Name _________________________________________________
Date _____________
Honors EESMr. Dillman
The Meatrix Trilogy
Period ____________
The Meatrix I
1. What is The Meatrix? the lie we tell ourselves about where meat comes from.
2. What is a factory farm? places where eggs, meat, and dairy mostly comes from.
3. What happens to the animals on a factory farm? they get compacted into tight spaces, they are
slaughtered, and chickens beaks are cut off.
4. Why are the animals given antibiotics? What is the problem with this? To keep the animals alive, it
produces disease that could cause an epidemic and produces antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
5. What is happening to family farms? they are losing their property to factory farms, eventually they
will be erased.
The Meatrix II: Revolting
1. What has happened in regards to sustainable eating in the past few years? people are buying more
environmental friendly based animal products.
2. What happens to cows in dairy factories? are compacted into tight spaces, and spend their entire
lives there, and hooked up to machines to be milked, and have their tails cut off.
3. What is rBGH? Why is it given to cows? an artificial growth hormone, they are given to them for
growth and for their milk.
4. What happens to the calves? separated from mothers at birth and fed substitute milk.
5. What can be caused by this? Mad Cow Disease.
The Meatrix II 1/2
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
At this factory, how many cows can be processed in single day? -5,000 cows.
What often happens to the workers in the processing factories? Injuries.
Profit is the name of the game.
As a job, meat-packing is the most dangerous in the nation.
Due to the speed of the processing, what gets all over the meat? What bacteria does this
substance contain? What problems can this cause? Manure, E.coli, and is a deadly bacteria that if
consumed too much, can cause death to children and elderly.
The Meatrix 360 Interactive Go to the following section of the site (or type/paste in this link:
http://www.themeatrix.com/educate ). Then Click on Meatrix Interactive 360 then Roll-over and click
on the different parts of the scene. Read and describe any 10 of the words below:
1. The precautionary principle
2. Feed- With the rapid rise of the industrial food animal production system, an increasing number of
food animals once raised on pastures are now raised in feedlots.
3. Policy & legislation
4. Health- Factory farms contaminate ground and surface water, releasing harmful pollutants into the
air, promoting the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, incubating infectious diseases, and
facilitating the continued overuse of chemical pesticides.
5. Community- Agribusiness' large-scale and factory farms not only produce foods that can be harmful
to our healthand local environments, they also negatively affect a communitys economy.
6. Family farms
7. Cows- Calves born into modern dairy production are usually removed from their mother (or dam)
straight after birth. Male dairy calves are rarely raised for breeding. They are often sent to auction
or sold to calf dealers when they are only a few days old to be raised as veal. Some calves are
slaughtered as bob veal at only a few days of age. Others are raised for four to five months on
only milk, a diet that makes them anemic but produces the white meat color that the market
demands. Veal calves are often raised in crates where they do not have enough space to groom
themselves, move around, explore and interact socially. Although some states have now banned
Name _________________________________________________
Date _____________
Honors EESMr. Dillman
The Meatrix Trilogy
Period ____________
veal crates, groups of calves are still likely to be kept completely indoors on slatted flooring with no
bedding and fed an inappropriate diet.
8. Milk
9. Processing
10. Workers- Working conditions at confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are unhealthy,
dangerous and extreme.
11. Downer cows
12. Pesticides- Pesticides are chemicals used to eliminate or control a variety of agricultural pests that
can damage crops and livestock and reduce farm productivity. The most commonly applied
pesticides are insecticides (to kill insects), herbicides (to kill weeds), rodenticides (to kill rodents),
and fungicides (to control fungi, mold, and mildew).
13. Antibiotics
14. rBGH- rBGH is a genetically engineered artificial hormone injected into dairy cows to make them
produce more milk. Despite opposition from scientists, farmers and consumers, the US currently
allows dairy cows to be injected with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), also known as
recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST).
15. agribusiness
16. waste recycling- Where there are animals, there is animal waste, and as the growth of industrial
farming concentrates thousands of animals on increasingly fewer farms, it produces massive
amounts of animal waste on relatively small plots of land. When too much waste is produced in one
place, theres no safe, cost-effective way to either use it productively or dispose of it. While
government regulation and better waste management practices can make a difference and should
be encouraged for existing farms, the problem of livestock waste will never end so long as we rely
on concentrated industrial farms to produce our food.
17. waste- The USDA estimates that more than 335 million tons of dry matter waste (the portion of
waste remaining after water is removed) is produced annually on farms in the United States,
representing almost a third of the total municipal and industrial waste produced every year.
18. water pollution- Industrial agriculture is among the leading causes of water pollution in the United
States today. In the 2000 National Water Quality Inventory conducted by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), agricultural activity was identified as a source of pollution for 48% of
stream and river water, and for 41% of lake water.
Write: Before viewing these videos, how much did you know about agribusiness? What was some new
information you learned from these videos? What is the goal of these videos? Do you think these videos
will change how you eat? Why/why not?
