Healthy Fast Food Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Healthy Fast Food - Research Paper Example Though the fast foods can be associated and blamed to the food industry, home made fast foods can be a good substitute, but if similarly uncontrolled, risk of feeding on unhealthy foods still remains. For a healthy fast food, the ingredients used need to be controlled substantially; the consumers should also plan on consuming healthily, by ensuring they eat correct portions of balanced diet in the fast foods as a healthy behavior. People should not be controlled by the flavors, sweetness or preference, but rather by making correct choices for their healthy diets. Keywords: Health, Fast Food, Junk Food, Sugar, Salt, Trans Fat, Saturated Fats, Balanced Diet, Chemicals, Additives, Ingredients, Diseases Introduction The norm of the modern society has been accessing fast foods to save time in their activities. Students and employees prefer to have meals that can be prepared and served quickly, without even paying attention to how it was prepared, the ratio, and ingredients used in the rea dy product. On top of the preparation criterion, these fast foods target a wide range of people and seem to be located in accessible places, near schools, companies, busy streets and town centers, where the population is relatively large to promote the fast food business. As a result, the fast food restaurants acquire high proportion of their product consumptions, where the customers’ preference even dictates how, what, and intensity of the products they prepare. Eating fast food once in a while is not a problem, but why the society or families cannot take time to prepare their own healthy meals is not an excuse to have reckless habits of consuming fast food. There are lots of healthy effects on high consumption of fast foods, especially problems that affect the physical health of the consumers. Although the manufactures and preparing restaurants have of recent been aware of consumer group movements, against their sales of unhealthy food, much lies with the consumers to ensur e what they consume is nutritious and healthy. Unhealthy drinks and food should be avoided for their safety. Safe Ingredients Chemicals: Most of the available fast foods on the market are prepared with additional chemicals that are dangerous to consumers’ health. The past generations could afford to make fast food without chemical additives and lead a healthy, satisfied life. Unlike the past society, the chemicals used today in the fast foods were not available and though the technology was not advanced as it is today, the meals were tasty and healthy. There are lots of foods in the fast food industry that are prepared using chemicals to make the food appealing, add flavor and even preserve them, attracting the people to buy the foods. As a result, people end up consuming processed fast foods containing lots of toxins and chemicals, such as (Monosodium glutamate (MSG), Aspertame, 2-Amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (PHIP), sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite, sweete ning and coloring chemicals whose accumulation in the body have a negative effect if not flushed out (Strauss, 2012). Just because the food is appealing does not make it healthy, and given the opportunity, the society and the fast food industry should avoid preparing their food on their menus with such chemicals. Fast foods can be made healthier and appealing even without using

Articles summary Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Articles summary - Assignment Example achers at Meadow Park Middle School practice involvement into a closer cooperation of such kind by means of complete embracing the Common Core Standards in mathematics and English. They have tried to pick up the standards, reduce them to the basic concepts, simplify the language and support their learners both in English and content classes. The reason for necessity of such cooperation is that the new standards of education presuppose harmonic development of an educated person, and this diversity is impossible without inter-subject relationships. In this regard, both a native speaker and a learner of English as a second language have the same objectives – reading and understanding complex texts, finding written and oral arguments, engagement in conversations. It is obvious that the students with low skills in English take much time from their tutors in content subjects, and this is the fact which also proves necessity of cooperation between the two mentioned types of teachers. Practice shows that teachers of English as a second language support the idea of their assistance to the content teachers who may need it when working with the learners of English. This is because English teachers are familiar with the learners’ language capabilities, knowledge level and cultural background, and this information plays a very important role when choosing an appropriate approach to better ways of explanation of the content subjects. The author also concerns herself with the matter of the English teachers’ status in their educational institutions. They are considered the main responsible for formulating language competence of the learners, they must work extra time to equalize the students’ language knowledge level, that is, they have many responsibilities and their scope of work is very large. The dilemma here is that they are rarely awarder for this, for example, the number of principles who are English teachers is very low, and almost all of the leading roles in the

