Hearts and Stomachs: Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”

Today we have "ag gag" laws that work to stifle speech that alerts citizens to issues related to the provenance of their food. To my eye, such laws are blatantly unconstitutional--but many blatantly unconstitutional things are routinely allowed in the service of Capital these days.

As an aside, Upton Sinclair wrote a book on fasting that presages a lot of our current interest and knowledge on the subject. Worth a look.

Odd that The Jungle is mentioned here. Does everyone realize that the US isn't doing any inspections of any food facilities any more?

I read this in school and I am amazed how it stuck with me. The imagery of the factory, the workers, etc.

My favorite "fun" fact about The Jungle was that Sinclair originally meant the book to expose the working conditions of the meat packing plants, but instead everyone focused on the way the meat was processed and got up in arms about that instead. He apparently also had to tone down some of the book's more socialist leanings before being allowed to publish it.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle