Whenever we eat meat, eggs or dairy, we tend to block out the fact that those products originate not from the bucolic, idyllic farm of Arthur Hoggs, where animals live in a harmonious environment of vast auburn and green (not to mention their ability to communicate with one another). In 99 out of 100 cases, they come from factory farms. Quite different from the farm’s depiction in Babe, animals there are being fed cocktails of growth hormones and antibiotics in tightly jammed surroundings enriched with pesticides. And these animals most certainly don’t casually chat at the feeding trough – penned up in tiny cells devoid of any sunlight, chickens on factory farms usually attack and feed on each other, which gave birth to the practices of debeaking and beak trimming.
In 2003 GRACE, a non-profit organization that aims at improving public awareness of the relationships among environment, food distribution and public health, released The Meatrix, an ecocritical spoof of the Wachowski brothers’ dystopian Matrix series.
Like Neo in Matrix, the protagonist Leo in the The Meatrix is unaware of the gruesome conditions that reign behind the façade of the reality we (want to) perceive. Both the Keanue Reeves movie and the short clip are social commentaries on how an external force (artificial intelligence and the food lobby, respectively), paired with our desire for convenience and fueled by the media, lulls us into a world of make-belief – a phantasm we want to believe in and perpetuate ourselves.
The Meatrix and its two sequels were watched over 15 million times world-wide, translated into 30 languages, and won several awards. It is an attempt to beat food lobbyists with their own weapons: catchy, entertaining propaganda. Yet there are still family-run, non-corporate businesses out there, correct?
So cute and happy, right?
Companies use the terms “local” or “family farm”, as they are conducive to an image as upright, hard-working, everyday people who care about their animals and their community. By including us, the customers, within the realm of their family, they portray themselves as “the good guys” and distinguish themselves from the anonymous, big corporations. They put the faces of smiling animals on their packagings. Sometimes it’s just about putting the right soundtrack to the wrong pictures. Evil in the midst of us? That’s impossible. Those are the good guys!
Now that’s what I call a family farm
But what is worse? The lie we tell ourselves our food comes from, or the lie we tell ourselves that we can’t do anything about it? And what can we do about it?
Gene Baur, who runs Farm Sanctuary, an animal protection organization housing more
than a thousand animals once destined to land on our dinner plates, commented on alternative lifestyles: “Instead of telling it like it is, we’re learning to present things in a more moderate way,” Mr. Baur said. “When it comes to this vegan ideal, that’s an aspiration. Would I love everyone to be vegan? Yes. But we want to be respectful and not judgmental.”
That is where a more practicable, enjoyable (because let’s be honest, meat tastes delicious), and less extreme approach than veganism comes in, reminiscent of the one Foer advocates: moderation, and the willingness to find out what is an affordable, healthy option for you. Even if you don’t care about animal cruelty, even if you don’t care about the ecological effects of factory farms, hell, even if you don’t care about the impact of GM food on local economies in African countries – you do care about yourself, right? Being aware of the origin of your food and the related health issues that come with that are purely egoistic concerns. That does not mean that one needs to renounce eating meat altogether or buy the most expensive grass-fed beef available. But one should ask the question: can that chicken for two dollars a pound from Walmart really be beneficial to my health? So the next time you decide to go to your favorite fast food joint, you don’t need to think about those chickens. Just think about yourself and take the red pill, as much as the truth may hurt.
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Which one are you going to take?
Morality and Politics 
I really enjoyed your post and I had never heard of the “Meatrix” before this, thank you for including it in the blog for this class. I think its a clever spoof and I am glad that it was well received by audiences around the world. I am a vegan. I have personal reasons and they are mainly centered around my personal health versus some political agenda. I do however hang out with the radical vegans in the phoenix area, they are die hard vegans and I’m sure they have heard of this video. I hang out with radicals all the time, even though I am not, anymore.
