Non-Fiction
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
Wow! 99 cent burgers at the drive through, Ah, bucket of chicken for pocket change. What a deal. Or is it from the fast food window to the supermarket deli counter? The true price of meat in America is actually much higher than what we pay at the register. That's because behind every pound of flesh sold, there's a cascade of hidden costs to our health, economy and environment. It takes enormous amounts of resource is to raise beef cattle in our factory farm system to fatten them rapidly. The critters are fed huge amounts of growth hormones and cheap corn. But there's one problem. Nature designed them to eat grass. Understandably, they're modified. Diet causes all sorts of health problems, which require antibiotics and other drugs. Their health suffers further from often filthy and overcrowded living conditions, meaning more and more antibiotics. A cow can be so unhealthy by slaughter time, they probably would have died of disease soon after anyway. Government policies play a big role in keeping meat cheap subsidies. Your tax dollars pay farmers to grow way more feed corn than is needed, which results in mountains of rotting food and unrealistically low prices. Some even say that the sharp rise in meat consumption we've seen over the past few decades was actually caused by all that extra corn looking for a customer. Subsidies are also filtered through land use policy ranchers who least public lands reap the profits. But we taxpayers pick up the tab for environmental damage. And last but not least, governments love to give tax breaks to anyone promising to bring jobs to town. But the jobs aren't so great. According to Market Watch, slaughterhouse workers are among the 10 most underpaid in the US. Unfortunately, they also suffer some of the highest injury rates.