The recent E. Coli outbreak in Chipotle restaurants has flooded mass media outlets. Many victims fell ill to the norovirus; this issue with E. Coli is disreputable to the company. I drew inspiration from this incident for my research paper because I too experienced food poisoning from Chipotle’ - twice. Ironically I'm still a patron at their establishments.
Salmonella and E. Coli are two most common culprits in food outbreaks. As I was conducting research for my topic, I discovered that all sorts of food and products were recalled due to contamination. In the past month there was a recall on Dole lettuce, Costco chicken salads, pistachios, milk and mayonnaise. I was shocked after reading these articles because I didn’t know that various foodborne diseases can happen with a month; I assumed that our food supply was safe.
Initially, my research topic question was along the lines of food contamination and food poisonings. After consulting this with a fellow classmate, he suggested that I take an approach on the political side of food contamination. However, after further research I saw my research topic evolve.The topic that I decided to research was foodborne illnesses and mass production. I want to make a connection between mass producing food and how susceptible they are to contamination. Since the majority of our food sources are centralized, a single error or a bad seed can spell disaster for the entire food supply.
I find it quite difficult to find an article that discusses the cause and effect relationship between mass production and foodborne illnesses. However, I did find a lot of sources that covered food contamination in products of big name brands. The challenge here is making the connection by finding the proper sources. Most of the sources I have under my wing are all news coverage articles and science journals. If you guys are struggling to find sources for your topic, I suggest you guys find any recent news articles on your topic.
Hey Neil, this is shocking I didn't know all those foods had to be recalled due to contamination. I too am struggling a bit on my research but some advice I was given by someone was to look at the definition of "food politics" and " mass production" or whatever it is you are trying to propose in your question because it helps to write about the meaning in your paper as well because your readers may not know what that is. Just a though (:
ReplyDeleteIt's horrifying to know that companies are producing contaminated foods. It's even more horrifying to know that there is little we can do to stop it and that the companies themselves won't do anything about it until they start losing money. The more money we give to these companies, the less safe their food is.
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