Since very few people in society grow their own fruits, vegetables, and/or raise cattle in

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1 1 The Jungle SAMPLE STUDENT Essay Since very few people in society grow their own fruits, vegetables, and/or raise cattle in their backyards, the majority of us purchases food from local grocery stores that purchases products through several providers from factories and producers. Hence, fruits, vegetables, meats, and other factory processed foods such as canned foods and bagged foods that we buy today have a significant role towards our health. For this reason, food safety has grown increasingly over the years causing recalls; increasing FDA (Food and Drug Administration), USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture), and other organization supervisions; and creating governmental laws and regulations to remove and reduce infected products being sold to the public. Furthermore, Upton Sinclair s The Jungle shows a relevant demonstration of how important food safety affects the public today because it shows that we consumers need to be more aware of the foods that we buy in relationship to our health. In Upton Sinclair s The Jungle, he intends to expose socialism and capitalism within meat packers in Packingtown, Chicago; however, he also exposes the unsanitary working and factory conditions in relation to contaminated meat products that can affect the health of people. Sinclair s novel is written through his personal experiences in which he portrays it through the views of a fictional Lithuanian family and through his main character named Jurgis whose life goes through series of tragic events. In Sinclair s The Jungle, he shows that the impression of life being better in America is not what it is said to be but a lie. For that reason, it causes a decline in morality for many immigrants and it brings them closer to a troublesome future such as Jurgis and his family. Also, since the publication of The Jungle, Sinclair has awakened a huge realization of the public eye in the early 20 th century. That realization that Sinclair exposes had brought an investigation to what occurs within meat packing factory walls.

2 2 So far, health is the leading important factor for everyone and without careful supervision spoiled and rotten foods that we can consume can cause sickness. Government inspectors must be alert at all times to endure maximum security; however, not all government food inspectors are reliable. As stated by Sinclair, if you were a sociable person, he was quite willing to enter into conversation with you and he would hardly be so ungrateful as to notice that a dozen carcasses were passing him untouched (38). Henceforth, The Jungle allowed the public to realize that government inspection of foods is a serious issue because the health of consumers should be considered with care. Due to filthy, foul smelling, and poorly ventilated factories, Sinclair shows that the relationship between poorly maintained factories and poorly processed foods can increase the possibility for food infections. As stated by Sinclair, there were never any washing of the walls and rafters and pillars, the men on the killing beds would reek with foulness, and there was not even a place where a man would wash his hands, and the men ate as much raw blood as food at dinner-time (99, 100). For this reason, everything bought has its doubts and it causes worries of consumers because most of which are clueless to how sanitary factories are in a daily basis. Consequently, we could never be sure if the foods that we buy are tainted and how sanitary a factory really is. Instead, we need to have some sense of trust of reliability in factory work. Also, byproducts that factories use are toxic and harmful to our health, most of which cannot always be visible through the naked eye. For that same reason, consumers can be consuming faulty perished foods in disguise as something healthy. In the past, there were many schemes that meat packing factories have done such as putting together a mixture of tripe, and the fat of pork, and beef suet, and hearts of beef, and finally the waste ends of veal into a canned product and labeling it as potted chicken (Sinclair 95). Advertising products that aren t

3 3 what they seem can cause a huge mistrust in factories. Selling what seems to be edible and good but is actually unsanitary and sickening is untrustworthy. This shows mistrust in factory conduct. Accordingly, food safety is still an issue today because government inspections are not perfect but have flaws. For instance, today, we can still find serious threats found in our foods such as a bacterium called E. Coli O157:H7 which is an opposing threat that has been in contact with cattle manure pathogens which can be contagious from person to person contact (Schlosser 201). Also the E. Coli O167:H7 can show no outward signs of illness but can lead to kidney failure, anemia, internal bleeding, and destruction to vital organs (Schlosser 199). As a result, it only takes a small infection of a bacterium to infect products such as fruits, vegetables, and meats. Nonetheless, harmful bacteria can grow and expand from one surface to another causing a serious chain of infection that can lead to a harmful sickness then to death, for example, stated in The Jungle, a fictional character named Kristoforas has died after consuming bought contaminated tubercular smoked pork sausages (Sinclair 123). In addition, every day we learn something new through trial and error. We observe it and we fix it. Through history, we use the past to identify certain mistakes that have occurred through time, and with those mistakes we use them to our advantage for creating improvements; therefore, acting on those mistakes should be done sooner. As Schlosser states, during the 1980s, as the risk of widespread contamination increased, the meat packing industries blocked the use of principal microbial testing in the federal meat inspecting program and inspection programs were hopelessly outdated while dangerous pathogens slipped past undetected and it took until September 29, 1993, for USDA to begin random microbial testing to remove contaminated infections such as E. Coli O157:H7 from our nation s food supply (205, 207).

4 4 Nevertheless, our food supply is what we have for survival and by identifying the causes of contaminated foods sooner will help reduce causes to serious illnesses. Reading about historical fictional novels helps readers formulate an understanding to related issues to society today. In this case, The Jungle helps to compare and contrast food safety in present day to the past. Books like The Jungle helps show how much food safety has grown since throughout the years. In order to understand issues dealing with health, we must identify targets such as bacteria, parasites, antibiotic residues, arsenic, and heavy metals which causes serious heath illnesses while at the same time insuring that factory conditions and livestock conditions are to be kept sanitized for the sake of not just our health but also to the health of live stocks too (Schlosser 203). After all, we should be eating cleaner and much healthier foods and not rotten, diseased, and perishing foods. More so, The Jungle demonstrates a significant issue to our modern society through the extent of understanding food safety. The Jungle helps shows that by having some sort of awareness in what we buy could save us a trip to the emergency room; thus, reducing the chances of food poisoning and an expensive doctors bill. Nevertheless, The Jungle exposed meat packing industries for the frauds that they are and in doing so awakened an awakening eye of the public to be more conscious about health. Books like this encourage people not to ignore important necessities in life such as health.

5 5 Works Cited Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of All American Meal. New York: Perennial, Print. Sinclair, Upton The Jungle: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Claire Virginia Eby. New York: Norton, Print.