Even though the way we eat has changed significantly in the past few years, the image of “agrarian” America is still used to sell products in the food store. For example, it is very common to see in the supermarket farm-like images plastered onto food labels to convince consumers that what they’re buying is naturally produced and organic-like.

But despite how realistic it seems and how much consumers want to believe it’s true, it is no secret that the agrarian image serves as a cover for how food is really being produced at the “farms.”

As stated by Eric Schlosser, “there is a deliberate veil that’s dropped between us and where our food is coming from.”

The bitter truth is that if we knew how our food and meat are being produced, there’s chance we might not want to eat it.

Rather than being a ranch owned by a small corporation, which is the image that is implied, the producers of our meats are large multinational corporations. In other words, it is not a ranch that is processing the meat, it’s a factory.

Following the traditional assembly line formation, the factories have not just unsanitary and dangerous conditions, but abuse that is in ways being deliberately hidden from us.

Whether you are eating in a restaurant or at McDonalds, you are eating the same meat that is being produced by the same corporation-controlled system.

When you walk into the supermarket and see all the labels on the meat that look and seem different, it’s really only three or four companies that manufacture the meat.

Today, the top four “beef-packers” regulate more than 80% of the market, meaning they have the ability to change the way animals are being raised.

In 1950, chickens were raised and slaughtered in 70 days, and now chickens are raised in 48 days and are double the size. Chicken farmers no longer have say in how their animals are being raised, the company owns the chickens from the first day they are raised to when the consumer buys the meat.

The whole process of raising birds is very mechanical; they must all be raised the same, slaughtered the same, and must be the same size before they are manufactured. This means that a lot of food must be produced in a small amount of time on a small amount of land at a cheap price….

Does something sound wrong with that?

It sounds like a chick into a six pound chicken in seven weeks. It sounds like bones that cannot support themselves due to rapid growth that has been supplemented by dangerous antibiotics that are being fed to chickens. It sounds like chickens being sent to a processing plant even though they are sick. It sounds like money to me.

Why don’t farmers speak out against these amoral methods?

Farmers are under the thumb of the company they work for because of the amount of debt that they are in. Farmers are constantly being told to upgrade  expensive equipment with money that they do not have, constantly putting them in debt and therefore under control of the company they work for. Denying any requests from the company would instantly result in loss of a contract. In other words, farmers are the slaves to the companies.

And we, the consumers, are slaves to the industry.