Short articles about sex, gender and society Essay - 2

Short articles about sex, gender and society - Essay Example Vampirism, as a category akin to femininity, continues to assert itself in what underpins relationships between the main characters, focusing on understanding and sympathy that is most often attributed to the female persona. This same feminine-like persona is also illustrated in a situation where Sonny and Eric have a physical altercation when Sonny describes Eric’s love interest as a woman with big tits. For showing this type of disrespect for women, Sonny receives a quick blow and a reprimand for his insensitivity and callous actions. Furthermore, when Sookie and Bill are having a sexual experience, Sookie compares the love-making activity to I am woman, hear me roar, illustrating that the vampires are sensitive to their needs of their sexual partners, another attribute mostly attributed to female personality. There is a type of communal obligation to ensure that any member of vampire cliques do not maintain emotional distress and that their needs are fulfilled. This, to me, should be viewed as being more attributable to feminine characteristics and this gender is exemplified in the closeness and intimacy that underpins all relationships, something much different than masculinity as it is perceived in the stereotypical sense. Riker’s relationship with the androgynous alien shows that the bonds of legitimate love transcend gender stereotypes. When Riker confides to his ex-lover, Deanna, that he is falling for the alien, he receives ample emotional support, though advised to proceed cautiously. Riker is willing to explore sexual relationships with this androgynous being because he feels a deep emotional love for the creature, which illustrates that love and sex, under traditional views of romance and relationships, go hand-in-hand and are absolute necessities to ensure intimacy and closeness. Sex as a component of romantic love assists in our understanding of

USA Corporations Law Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

USA Corporations Law - Case Study Example In dealing with this case, the court will be applying the review of the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (Pillegi, 2007). The court will be more concerned on the breach of the fiduciary duty of disclosure. The court is likely to rule against the Barnes family (Marciano v. Nakash). The loan that the Ewing family made to the Ewing Corporation was valid and enforceable. The duty of disclosure requires that the directors disclose all the details that pertain to the transaction that is been carried out (Alexander, 2008). The disclosure is made to the board of directors and to the shareholders. Since the Ewing family did full disclosure of the material facts that involved the loan, including the terms of the loan and the deed of trust, it will be hard for the Barnes to prove that the fiduciary duty was breached (Pillegi, 2007). Furthermore, the shareholders approved the loan. This is despite the fact that the voting was done along family lines. It is beyond doubt that the voting of the directors and the shareholders was done in good faith. The burden of proof will be different for both parties of the dispute. The Barnes is required to prove that the Ewing directors breached the fiduciary duty in approving that loan. ... Despite this knowledge, the Ewing directors went ahead and approved the loan to the company (Greenberg & Kagan, 2009). On the other hand, the Ewing directors will be required to prove to the court that their action was based on good intentions to the company. This will be easy to prove since there is already prove that the company tried to obtain funding from external sources without any success. They will have to prove to the court that they did not try to take advantage of the financial troubles of the company to benefit themselves. The Ewing directors will also be required to prove to the courts that they were honest with their dealings with Ewing Oil Inc. this honesty will have to be proved by the fact that they did disclose the material details surrounding the transaction to the shareholders (Dunn et al, 2009). The shareholders went ahead and approved the loan, albeit along family lines. But the court will not be interested on the background of the shareholders. The important thing was that they did approve the loan. There is no proof that the shareholders were misinformed on anything or misled. The Ewing directors will also have to prove that they did not omit anything that was importance when they were doing the disclosure. The omission, if proved that it did exist, will show that the Ewing directors were acting on bad faith. The omission that they might have made was for example the one pertaining to the period within which they were supposed to foreclose on their loan. If the omission is proved to have influenced the direction that the shareholders took in voting, the Barnes family would have achieved the fete of proving that a fiduciary duty was breached. b. The

