Grossmont College Name: _____________________________
Bio 120 Lab Day: ________ Due Date: _________
Replacement Assignment
Food, Inc.
Instructions:
Obtain (from a library, Netflix, or video rental store) and observe the video “Food, Inc.”
This document has been left as a Word document, so that you can add your answers to it. If you do not have Word, please use the computers in the Tech Mall within the Library, or the format will be negatively impacted.
Do not delete the questions or instructions.
Please type in your answers below each of the questions and bold your answers for easy viewing.
Keep one space between each question and answer for easy reading. Remove any extra spaces between your answers and the next question to save paper.
Answer the questions using complete sentences in a single-spaced format. Use 0.5” for all of the margins (in an effort to reduce wasting paper). Even better (but not required) is to print on both sides of the paper.
Show that you really thought about them.
Assume you are writing as though you were submitting this to an English instructor, in terms of comprehensibility, spelling, and grammar, as well as using your own words. (Don’t plagiarize.) Quality counts!!
Late, illegible, and incomplete papers will not be accepted.
Print this out to hand in on the deadline.
Also, email it to your instructor by midnight of the deadline.
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1. How do you think farm animals should be treated? How do your ideas compare to what you saw in the film?
2. The movie points out that cows and farm-raised fish, which are not biologically suited to eating corn, are now given a modified diet that is based on corn. Do you think people’s diets have been modified in a similar way? If so, in what way? How do you feel about the possibility of your food being modified without you being aware of it?
3. The film gives the impression that food is either cheap or healthy.
a. Do you think it is true that food is either one or the other, or is this false?
b. What about food purchased in convenience stores, which are found in many low income areas in absence of typical grocery stores?
c. What would you need to do to find out if this is the case?
d. Look up online the concept of a “food desert.” What are they? How are they related to this series of questions.
4. In the film, the mother, Maria Andrea Gonzalez, says, “We’re really tight from either paying for his [Alfredo Orozco’s] medicine to be healthy or buying vegetables to be healthy.” Which should she choose if she cannot afford both?
5. Compare the slaughtering of the chickens by Polyface Farms (small-scale farm) to the slaughtering of the Smithfield (large factory) hogs.
a. What were the concerns that the farmer at the small-scale farm stated other people may have regarding his method of slaughtering chickens? What was his response? (There was a test done!)
b. What were the conditions at the large factory slaughter house that were cause for concern?
c. How do the workers’ conditions compare at both slaughter sites?
d. What is your current opinion in contrasting the two sites?
6. Author Michael Pollan uses the phrase “Vote with Your Fork” to mean that consumers have the ability to influence companies by what they choose to eat.
a. What does this mean for you on an individual basis?
b. Is there a way as a group, school, or town that we could possibly influence this situation?
c. What would be the challenges?
d. What would be the benefits?
7. What was your opinion regarding food produced in America prior to viewing the video?
8. What is your current opinion regarding food produced in America after viewing the video? In what ways has it changed? In what ways has it remained the same?
9. What information regarding food produced in America was most surprising to you?
10. What information presented in the video was most convincing to you that food produced in America is a credible and likely scenario?
11. What was your emotional response to this information?
12. What was your intellectual response to this information?
13. How can you make this information more readily available to others in your family? Personal acquaintances? Local community? Society as a larger entity?
14. What would be your method of helping someone who is unconvinced of issues associated with food produced in America?
15. Discuss this film and questions 1 – 6 with one person. Type that person’s name here, as well as his/her relationship to you (parent, significant other, friend, child, coworker, stranger, etc.)
16. Quote their response to #1 (How do you think farm animals should be treated?)
17. Quote their response to #2 (Food being modified.)
18. Quote their response to #3 (Food is either cheap or healthy)
19. Quote their response to #4 (Money for medicine or healthy food)
20. Describe the conditions of each of the slaughter sites to the person you are interviewing. Quote their response to #5.
21. Quote their response to #6 (Vote with your fork.)
22. What was your interviewee’s opinion regarding food produced in America prior to talking to you about the video?
23. What is your interviewee’s current opinion regarding food produced in America after to talking to you about the video? In what ways has it changed? In what ways has it remained the same?
24. What information regarding food produced in America was most surprising to your interviewee to talking to you about the video?
25. What was your interviewee’s emotional response to this information?
26. What was your interviewee’s intellectual response to this information?