The Meatrix

[thefonz]

This really struck a cord in me. The food companies in this country are getting away not only with animal cruelty and running an organization with pathetic regulation policies.

www.meatrix.com

Watch all 3 of the cartoons. It's not just about animal cruelity, do you realize that food companies are entitled to put as much fat/sugar/salt in their products as they want. There is no regualtion to the content of food or for that matter advertising. People talk about free choice and independent desicion making when it comes to eating food. This is largely pushed on as a defense tactic from food companies to continue the bull**** concept of a self-regulating corporate world. From 1975 to 2005.... 100 million people suddenly became obese in this country. IF FOOD IN THIS COUNTRY IF ABOUT PERSONAL CHOICE HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE FACT THAT 100 MILLION PEOPLE BECAME OBESE IN 30 YEARS!! How do 100 million people exhibit such a drastic change at the same time. People are not to blame for this, the government is not working for us on this issue. Stop being brainwashed, foundations like the Center for Consumer Freedom are a non-profit organizational group STARTED BY THE AMERICAN BEVERAGE ASSOCIATION (Coke, pepsi etc.) in an effort to self-regulate. The Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) is another food company "non-profit" creation that seeks to limit harmful junk food adverstising to children. But look at all the ceral, candy, and soda commercials aimed at kids on tv/internet today. The CARU has given the green light to ALL OF IT!!! When foreigners come to this country they can't tell the difference between any of our cities because they all have the same ****ing strips. McDonalds, Taco Bell, Wendys etc. The only way you'd recognize you're in a different city is by the weather.

Food Companies are just as dangerous as Tobacco Companies, it's history repeating itself. We need more government regulation and less self-regulation in our food production. The more Don Juan I become, the more political I become. Support your local mom and pop farms. They're around you.

 

[realsmoothie]

They're also on the DVD for "Fast Food Nation", a feature film (not a doc) by "Dazed and Confused" director Richard Linklater which is about the same kind of stuff.

Great movie.

Funny though... I can watch stuff like this, and still eat fast food. Super Size Me was scary, and yet I had McD's two days later.

 

[djbr]

I love McD. I did exactly what you did, realsmoothie. Hmmm!

But here it's different. This fast food thing is EXPENSIVE.

One of the things that makes me second guess my idea to move to the USA is this. We just eat too well! Food here is amazing, with a lot of new things to try, and CHEAP!

I see americans complaining about this but the simple fact is that this stuff is so convenient. Brazilians I know who went to the America says that it's fine to go make a decent meal, it's just not as quick as going to a fast food store, and more expensive.

 

[Vulpine]

I got on the Atkin's diet a couple years ago, and I'll never get off of it.

Food is food. The Atkin's diet limits what you consider food. The more processed food is, the less it is "food", the more carbs it has, and the worse it is for you. Is it a surprise?

Meat. Cheese. Eggs. Nuts. Vegetables and Fruits are foods.

Read the ingredients: More than 5 indgredients = not food. It's amazing that people don't catch on. It's so much cheaper to eat food than to eat all the processed "food options" you see filling people's carts. Oh man, and the looks you get from women when they see you don't have ANY crap in your cart... priceless.

Even the stuff you THOUGHT was food isn't food anymore. Pick up a loaf of bread and read the ingredients. Hydrodgenized fux you up protein, fatrolized wheat fat, partially screw your liver products, flour, yeast, monosodium glutamate.

Reduce your diet to as close to a caveman's as possible, and I guarantee you will lose weight.

I'm so much happier and healthier now that I don't put crap like McDonald's in my body.

You can't tell people this because like men thinking with their d!cks, people think with their tastebuds and "eat what tastes good". Ok, fine. But what tastes good changes when you know how the "tasty" stuff is fuxing up your body. Things that didn't taste as good, taste 50 times better when you know that it's far healthier than the easy "grab a bite at Taco Bell" or "order a za".

So, people just don't want to listen to how bad their "food" is for them, they rather buy into the hustle.

Whatever... I stand out for being a skinny guy in the club. Keep grazing, sheeple.

 

[Vulpine]

Oh, and being from Wisconsin, I only buy dairy from small Wisconsin companies: organic, if available.

Meat? Well, I hunt like a crazy person, so that's pretty much as "anti-corporate farm" as it gets. When I do need to purchase meat, I try to get to an actual butcher shop in small communities. I have been at supporting small local economies for as long as I can remember.