Project Paper on Wireless Transmission and Communication Essay

Project Paper on Wireless Transmission and Communication - Essay Example n become a technology that is productive in promoting modest, well remunerated employment and improving economic performance in the developing economies of the world (Noll, 2000). According to Noll (2000), in spite of the economic crash of the global economy over the last five years and the passing of the Internet fizz, these queries remain fundamental to the regulators. This is because ITC has become a reality of life in all realms of economic activity. Nearly all organizations use computers and most of them have an Internet connection. Furthermore, a great percentage of these organizations use computers networks for economic rationales, such like selling and outsourcing of goods and services and buying. However, in spite of the far ranging dissemination of ICT in developing economies, questions remain about the effect of the technology on job-generation and economic development. The cumulative denominator of in all these decades has been the slow transit of related technologies from innovator perceptions that could distribute products and services of these technologies more dynamically than their originators by merit of labor cost advantage. Pakistan is situated in South Asia neighboured by Afghanistan, China, Iran, and India. Pakistan is the 7th most populated nation in the world with a population of 160 million. It is a middle income with per capita income of US$846 and the nation has recorded a nominal GDP expansion of seven percent over the past five years. In spite of the political instability that the country has never witnessed during 2007 between ruling military government and numerous political and social classes, Pakistan has accomplished success in mobile telecommunications. The telephone diffusion rate per capita shifted from 4 percent in 2000 to 58 percent in 2007 because of over triple figure expansion during past few years. This growth from 19990 when the first mobile certification was issued to just two private companies in Pakistan. The

Conagra Foods Essay Example for Free

Conagra Foods Essay ConAgra Foods Inc. is one of the largest food companies in the United States operating in such segments as Consumer Foods (66%) and Commercial Foods (34%) which are divided into three significant business operations segments – agricultural products, packaged foods and refrigerated foods (Table 1). Table 1. Net sales (in millions USD) 20102009%increase/decrease Consumer Foods 8,002 7,979-%. Commercial Foods 4,077 4,447(8)% Total12,07912,426(3)% Source: Annual Report 2010 Consumer Foods The Consumer Foods segment includes branded, private label and customized food products, which are sold in various retail and foodservice channels. The products include a variety of categories, such as meals, entrees, condiments, sides, snacks, and desserts across frozen, refrigerated and shelf-stable temperature classes. The Company’s major brands include Alexia, ACT II, Banquet, Blue Bonnet, Chef Boyardee, DAVID, Egg Beaters, Healthy Choice, Hebrew National, Hunt’s, Marie Callender’s, Orville Redenbacher’s, PAM, Peter Pan, Reddi-wip, Slim Jim, Snack Pack, Swiss Miss, Van Camp’s and Wesson. As of July 22, 2010, it had 39 domestic manufacturing facilities in Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin. As of July 22, 2010, it also had four international manufacturing facilities in Canada and Mexico (one 50% owned) and one in Arroyo Dulce, Argentina. Commercial Foods The Commercial Foods segment supplies frozen potato, sweet potato and other vegetable, spice and grain products to a variety of restaurants, foodservice operators and commercial customers. The products are sold under brands, such as ConAgra Mills, Lamb Weston, and Spicetec Flavors Seasoning. As of July 22, 2010, it had 41 domestic production facilities in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Washington; one international production facility in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico and Qingdao, China; one manufacturing facility in Taber, Canada; one 50% owned manufacturing facility in each of Colorado, Minnesota, Washington and the United Kingdom; one 67% owned manufacturing facility in Puerto Rico, and three 50% owned manufacturing facilities in the Netherlands. Company is mainly engaged in operations in the United States which count for more than 90% of total income (Table 2). ConAgra Foods Inc. owns approximately 50 brands (Table 3). Table 2. Pre-tax income from continuing operations (in millions USD) 201020092008 United States1,040. 3872. 1631. 9 Foreign 66. 6 64. 3 69. 6 Total1,106. 9936. 4701. 