The entire nature of E.Coli is extremely alarming to me. When the side effects of this disease are explained it sounds like something that could only happen in a horror movie. It is even more alarming that unless you personally oversee the entire lifespan of the animals you eat, you are completely out of control in making sure your meat isn’t contaminated. You would also need to prepare the food with your own hands in order to know that the food was handled in a proper manner. I feel that we place too much trust into the people who prepare our foods, especially when they are not required to know how food should be properly handled in order to be hired.
“His illness began with abdominal cramps. . .It progressed to diarrhea. . .doctors drilled holes in his skull to relieve pressure, inserting tubes in his chest to help him breathe as the Shiga toxins destroyed his internal organs" (Schlosser, 200). “Toward the end, Alex suffered from hallucinations and dementia, no longer recognizing his mother or father. Portions of his brain had been liquefied.”(Schlosser, 200) It sounds like Alex might have overdosed on some sort of medication or maybe even given the wrong type of medication during an operation, but no, this all came from a seemingly harmless hamburger. This quotation depicts an extremely tragic death that no one might have seen coming. But maybe if some more precautions were taken in the handling of this burger either from when the animal was still alive to the teenager who might have mishandled it when it was being cooked, Alex Donley might still be alive. This is the most hardcore example that unfortunately when you are eating food prepared by someone else, you are potentially putting your life into their hands. It is hard to point a finger at who is to blame in this case and the only clear cut solution to not getting E.Coli is to stay away from anything manufactured by the industrial food organization. Food borne illnesses will always be present and forever cause people to become ill because no matter how clean we try and keep our foods, nature will be nature and our immune system is not ready to handle everything that nature has to offer.
What happened to that little boy mad me extremly sad and angry. you are right we do put to much trust into the people that prepare our foods, and most of them dont even know English (no offense to an immigrants that are reading this, I myself have immigrant parents). But the true person to blame here are the corporations that hire these immigrants. Its just so amazing how MONEY is ruling everything, anyone is willing to put others in harms way to make an easy buck.
ReplyDeleteDear Hassan,
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you say about consumers handling their own food. Unless we do everything step by step ourselves, we won't really know what's in our food. You can't trust the food industry at all because they are only lieing to us. I think you should do more research on other food related deaths because it will make your topic even more intriguing.