Omnivore's Dilemma Ch. 12

This chapter, titled Slaughter, was one I found to be very interesting. Pollen is describing his experience with a farmer named Joel who raises, slaughters, and sells his own chickens. Joel is very opinionated about his process versus the "government approved" way of doing things. He talks a lot about how the USDA has always been trying to shut down his operation.

Joel makes good points about how we don't even really know where our food comes from when we buy and eat it. At his farm, his customers are welcome to come and watch every step of how their food, in this case chicken, is being prepared for their purchase. He talks about how different things would be if the slaughter houses approved by the government had no walls or had glass windows, because we really don't know what goes on behind those closed doors. And even though the process gets somewhat graphic, I agree that we should be about to see what we're purchasing. Though I wonder how many people would take the time to actually do so.