5 Source: Annual Report 2010 Vision and mission The vision of the company set by current CEO Gary Rodkin is: â€Å"One company. One goal. Making the food you love. † It reflects the overall company’s strategy to make â€Å"food people want in their lives every day†. The mission is reflected in company’s profile: â€Å"Preparing great food, being a strong partner to our customers and thinking about all of the people who enjoy our food and the difference it makes in their lives fuels our passion: making the food you love. † Goals Like every public-held company listed on NYSE (ConAgra Foods Inc. has ticker CAG) ConAgra Foods Inc. aims to increase earnings per share. The goal of the company is to achieve long-term growth through supply chain productivity, operational efficiency, innovation, selling, marketing and sustainability of great brands . Increase in supply chain productivity and operational efficiency lets the company to reduce its manufacturing, finance, administrative, transportation costs. Innovation and marketing orientation enhances the business processes and expands profit margins. Figure 1. Formula for growth Source: Annual Report 2010 ConAgra Foods Inc.operates under three principles while achieving its strategic goal: simplicity, collaboration and accountability. Using their resources rationally, nourishing employees and creating positive image within the community are the objectives which lead the company to be â€Å"good for you, good for the community, good for the people† . Strategic priorities The company focuses on the following business product groups. In each strategic group ConAgra Foods Inc. possesses significant manufacturing and innovation capabilities. Figure 2. Strategic priorities. Source: Annual Report 2010 Strategy â€Å"ConAgra Foods is focused on growing sales, expanding profit margins, and improving returns on capital over time. To that end, the company has significantly changed its portfolio of businesses over a number of years, focusing on branded, value-added opportunities, while divesting commodity-based and lower-margin businesses. † Acquisitions Company was founded in 1919 as Nebraska Consolidated Mills and in 2000 changed its name to ConAgra Foods Inc. Acquisitions are the major part of ConAgra’s strategy. The company implemented horizontal and vertical integration strategy after sustaining solid background in flour-milling operations and feed and poultry segment. The time and the trends in the food industry were crucial to the strategic acquisitions of the company. In 1970-1980s when home and industrial refrigerators became available for the consumers and packing techniques developed , which meant that now meat and vegetables will not spoil, ConAgra entered the frozen foods market with the acquisition of Banquet Foods in 1980 and other companies in the meat and poultry segment (Armour Foods, Beatrice Foods, Hebrew National Foods, etc.). In 1980-1990s when the welfare of American citizens began to improve and people began to value time the food that was easy to cook (which means basically just heat and serve) was highly demanded and ConAgra’s strategic move was highly appreciated by the investors in the stock market. The stock price of CAG tripled from 10$ in 1990 to 30$ in 1998. The total amount of acquired brands approximated 30 by the year 2000 (Hunt’s, La Choy, Wesson, ACT II, Chef Boyardee, etc. ) and company changed its name to ConAgra Foods Inc.to reflect its growing role as a food products manufacturer rather than just the food ingredients supplier. In the beginning of the twenty first century and nowadays when the society became more concerned about their health ConAgra Foods Inc. implemented several strategic acquisitions of such companies as Alexia Foods Inc. (natural and organic foods company) in 2007, Elan Nutrition in 2010 and others. The purchases that company makes â€Å"†¦reflect [our] acquisition strategy—find businesses that are great fits and enable [us] to grow by filling a need within [our] portfolio or giving [us] an adjacent category expansion†¦. † Figure 3. The acquisitions strategy helped ConAgra Foods Inc. to: ConAgra Foods Inc. divests the businesses which are either too complex to integrate with the core businesses or did not achieve a profit margin greater than the benchmark margin rate. In 2009 the company sold Pemmican (beef jerky business), in 2008 it sold â€Å"Knott’s Berry Farm† operations and others. Mostly, the divestitures are low-margin (commodity-based) businesses. Marketing and distribution Almost every American household has a number of ConAgra Foods brand-named products in their refrigerators. The ability to acquire well-known and customer-loved brands had secured for ConAgra beneficial position. Some of the acquired brands such as Peter Pan and Chef Boyardee had longer history than ConAgra and were so much identifiable in the consumer market that it makes no sense to advance the brand of ConAgra. Even though the company has so many brands in their â€Å"arsenal† many people don’t know what ConAgra does. And many consumers don’t identify ConAgra as the owner of the brand-named products that they buy. ConAgra is aimed to the better understanding needs of their customers. The health-conscious consumers (whose number is growing) chose nutritious and low-fat food. For increasing nutrition in its products company launched the program on sodium reduction and positions itself as a â€Å"safe food manufacturer† . In 2008 the company launched