The Not so Happy Meal

     When I was in 4th grade I loved happy meals very much. I lived for these happy meals. The food was delicious, the reason I always begged my mom to take me to McDonald's was because of the cool toys they always gave out in those bright red boxes. I've never really wondered how my food and toys where made and ready for me to at in less than five minutes. But when I watched the documentary Food Inc, the viewers where given a look on how our food is made, it showed that the people who worked at McDonald's made little money because they were only taught one skill. For example one person would cook the patties for the hamburgers and then once they were done making the hamburger, they would give it to the next person to put ketchup and all those other things that make that hamburger so good. The McDonald brothers managed to make their system function like a machine. And since they want to make burger patties quicker they have to grow the animals quicker as well too.

     Nobody ever really wonders how their food goes from one thing to another, or how many things are put into their food to make it the way it tastes. The more we watched the documentary the more I learned about it. Chickens are raised in closed off chicken houses were they never see the sunlight and can't run free. They feed chickens a lot of corn so they can grow twice the size they normally grow. Compared to the 1950s, chickens now grow really big that they can't handle their weight and have to only take a few steps and stay laying down the rest of the time.

The chickens raised in the closed of chicken houses (that rarely get cleaned) spend a lot of time laying down in their own poop, that it starts to bother their bellies, causing their feathers to fall off. The conditions these chickens live in are horrifying, and when asked if the film crew making the documentary could come inside to see it, they were denied the permission. The reason being is because these food companies don't want you to see the truth. 

Corn is a crop that is so high in demand that about 30% of the U.S's land is used to grow it. It's really surprising how many foods and things corn is made up of from ketchup,to twinkies, to even batteries! so you see because so many things have corn many large companies are paying farmers to grow a lot more than farmers really should! Especially large meat suppliers are more interested in the overproduction of corn  because it feeds their animals at very cheap price. 

 However cheap isn't always better, take cattle for example, yes they have grown used to eating corn but the downside to it is they start to form some nasty germs in their bodies that would cause them to get really sick. And when they sell the meat of the sick cow, and give to the people to eat, the same germs that were in the cow are now in the body of the person who ate it. These germs are so bad that the people who get sick from them die. There are many stories of people catching these germs called E.coli. But one story in particular stood out the most from the others because this person's family member would stop at nothing to prevent from another case of E.coli from happening.

In 2001 Kevin Kowalcyk died of hemolytic-uremic syndrome caused by eating ground beef that had E.coli. The government was very well responsible for the death of kevin because on August 1st of that year he ate the meat and on August 27th they said the meat was bad to eat and they took it back from all the fast food places and stores the meat was sold to. The government and the meat factory knew that the meat was bad but it took almost a month for them to take it all back. Since they don't want another outbreak of these horrible germs the food factories added a thing called Pink Slime. Pink slime has really harmful chemicals called ammonia and ammonia hydroxide that are used to kill any trace of E.coli within the meat. Now you know whats really in you hamburger patty. Time to learn why its just so darn cheap! Why there is a whole menu under a dollar or a dollar!

As we've all gone shopping in grocery stores with our mom's and looked at the healthy foods like carrots apples and fruits, you'll notice that its a little more expensive to buy then if you where to drive down to your local fast food place and buy a dollar hamburger of their menu. The reason why these foods are so cheap is because the things to make that burger, are the products that many farmers are overproducing. There are many people all across the world who are poor and barely have enough money to put food on the table and since they have very little money, they are forced to turn to the cheap food they sell at fast food restaurants. They spend all their money on so much food that is bad for you that they start developing a condition called obesity. Obesity is a condition that is formed when people have too much body fat because of the fatty foods that they eat. 

Many Food Factories are protected by the law so it makes it harder to have someone sue them. These laws are not in the best interest for anybodies family because if another outbreak of E.coli were to occur again, someone's family member were to get sick and die, it'd make it real difficult for the family to make the company pay for the loss of a loved one, just because the food companies decided it's better to feed cattle cheap corn. But there is a way in preventing all of this. If they just changed the way on how these animals ready to be processed are raised. Just the slightest change can make all the more differnce. For example feeding cattle grass (what they're supposed to eat) for five straight days can help reduce the amount of the E.coli germs by 80%. 

Well now you know the real truth about the not so happy meal. However it is up to you whether you want to take this information and help you to make a better change in yourself and the foods you eat, as well as a better world.