I do break the diet on occasion for holiday occasions or for vacation (trying the famous foods of other cities). I do so without guilt because I don’t view vegan-ism as something dogmatic. It is a personal choice based on my physical health and it is my own personal way of contributing less to the death machine. I do not like the death machine but my sociological analysis has told me that there is no way to enjoy it, and meat will always be eaten.
Vegan-ism cannot truly be adaptive because babies need milk to grow. It will never be adaptive it will always be a life style not a universal thought.
I respect meat eaters and animals have the right to be eaten. I do find it unethical that they would poison the meat supply for the sake of profit, but at the same time. I am not at all surprised. I believe that the most ethical thing to go would be to properly inform the public of what is in their food. How can people truly accept it?
Amazing what a little research can do when you become aware of a problem.
As a kid I always knew what I was eating when I ate meat: Animals! I never actually put the two together though. Those pretty animals at the farm weren’t really on my plate…
Fast forward to teen years and my dad decides to tell me what a hot dog is. I never ate hot dogs again. Of course I refused to give up beef.
Fast forward again to my college years and my sociology teacher shows a documentary called Food Inc. Needless to say I gave up meat. My reasons weren’t just they horrible way animals were treated (tortured would actually be a better word here) but the process on which they were bred. Hormones, disease, various force fed medications that were supposed to kill diseases created by the hormones and the unnatural food fed to the animals. The exploitation of workers and the blind eye the food corporations turned towards those affected by the bad food, the people that got sick and even died. How could they see what was happening and still not do anything about it??!!
While I am just one person, and we agreed that one person can’t change the world (Beavan’s experiment), I chose to swallow the red pill and educate myself further about meat industries. And maybe I can’t change the corporations by myself, I believe that if enough people take the same path as me that the corporations might just take notice and change the conditions of their animals and their workers. But then again that could just be wishful thinking!
As I read this post, what immediately came to me was the documentary Food Inc. It seems like the world of globalization and food manipulation is taking over our ignorance in what food consumption is all about. I watched the documentary in a sociology class, it made me think about the constant cruelty of animals. We as everyday consumers have no idea, nor really care too much about what goes on behind the food production process.
As in the last post, Food Inc. changed my thought about meat. However, I’m not giving up on eating meat. I believe that my type of mindset about food is typical to most Americans. This is the same type of situation I believe is instilled in society, in reference with the environment. Though we have extreme environmentalists like Colin Beavan (No Impact Man), it will take a drastic change in culture to make people believe in the revolution. An innovative concept of mentality will have to surface before it can permanently be in the mainstream.
I have had the dilemma about eating meat for years now. I had a teacher tell me that one way to end hungry around the world was to stop eating meat, that the grain and energy we put into meat would be diverted and could be used to solve hunger. After that I have experimented and tried to become a vegetarian but have failed every time. First, I am a very picky eater this leaves little vegetables and fruits that I will actually eat, and second meat tastes really good.
But after reading these books, and like you closing paragraph discusses, I think it is a matter of being more aware of everything involved with eating meat. I am making small changes in my life. At first I thought giving up meat for 1 meal a day would be great, but realized I don’t really eat meat for breakfast, so to have a difference I decided to give up meat for 2 meals a day. I have also realized that explaining in a nice manner why I make these changes and what “free range” real is can make a difference. A few of my friends are beginning to make changes also.
Can discussing these issue make a difference in the real world?
I think being aware of these issues and discussing about them does indeed make a difference – if you walk the talk, like many of the commenters did. That might mean giving up meat altogether or simply cutting it down, or even just trying to do research and buy food from certain producers. While it boils down to collective action to drastically change something, individual action should not be dismissed so easily. Creating pressure on local producers and local policy makers is something that can be done indirectly, and might potentially usher in collective action.
I agree, and sometimes I think it is the “far out” actions of some individuals that create discussion and eventually action. For me it is just sad that we need so many policies on various things that should just be done as individuals living in a society together.