It all started when Kraft was bought by a Japanese corporation... local dollars went overseas, and it p!ssed me off.

 

[seanchai]

Oh, and being from Wisconsin, I only buy dairy from small Wisconsin companies: organic, if available.

Meat? Well, I hunt like a crazy person, so that's pretty much as "anti-corporate farm" as it gets. When I do need to purchase meat, I try to get to an actual butcher shop in small communities. I have been at supporting small local economies for as long as I can remember.

It all started when Kraft was bought by a Japanese corporation... local dollars went overseas, and it p!ssed me off.

While I don't like hunting, I think it's awesome that you've managed to efficiently circumvent the horrors of the factory farm. I'd say overall you are contributing much less pain to the world by killing animals yourself rather than buying from factories. WELL DONE!

 

[djbr]

When I do need to purchase meat, I try to get to an actual butcher shop in small communities. I have been at supporting small local economies for as long as I can remember.

Here in my country the best butcher shops are in the smallest communities too. In the big supermarkets (like Wal-Mart) meat is expensive and not fresh.

for eating fresh food everyday!

 

[thefonz]

I'm so much happier and healthier now that I don't put crap like McDonald's in my body.

True, but I wasn't just picking on McDonalds. All food companies are to blame in my opinion Kraft, Post, Nestle, Kellogs etc. If you read the bottle of Dasani water (a Coke product) You'll notice that they add Salt to the water. They do that to create more dehydration in your body and make you crave more Dasani, so you'll buy more. Adding salt to products is just one of the ways food companies try to create an addiction (much like tobacco companies) in their products. Americans have become sodium sensitized and crave salt in all their product. I truly believe in the very near future that it will be uncovered that these companies are putting some sort of addictive chemicals in their products that we don't know about. Why do you think you can't recreate the Big Mac or Whooper in your kitchen? Because the indgredients of these processsed foods are so unnatural that you can't buy them in supermarkets. Processed foods, by definition, are foods that are removed of ALL nutritional elements. They are strictly for energy purposes like fat and carbs yet they are presented to the public as a 'meal' in an unregulated advertising world.

But back to the meat and dairy farms. I'm not trying to promote vegetarianism. Considering the vast amount of protein craving weight lifters on this board, I don't think I stand a chance. If you're out in the woods and you want you hunt your own food, go for it. If you wanna raise a pig and kill it when it gets old, do it. But look at where 95% of our meat comes from. Doesn't that disturb you about the horrendous and sickly enviroments our meat sources are raised in? Meat farms are some are the worst places to work in the country. It's not a matter of if, it's when will another huge outbreak like mad cow disease come along. Those hormones and antibiotics put into the meats are being put into YOUR bodies aswell. Just be aware of it is all I'm saying. I plan to visit a slaughterhouse in the near future to see this stuff for myself, I encourage everyone here to look into where they're food comes from aswell.

 

[Vulpine]

I agree, all big companies are to blame.

One thing I've learned to look for is MSG. If a company starts using MSG in their product, I'll never buy from that company again. Why? MSG is a "flavor enhancer". So, rather than use spices, they use half as many spices and some monosodium glutamate to "enhance" those spices. It's a huge indicator of when a company goes from "honest mom and pop company" to a greedy, money hungry machine. In effort to cut costs and boost profit, they cut down on expensive spices and resort to the cheap alternative of MSG. If you look, you'll find MSG in your favorite sausage and meat products. Oops. So I went local, with honest, hardworking companies that strive to build their name and customer loyalty on quality alone - not by using tricks and marketing or gimmicks.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Hunting would be ok if not for chronic wasting disease and prions. I once worked for a neurosurgeon who was studying prions. It's a protein that you get from eating meat, usually from hunted game. It lives in your brain, sometimes for decades with no symptoms, and then for unknown reasons, people suddenly get sick and die. There is no cure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion

 

[Shiftkey]

IF FOOD IN THIS COUNTRY IF ABOUT PERSONAL CHOICE HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE FACT THAT 100 MILLION PEOPLE BECAME OBESE IN 30 YEARS!!

Easy; people are lazy. Why make food that's healthy when it's faster and cheaper to get food that tastes better? That combined with a lack of exercise (more work) makes people fat. People are stupid, but they're smart enough to know that eating too much fast food and sitting around all day will make them fat. It's not the companies' fault that people are lazy.

