Ethos In The Food Industry

“Faster, fatter, bigger, and cheaper” epitomizes the motto of today’s food industry. The food industry has changed, more so in the last eighty years. The monopoly corporations’ main goals are to achieve substantial wealth and to massively produce a product. The workers who perform the labor get treated like the animals doomed for slaughter. The farmers have a small say in the job he or she is doing; however, what choice do they have? The majority of farmers are in debt due to purchasing the continued technology advances brought on by the corporations that hired them. The food industry consists of a small number of monopolies. Three or four companies own roughly 80% of the entire food industry and most of the thirteen slaughterhouses. Absolute

Robert Kenner shows in his film that corporations only care about the end goal of producing the product, not the food nor the workers.

The industry acts as a double edged sword. The products the corporation yields to feed the citizens are not quite the healthiest. Food Inc. displays the grinding of the meat and several ammonia cleanings. The traditional way of industry that many people attest to is contrary to reality. The film uses pathos in combination with ethos. Two key interviews that specify the usage of this rhetoric are the chicken farmer and the organic farmer. These two individuals are alike in many ways, but are also different. Both slaughter their animals and sell them; the only difference is each one has a different process, outlook, and end goal. Both of them are credible farmers and therefore represent the ethos rhetoric. The pathos rhetoric is more represented with a negative connotation. The organic farmer describes and talks to his animals as just that, animals. He explains how he feeds them grass

Also, a woman who is now an advocate for safer food industry laws and regulations lost her son due to a bad hamburger. Why do the companies spend so much effort into making the animals healthy, yet not the product that is distributed to the consumers? These two interviews are vital as both use important images and concepts to relate to the overall plot. The female chicken farmer shows the brutality and demands of a chicken farm. This footage shows what ALL the major companies in discussion denied to show. The other key aspect is the woman. The film jerks at the audience’s emotions as the woman, with tears in her eyes, began the story of losing her son. The home movie of the family vacation at the beach plays in the background as the woman tells her story. This combines with the somber music and shifts the mood. It shifts the mood, but also changes the food industry from being the good guy food supplier to one who does not care for the consumers. But what is one supposed to