the program online startmakingchoices. com for people who are concerned with the healthy way of life. The website has several tests and tips on how to keep your life healthier. Also company designs packaging with the full information to help consumers improve their diet. â€Å"Taste, health, nutrition, convenience, sustainability and, of course, value are just some of the issues American shoppers are now faced with every time they go to a supermarket and theyre demanding to know more. † For the purpose of better serving its customers and help consumers with their choice ConAgra Foods Inc. launched â€Å"Food News Today† with Phil Lempert, a â€Å"leading consumer trend analyst and Supermarket Guru†. ConAgra Foods Inc. aimed to develop and improve their private labeling strategy. One of the most successful brands that company has, Healthy Choice, has retail sales of about 1 billion dollars. This label is licensed to other companies for use on their products. Company announced the Gold Store initiative in 2006, which focuses on driving growth by optimizing in-store conditions in three fundamental areas: distribution, shelving, and placement next to the companion products. As part of a plan ConAgras sales efforts are shifting from a strategy that relied heavily on short-term price discounts and couponing in order to push out sales volume to consumers to a strategy that relies more on ways to draw in consumers. The new strategy hopes to provide a more balanced mix of trade spending, consumer advertising, and product innovation than the company had in the past. Even though ConAgra Foods Inc. owns distribution and transportation businesses like J. M. Swank, most of company’s transportation equipment, distribution centers and storage facilities are being run by third parties. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and its affiliates, accounted for approximately 18% of consolidated net sales for fiscal 2010 . ConAgra combines hard data from retailers with its own qualitative research. â€Å"Gary Rodkin is on a quest to find what he calls the big, singular insight that will drive behavior change. †¦. He is using theories about buying habitsbacked by $399 million a year in advertising, marketing and in-store promotionsto convince grocery stores to provide ample shelves for its 45 consumer brands†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬  Leadership. Charles M. Harper The â€Å"wizard† Charles M. Harper who led the company from 1974 to 1993 is well-known for launching acquisitions strategy and founding Healthy Choice brand. During his tenure at ConAgra, the company expanded its business operations from flour-milling business to frozen foods, poultry, prepared seafood, fertilizers and the sales rose from $636 million in 1974 to $9 billion in 1987. The main reason for making decisions on acquisitions strategy were cyclical profits that company faced in agricultural segment. Mike Harper decided to diversify the company from basic products to packaged goods. His main priority was to acquire companies while they were in their down cycle and he restructured the companies and refocused their marketing strategies. He reintroduced the brands which were highly recognizable by consumers and refocused the product lines. In 1988 Harper boasted that ConAgra was probably the only food products company to participate across the entire food chain. In the early 1990s ConAgra expanded at a rate of about 3-5 acquisitions and joint ventures a year, becoming the leader in the frozen goods industry . During his tenure the P/E ratio of the company was at all times high which means: the price of stock was rising faster than the earnings per share or in other words, the investors were overoptimistic about the future of the company. (Figure 4) Figure 4. P/E ratio of ConAgra Foods Inc. Bruce Rhode In 1998 Bruce Rhode was named a CEO of ConAgra and his first steps were to reduce costs by large amount. He instituted Operation Overdrive restructuring program, closing several production plants and storage facilities and cutting the workforce by seven thousand employees. The estimated savings from Operation Overdrive were approximately $600 million a year . The other problem that Bruce Rhode faced was strong decentralization of the company. Some of the food-processing and meat-packing companies, which operated under one brand name of ConAgra, purchased the products from the competitors rather than other ConAgra’s branches. The same uncoordinated actions were in marketing when â€Å"representatives from several ConAgra divisions, all selling similar products, visited the same restaurants and groceries†. Bruce Rhode emphasized team-approach to solve these problems. At the beginning of 2000s many retail grocery stores would like to promote their own brands in foods processing and packaging segment and that was another problem for Bruce Rhode to solve. He concentrated on product development and marketing, working closely with grocery stores to create displays of ConAgra products. Bruce Rhode continued acquisitions strategy of his predecessors acquiring more brand names in packaged food segment (International Home Foods in 2000) to increase gross sales of the