglets are taken from the sow as soon as possible, so that she can be

made pregnant again” (Singer). This shows that these pigs are not getting enough nutrients from

their mother before taken away from them. Insufficient nutrients from their mother will cause

them to have more fat than nutrients as they are also forced fed by factory produced food.

Eventually, Americans will consume more fat coming from these pigs, which is one of the

reasons why obesity in the U.S. has an accelerating rate.

Despite of all these facts, defenders claim that these methods are necessary to supply the

American demand. However, Peter Singer thinks that these production processes are not worth it

because, “...we have to grow food for them. The animal burn up most of that food’s energy just

to breathe and keep their bodies warm, so we end up with a small fraction...of the food value that

we feed them” (Singer). This is important because it is possible that these producers could have

produced animal products without using merciless methods while still making profit.
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Overall, the production of animal products are violating animal rights and might cause

some irreversible effect on the American health safety. Chickens are confined in very cramped

space, and forced to live around their own feces. Piglet are taken away from their mother at an

early age. They are taken away from a change to get enough nutrients. Some may say that we

cannot avoid this events as we have to feed ourselves, but there are still some ways to make it

less ruthless. This issue is important because it does not concern animals alone but also us,

humans. Animals’ well-being is as important as humans’ well-being. They are the number one

source of food, and are also part of the ecosystem. Without them, the community will fall, and

will risk the human existence.