Fast Food Nation Chapter 6

The cattle industry seems more like a gamble or a game now a days. someone's always trying to cheat the system. An example from the book is "They can also obtain cattle through confidential agreements with wealthy ranchers, never revealing the true price being paid!" To me this is very sneaking and taking the good name of cattle ranching away. I know that statistic say that over the last twenty years American ranchers have been disappearing, but that is no excuse to try to corrupt the system, everyone is struggling a little bit. I thought the example of what the independent ranchers now face was excellent. "imagine how the New York stock exchange would function if large investors could keep the terms of all their stock trades a secret." This was a good example because now in the year 2010 we are dealing with problems in the stock market and it's been effecting us for 10 years now, and I do see and feel the difference in my house ever since the stock market corrupted.

Pure genius when keystone foods, ordered a group of technicians to get working on a the chicken fingers. Chicken used to be something many families had only on holidays, and for someone to come up with a bit size version in a box, definitely shocked the nation. It's also amazing that Tyson now manufactures about ninety of the one hundred largest restaurant chains in the country. Even though this invention is brilliant i do believe it is gross that chikcne nuggets have twice as much fat per ounce as a HAMBUGER! Burgers are twice the size of a chicken nugget and hard to believe a meal the size of your thumb has more fat then a meal the size of your entire hand. sadly for the farmers a 1995 survey from louisiana Tech University foudn that the farmers says in deep debt and only makes about 12,ooo dollars a year. To me that doesn't make sense how could they be so successful with this struck of genius, but still be in life long debt, with a terribly low salary?

These farmers that supply us our food, and have nurture our stomachs have reached an all time high of three times the national average for suicide. They have so much to worry about, and few thank you's for their hard, monotonous work that they do for us. Hank, is one of the men who was a typical American rancher, who committed suicide a week before Christmas because of all the worries he had to deal with was just to over whelming, and he had reached his boiling point. So I say thank you for your hard work Hank, and RIP.

Questions:

1)What are some of the problems facing cattle ranchers?
A: The monopoly power in the meatpacking industry, the depressed prices in the cattle market, the economic forces bankrupting independent ranchers, the tax laws that favor wealthy ranchers, and the unrelenting push of Colorado's real estate developers.

2) What are "captive supplies" of cattle?
A: Cattle that are either maintained in company-owned feedlots or purchased in advance through forward contracts.

3)How does the nutritional value of a McNugget compare with that of a hamburger?
A: The chicken nugget has twice as much fat per ounce as the hamburger.