Really, I think blaming companies is just another symptom of peoples' laziness. Instead of taking responsibility for their own weight problems, they blame things outside of their immediate control. The media, corporations, and your genetics do not put a gun to your head and tell you to keep eating crap. In today's world, only you can make yourself eat unhealthy.

More government regulation of the food companies is not what we need. I like eating food full of fat, salt, and sugar every now and then. Yet I am healthier than most men because I don't overdo it and I exercise regularly. I like living in a free society where I have choices to eat what I want. If the government makes me eat healthy by forcing companies to only produce healthy food, that's just another step in the direction of a dictatorship. I agree that society has a huge problem (pardon the pun), and that some government intervention is necessary. I don't agree with your methods.

 

[ElChoclo]

However, BibleBelt, which is more likely to become a cause of infection. A factory processing thousands of carcases or Vulpine processing his own. In view of the fact that standard sterilization doesn't seem to work, it would only take one infected animal at the slaughterhouse to infect many other carcases.

Also Fast Food Nation makes it clear that processed food uses the mixed mince from a large number of animals, so again, if any are infected, it will all go in with the other mince, then on to your hamburger.

 

[realsmoothie]

Eating bad is cheaper and easier. Going to super-mart and picking up frozen pizzas and Kraft dinner is way less work than getting to a decent market and getting fresh food.

Have you seen how much it costs for a decent bell pepper? Geez-uz.

It's very frustrating.

 

[~attrACTION~]

This was interesting and disgusting. Needless to say, I skipped my usual trip to McDonald's today, and chose a much healthier alternative.

Vulpine, I really like your idea of eating closer to nature.

Luckily, I live in a small farming town in wine country, California. Most stuff here is fresh and local. I usually buy groceries from Trader Joe's and try to eat as natural as possible. Still, I let excuses of a busy schedule get the best of my diet, and I succumb to the junk food craze far too often. Organic foods are actually cheaper than some junk foods, so it's not a matter of cost, I think for me at least it's laziness and bad habits. I think watching those clips disgusted me enough to start caring a little more.

Thanks for posting it. I'm going to email it to a few friends/family. I think the nice part is rather than link a boring article, here is an amusing way to learn about the matter, making it appeal to more people. I think the creators did a great job.

 

[djbr]

IF FOOD IN THIS COUNTRY IF ABOUT PERSONAL CHOICE HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE FACT THAT 100 MILLION PEOPLE BECAME OBESE IN 30 YEARS!!

The same reason most men are AFCs and people blame everything on anything that is out of their control:

Laziness

everything on his post

My thoughts exactly.

Would like to add that some government intervetion is fine, like the brazilian gov't did with the trans-fat stuff. They banned it, companies removed the trans-fat of their products, and all is good. But mostly, it sucks.

Artificial *feel good* society = socialism. Does not work, as tested previously.


And this food issue is one of the few reasons that make me like my country. I eat fresh and cheap food everyday! And most people do it too, as it would be insane to live on fast food.

1) people here feel bad when they do
2) it's too expensive

 

[diplomatic_lies]

Reduce your diet to as close to a caveman's as possible, and I guarantee you will lose weight.

Torg no like brussel sprout! Torg like big woman!

 

[diplomatic_lies]

Really, I think blaming companies is just another symptom of peoples' laziness. Instead of taking responsibility for their own weight problems, they blame things outside of their immediate control.

Don't forget to blame George Bush, American imperialism, Microsoft, the Zionist conspiracy, and the church!

If the government makes me eat healthy by forcing companies to only produce healthy food, that's just another step in the direction of a dictatorship.

What's so bad about dictatorships? Are you saying they're bad? Maybe you need a little dose of the gas chamber...

 

[Vulpine]

Hunting would be ok if not for chronic wasting disease and prions. .... and then for unknown reasons, people suddenly get sick and die. There is no cure.

Chronic wasting disease isn't transferred to humans via consumption. Unless, perhaps (and that's a sketchy perhaps), I was eating the brain and/or spinal cord of infected animals. Not every animal has CWD, and it would be fairly obvious if they did. Being an avid hunter, I'm up on the symptoms.

As for getting sick and dying... I'm going to die someday. Let's see... hmm... get fat, live a miserable life, get sick and die; or, live healthy, have a happy life, and get sick and die. Tough call?

You hear of mad cow disease & bird flu... all the hype and scare doesn't really disuade you from eating beef and poultry, does it?

