Taylor Slais
1/29/2014 06:11:49 am
I don't know about anyone else, but this reading made me very glad our food is better regulated now! The sheer variety of ingredients in the meat (and NOT in a good way) is appalling. The dirt, sawdust, rats, rust and old nails don't make it sound appetizing at the very least. I couldn't believe the lengths the packers went to to sell the meat that was clearly bad. From dyeing it to preservatives, it sounds disgusting, and I can only hope that little to none of this goes on today.
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Ivy Gibson
1/29/2014 06:35:48 am
I can't believe people actually ate the meat. Wouldn't someone notice that it tasted slightly off? Or wouldn't someone link sickness with eating some of the meat?
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Emily Claeboe
1/29/2014 01:39:58 pm
If I knew about this in that time period I think I would hunt my own food or be a vegetarian, so I wouldn't have to eat that meat.
Rachel Sutherland
1/30/2014 12:35:17 am
But I don't think people ever noticed because it was something they had just gotten used to. "Meat tastes a bit funky? Well, then maybe we didn't cook it right?" People in the cities didn't have much choice either. To Emily: most of their time was spent working in factories. They couldn't get away to hunt even if they tried. And maybe some people did notice the bad stuff, but they most likely didn't say anything because they really couldn't do anything about it.
Ivy Gibson
1/29/2014 06:34:07 am
I had a hard time reading the majority of this. What went into sausage really grossed me out, and it was difficult to read about the butchering of the pigs and cattle. Also, the condition of "Bubbly Creek" sounds awful. Bodies of water aren't supposed to light on fire, yet the fire department had to come "now and then".
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Taylor Slais
1/29/2014 06:43:34 am
The Bubbly Creek was disgusting! I did think it was funny though that they came down on the first person to do it so that they could harvest the lard for themselves. It is an interesting (and probably more widely used than admitted to) business practice. Overall, I could barely get through this reading, especially when I sat and thought about it for a second. Ew!
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Josie Oren
1/29/2014 04:43:00 pm
How disgusting was it, though, that people still wanted to use the lard that had been swirling around in a cocktail or feces, rotting guts, and other disgusting waste? It shows how desperate some people were back then. I wonder though, what did they do with the lard when they collected it??
Kishan Patel
1/29/2014 08:28:13 am
The way they killed the animals was absolutely appalling! The way they described how the pigs would be screaming and shrieking as they are swung up in the air, dangling by one foot was upsetting to read.
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Reese Bohn
1/29/2014 12:14:26 pm
This reading made me stop and really think about what i eat today compared to the conditions they had to deal with then. especially when it goes into detail about using sawdust rats and all those materials that are hazardous to eat. then the way they went about slaughtering the animals i'm so glad that we have more humane ways of killing animals today.
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Emily Claeboe
1/29/2014 01:38:27 pm
The jungle makes me so thankful that the food and drug acts to regulate these kind of issues with the sanitation and product of food were passed. It is revolting to think how it must have been for the workers to know what occurred in these processing areas and still have to eat the food that came from them to live. I am glad that I live in today's society where these meat isn't unsanitary and the animals aren't inhumanly killed with carcasses left rotting in the corners.
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Josie Oren
1/29/2014 04:40:13 pm
Reading stuff like this makes me consider eating only organic meat despite how insanely expensive it is, and it REALLY makes me glad that we have such better food regulations today! It's insane how unsanitary the conditions were--blood everywhere, workers not washing their hands after handling the animals before packaging the 'clean' flesh. Yech! And then there was that whole business about how chemicals were injected into rotting meat to make it seem more fresh. And the thing is, people actually bought it and ate it without a clue as to what went on during the processing! Insane stuff.
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Sophia Maicki
1/29/2014 05:21:59 pm
It's disgusting to think about the chemicals that are pumped into meat to make it taste good. We may have higher policies on food processing, but things like this still happen. So much of our food today is loaded with artificial flavors and preservatives. It's definitely not as horrific as what is described in this reading. Meat that has been infested by rats, coated in mold, dropped on the floor, or stored in a leaky room. EW! I'm glad we have cleaner facilities for the processing of meat today.
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Rachel Sutherland
1/29/2014 11:53:37 pm
To me, it was disgusting how these workers would drop meat on the filthy ground with spit and sawdust and still use it! I get grossed out by the five second rule; how could they do that?! Not only that, all meat was practically spoiled before it went into the packing district. THAT IS SO EWWW. And you know you have a problem with cleanliness is your water is bubbling like in the creek. Its not so much that everything was so gross that stunned me, it was more the fact that the workers went about their business as if nothing was wrong! I mean, how could that poison everything so easily without feeling bad about it?! Good thing Roosevelt passed the inspection act and the Food and Drug Act to help better these conditions and regulations.
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Thomas Timmerman
1/30/2014 12:10:26 am
I don't know about everybody else, but this reading made me think about how obsessed humans seem to be with progress for the sake of progress. The food was disgusting, but until somebody actually had the nerve to write about it, nobody gave it a thought.
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Adam Kimball
2/10/2014 04:01:16 am
Which leads to quite the open-ended, philosophical question: Is progress a bad reason to progress? It has led to reforms that are nation-saving, but also is a rather vapid reasoning to do so.
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