Post 7

P7: Read Pollan’s “An Animal’s Place,” the introduction to Estabrook’s Tomatoland, and the infographic by Cook. In what ways do these pieces trace the history and production of our food? How do they compare in their methodologies and findings?

        Pollan’s “An Animal’s Place”, Estrabrook’s Tomatoland, and Cook’s infographic all trace the history and production of food by looking at specific animals and how they are processed. In Pollan’s “An Animal’s Place”, he goes on to talk about the dilemma that he faced after reading Peter Singer's ''Animal Liberation'' while eating a steak. In his essay he focuses on the moral dilemma that is associated with eating meat, specifically chicken, beef, and pork. He explores the notion of animal’s rights and what past philosophers have said about the subject. He focuses on what equality means and how that relates to animals and how if we were to truly care about equality, animals should have equal consideration with respect to how they are treated. However, Pollan does see that eating meat has been part of human history for thousands of years, but in our new era there is a changing attitude about how animals should be treated. He feels that eating meat does not have to be a necessarily bad thing, but that it should be that should be done less and with respect for the animal that was killed in order to feed the human population. In Tomatoland, Estrabrook talks about how tomatoes are grown in our modern world. He talks about how tomatoes are not grown for taste, but instead grown for capitalistic reasons. He talks about how modern tomatoes are stripped of their nutritional value and instead grown in just look pretty and appetizing. He explores the logistical, political, and economic aspects of tomato growing in order to depict the current state of the tomato business. In Cook’s infographic, he mainly talked about the effects that chicken plants have on the health and welfare of the workers that man these plants. He focuses on the statistics related to injuries acquired by these workers as well as the terrible working conditions that people are forced to work under.

            With respect to their methodologies, Pollan and Estrabrook both deal with a lot of statistics as well as personal anecdotes to deliver their subject matter to the reader. They both want to make the piece personal yet contain some sort of scholarly material to really drive their argument forward. Cook’s piece is a little different because his methodology was just using statistics to bring to light the current working conditions that workers have to deal with in chicken processing plants as well as the health risks/effects that they have to deal with. The use of statistics and other numerical values are used through out all the pieces because it is a great way to give concrete evidence to support what each author is trying to argue. However, each author is trying to accomplish a different thing by writing his or her articles. Pollan is trying to convince the reader to try and decrease their meat consumption because he want the reader to become aware of what animals have to go through in order to become food for people. He is trying to increase awareness for the Animal Rights movement as well as educate people animal treatment in the food industry. In Estabrook’s article, his findings are made to show how the tomatoes humble place as a food has been so commercialized that the product that is grown can hardly be called a tomato. He was people to see that the modern tomato is nothing but a farce of a fruit that contains minimal nutrition compared to homegrown or farmer’s market tomatoes. Finally, Cook’s findings of terrible working conditions in chicken plants are brought up in order to give these finding some attention. All of the authors have written their respective pieces in order to gather attention to what they believe is a pressing matter relating to the food industry.