I really gotta tell you: Media, and all the hype and hysteria about things like CWD, bird flu, MCD, etc. are influenced and enhanced by PETA. There is a definite goal in they propaganda: put people off of killing animals. Some of the propaganda is so spun it's ridiculous - and a lot of it just blatent misinformation fabricated to suit the agenda.

PETA are like feminists.
^ think long and hard about that

When I go home for lunch today, I'm going to toss a few bacon-wrapped venison tenderloins (filet mignons) on the foreman grill and smile big. Man, I eat like a fuggin' king!

 

[thefonz]

Easy; people are lazy.

Really, I think blaming companies is just another symptom of peoples' laziness. Instead of taking responsibility for their own weight problems, they blame things outside of their immediate control. The media, corporations, and your genetics do not put a gun to your head and tell you to keep eating crap. In today's world, only you can make yourself eat unhealthy.

I'm talking about society as a whole, I'm sure you developed alot of self-control and "think for yourselfism" after having been on sosuave since 2001. But turn on your tv and see what everyone else looks at (not with a gun to there head, more like a hot dog in a bear trap), BK quadrouple stacker (1200 calories), Taco Bell grilled stuffed burrito (720 calories), a giant sized 7-11 slurpie (22 tsps of sugar). Food companies spent about 800 billion dollars combined in junk food advertising in 2005 for soda, candy, fast food, and high salt products. The government spent about 33 million advertising the food pyrimad that same year. How the **** do you compete with that? How many of you in high school learned about proper nutrition besides eat more veges and less junk food? No, health classes spend all their focus on sex ed and AIDS. So if you're not learning it in school, and you're not learning it on tv then how are you supposed to get the notion of how to eat health.....I'm talking about the average american here guys

Edit: And how about children? Maybe children should just take some responisbility, ignore the media ads and just eat a banana instead of a box of lucky charms? Or maybe the parents should take more responisibility and teach them to eat healthier?

Go to any school store and what do you see, candy bars, sodas, chips etc. Vending machines are filled with crap unlike these healthy alternatives that everyone says SHOULD be placed in schools. The reason still sell junk food and advertise in schools is because they food companies give these unpaid school systems the money they're not getting from the government. However, all these ads have made our children fattier and unhealthier than ever before. If anyone here is a parent you'll know how dreadful it can be to take your kids to a grocery store and see all the cartoon characters on these high-sugar, high fat products ans have them go, "Mommy, Frosted Flakes!!!" because Spongebob or whoever is plastered all over the front. 85% of developed countries have some sort of ban on advertising to children, Sweden most recently in 1991 banned all advertising to children because they awknowledge how kids are too impressionable to be able to have the cognitive ability in differentiating between regular tv programming and adverstising. Right now in the United States there are no restrictions to this, and for governments not to regulate these food companies is like saying people should not be regulated for murder, theft, robbery, etc. Parents cannot compete with the constant barrage of ads from tv, internet, school, videogames etc. The whole essence of a corporation is to disregard any moral or ethical reasoning if it happens to interfere with profits. Food Corporations do not have conscience and therefore need regulation.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Chronic wasting disease isn't transferred to humans via consumption. Unless, perhaps (and that's a sketchy perhaps), I was eating the brain and/or spinal cord of infected animals. Not every animal has CWD, and it would be fairly obvious if they did. Being an avid hunter, I'm up on the symptoms.

As for getting sick and dying... I'm going to die someday. Let's see... hmm... get fat, live a miserable life, get sick and die; or, live healthy, have a happy life, and get sick and die. Tough call?

I'm not an authority on CWD; you know more about it than me. I do know that the neurosurgeon boss of mine (I worked for one of his side businesses) was researching several deaths of people in rural areas who ate a lot of wild meat. There are many different prions, and the time between infection and sickness is a long time, so it's hard to pinpoint the exact cause of death. But these people all died of seemingly random brain abnormalities that he thought were caused by prions. Although the dead people were from very rural areas like Arkansas, I doubt they were eating brains. The neurosurgeon was very highly regarded, tops in the state, and he was very persuasive about the prion link to wild meat when talking to me.

You hear of mad cow disease & bird flu... all the hype and scare doesn't really disuade you from eating beef and poultry, does it?

Actually, to confess my own bias, I've been a vegetarian for the past eight years. I don't like peta, and I don't harass anyone about what they eat, but I wouldn't kill an animal to eat it if I had other food, so I won't pay somebody to do something for me that I would not do myself. Although, if society ever falls apart and I run out of food, I would happily be out in the woods killing and eating anything that moved.