company and he divided company into ten principal operating units: ConAgra Foodservice Company; ConAgra Grocery Products Companies; ConAgra Frozen Prepared Foods; ConAgra Dairy Case Companies; ConAgra Refrigerated Prepared Foods; ConAgra Meat Companies; ConAgra Poultry Company; ConAgra Food Ingredients; United Agri Products Companies; ConAgra Trade Group. The early years of his tenure coincided with the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997-1998 when the investors were cautious about the US domestic markets and the stock price fell significantly (Figure 4). Figure 4. Daily stock prices for ConAgra Foods, Inc. (CAG) since 1978 to 2010. Source: google. com/finance Gary Rodkin Gary Rodkin, the former CEO of PepsiCo Beverages and Foods of North America division, replaced Bruce Rhode as CEO of ConAgra Foods Inc. in 2005 and began reorganization trying to create one centralized consolidated company that consists of more than 500 subdivisions. As a result of refocusing its portfolio of businesses ConAgra Foods Inc. divested Butterball, Armour, Eckrich and others. Gary Rodkin, while continuing acquisitions strategy, transformed the company into a â€Å"more unified operating company† . With the changes of the new CEO many analysts were concerned that he would try to create ConAgra brand instead of coordinating many different brands. However, during his interview to SmartMoney (Wall Street Journal) in 2010 he said: â€Å"†¦. There is no product named ConAgra. So instead, we say, consumers make the brands relevant. We do need investors to better understand this company. But on the consumer side, we really don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze. † Performance Internal organization ConAgra Foods Inc. operates in a low-margin industry thus effectively managing its costs is the priority in achieving strategic competitiveness (Figure 6). Focusing on cost reduction the company could save 1. 1 billion USD through supply chain rationalization initiatives, the relocation of a divisional headquarters from Irvine, California to Naperville, Illinois, the centralization of shared services, salaried headcount reductions and other cost-reduction initiatives . Figure 6. Heres how the $4. 19 you pay for a frozen dinner like one from Healthy Choice breaks down. ConAgra makes 55 cents. Source: Forbes. com . Shopping Cart Psychology by Helen Coster. 08. 19. 09 For the fiscal 2010 year ConAgra Foods Inc. announced net sales of 12,079 million USD with the operating profit of 1,652 USD (Table 4). Table 4. Financial Highlights for the fiscal 2010 year Source: Annual Report 2010 â€Å"†¦.. Heightened competition, weak demand and inflation hampered food processor ConAgras fiscal first quarter, leading it to cut its outlook, though the maker of Healthy Choice and Orville Redenbachers brand foods increased its dividend†¦.. † . The company also decreased its earnings per share outlook from 8-10% growth to 5-7%. External environment ConAgra Foods Inc. is focused on value-added brand companies and private labeling in the food industry where it competes with such giants as Kraft Foods, Heinz, Nestle, etc. â€Å"†¦.. We experience intense competition for sales of our principal products in our major markets. Our products compete with widely advertised, well-known, branded products, as well as private label and customized products. Some of our competitors are larger and have greater resources than we have. We compete primarily on the basis of quality, value, customer service, brand recognition, and brand loyalty†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. † From the next figure it can be inferred that even though ConAgra Foods, Inc. operates better than overall US industries, it still underperforms the leading companies in food sector. Figure 5. 10-year comparison of ConAgra Foods Inc. , SP 500, SP 500 Packaged Foods Index. Source: Annual Report 2010 In the Processed and Packaged Goods industry companies operate under very narrow margins (Figure 6) and for that reason severe price competition after the financial crisis influences heavily the profits of ConAgra Foods Inc. Also, the retailers implement backward integration strategy and take away profits from famous brand companies since the consumers are losing interest in the brand-named products. Even though the there are some good news about the industry that the consumers are very conscious about the money and they eat-out less than before the crisis the competition in the industry makes it difficult for analysts to predict bright future for the food companies. In the Figure we can see that the general projections for the industry are either â€Å"buy† or â€Å"hold† rather than â€Å"strong buy†. Figure 7. Analysts recommendation about the industry and ConAgra Foods Inc. Source: wikinvest. com Zacks Investment Research, November 24, 2010. Bibliographies 1. Amanda Quick, â€Å"Company profiles for students†, (Thomson Gale, 1999) 2. bigcharts. com 3. ConAgra Foods Inc. Annual Report 2010 4. ConAgra Foods Inc. Corporate Responsibility Report 2010 5. conagrafoods. com 6. forbes. com 7. google. com/finance 8. http://www. hbs. edu 9. referenceforbusiness. com 10. wikinvest. com 11. wsj. com.

