Food Ethics in The NY Times
Food Ethics in The NY Times
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Food Ethics in The NY Times
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Post #1 - June 25th, 2006, 9:44 amThe New York Times has a piece today about the new interest in the ethics of what we eat, which cites the Chicago foie gras controversy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/weekinreview/25bruni.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
What interests me about all this is that, just as was true when Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, when people debate the ethics of eating they focus almost exclusively on the food itself and the conditions faced by the animals we slaughter. Little attention is paid to what the workers in the food industry must endure, which peeved socialist Sinclair in 1906. Today Bob Herbert in the Times is trying to raise concerns about the difficult circumstances facing meat-packing workers; one of his stories can be accessed here:
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/opinion/19herbert.html
Food for thought, as they say.ToniG
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Post #2 - June 26th, 2006, 6:44 pmAt least the public's concern for its own health in the wake of "The Jungle" is understandable. That people profess more concern for the conditions
The Herbert piece can be accessed only by NY Times subscribers. Here's a locally oriented perspective from last year that covers some of the same ground.Sinclair's muckraking novel led to this country's first pure food laws, much to its socialist author's chagrin. He'd intended to draw attention to the plight of the slaughterhouse workers. "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach," Sinclair later said.
For workers, things might not have improved much since Sinclair's day, according to a January 2005 Human Rights Watch report. The 175-page report, "Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers' Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants," surveyed American meat processors and concluded that increasing production combined with poor training and insufficient safeguards have made meat and poultry work among America's most hazardous jobs. Workers are subject to repetitive-motion injuries and frequent lacerations and other trauma, but often receive no compensation when they're hurt because their employers try to keep them from filing claims, the report said. A January report from the United States Government Accountability Office also called meatpacking "one of the most dangerous industries in the United States."
The HRW report recommended government action to protect meat and poultry workers' health and safety and vigorous enforcement of existing labor law to bring it into compliance with international standards. However, local legislators seem to have ignored the report in order to concentrate on the health and safety of ducks.