Contemporary Connections: My Year of Meats and problems within our Food Industry

Today our food industry has become a frowned upon subject for a while now, when I was in high school I had the option to take a nutrition class instead of something that I did not want to take. Upon taking this course I was introduced to the problems within this industry through research and from watching the documentary "Food Inc". Problems such as: genetically modified foods, little regulation, the use of chemicals and hormones within manufacturing food, the use of antibiotics, animal cruelty, food is more processed, and much more. While thinking about this topic I researched all over the Internet and found many links with information that seemed credible and realistic. As well as a link to the Food Inc documentary:

http://www.sustainabletable.org/941/how-industrial-food-impacts-your-health
http://www.takepart.com/foodinc
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming/
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2012/03/30/things-the-food-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-know
https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/Organic/IndustrialAg502.php

Overall, these links have taught me that our food industry is producing unsafe food due to cutting corners which eventually cuts costs. Food borne illnesses are more common these days. This is also due to the use of chemicals, pesticides, and hormones such as rBGH used when producing our food. Today there is over 1 billion tons of pesticides used per year in the United States. It is also believed that 2/3rd's of American cattle raised for slaughter are injected with hormones to make them grow faster and larger. This is done for chicken too, to make their breast meat bigger as that is one of the most sold portions of chickens. There are also a lot of scandals and un-balanced power within the food industry. Companies such as Monsanto now have so much power that they can sue states for speaking out against them. Companies like this have so much power that they control parts of the food market such as the soybean market, and they certain abilities such as to arrest and harass farmers for violating their regulations on seeds.
Now, you may be asking why does this relate to our novel. For many reasons, this novel is all about our food industry. About American housewives and their place within the food industry as consumers. It's also about the use of hormones, specifically within the meat industry. We later learn in this novel that cattle are not just fed hormones but that traces of these drugs as well as pesticides, insecticides and herbicides end up in the beef that some people eat. This is important within this novel's plot and within Jane's life as we eventually learn that when she was in her mother's womb that she was exposed to DES, a synthetic estrogen. As a result of this she suffers a reproductive disorder. There are many other connections within this novel and our food industry to be discovered as we journey farther into it. So I shall not give anything else away and that marks an end to this discussion of the connection between My Year of Meats and the way our food industry is run.