The Challenge Of Human Cloning: Pros And Cons

The Challenge Of Human Cloning: Pros And Cons Nowadays, due to cloning disobeys human beings moral value, it has become a thorny issue even though it can benefit human beings and our society in lots of areas. Specifically, it is generally thought that it is immoral and unethical to clone human beings for various reasons, but the morality of human cloning cannot be reached yet since it is still a new technology. Additionally, attitudes toward it differ widely. Critics argue that cloning can be a risk factor of affecting human beings uniqueness, cause psychological and physical effects on human beings, result in the potential harms to the society and create strange kinship, and instability of cloning technology; however, advocates claim that cloning also can advance biomedical technology, improve the medical standards, and protect our environment. Moreover, it is undeniable that potential danger exists in human cloning which may cause serious consequences, but we cannot ignore the huge benefits that human cloning could bring such as the medical science improvement. Hence, it is essential to show the pros and cons of cloning. Some people argue that cloning of human beings is unethical because it deprives human beings uniqueness and brings social issues. Life is a creation, not a commodity, said President Bush, Our children are gifts to be loved and protected, not products to be designed and manufactured. No human life should be exploited or extinguished for the benefit of another (President par. 15). President Bush is carrying out a prohibition order; he believes that human cloning is unethical and immoral. In addition, cloned people may lose some special values each person should have. In this world, every person is unique, but human cloning would break this situation. However, cloned people are non-natural products and it is unfair for the people who are cloned. Imagine if there are two exactly same Brad Pitt, will he still be the unique actor as before? Furthermore, cloning technology can promise the same appearance, but not able to guarantee to clone peoples personalities since characters are related with peoples growth environment and are formed in the process of human growth. Thus, President Bushs speech reveals that why it is unacceptable for human cloning. To demonstrate, in article Medical Research, it shows that human cloning technologys instability is a big issue for peoples safety and human morality. In article Science, it mentioned about an experiment of creating hybrid embryonic stem cells, which is a new creature by combining a human cell with a cow egg. It challenges human ethnic theory in a brave step, but it is also intolerant for human morality. Therefore, since human cloning technology offends our social morality, article Medicine and Health provides a new way of thinking article Science by emphasizing its immorality and unnatural. Human cloning prompts a series of social problems, and it also causes complex family issues. Moreover, it could make the cloned people suffer psychological blow, and complex family relationships of cloned people will bring future negative impact on both survival and growth. According to my interview with Professor Peter Cherbas, who works in Biology department in Indiana University Bloomington, Human cloning is a process of copying others, so compared to the normal laws of human society, it is an unnatural product, says Professor Cherbas, and a cloned person would not have a father and a mother just like we have, and it appears that they will have awkward position in the family which is hard to accept by cloned people. Cloning is the creation of cells or whole animals using DNA from a single parent, by passing the normal reproductive process (What is Cloning par. 2). This means a cloned child is the descendant of a single person, while usually the proliferation of human needs the com bination of opposite sex. In this case, cloned children will only have one single biological related mother, which could result in some psychological trauma since it is impossible for them to have a complete family and they have to accept the truth of their mothers have the exactly same appearances with themselves. We need to respect life, and it is worthless to risk mankinds future and it is also unfair for the cloned people to suffer something that normal people do not have to face. Human cloning could lead some complex family relationship and unethical kinship. Furthermore, it is unethical that cloned people are separated from parents relationship and other human relationship. Moreover, it would be awkward that the cloned child can be the mothers child or her twin sister. Due to the cloned person only has one single parent, the family relationship is abnormal and it will be a big challenge for the cloned people to build their family relationship or kinship. Specifically, the cloned person will be in an embarrassing position in the family. For a man, the cloned child could either be his son or his twin brother; for a woman, the kid can be her daughter or her twin sister. Moreover, the mother or the father has to face a person who has exactly same appearance with themselves which is awkward. Someone might desire to clone their dead family member. However, there is no substitute for humans life or an individual person. Cloning might bring back the body of the lost family member, but it absolutely will not be the dead one you know since science cannot guarantee the same characters and thoughts. For instance, CC, the cloned cat mentioned above, does not quite look like its mother, Rainbow, a calico tri-colored female. At one year CC also has a different personality from her mother, being much more playful and curious (Lauritzen 458). Therefore, even though it may have chances to bring the dead back to life, he or she will not be the same person you know before. Human cloning technology is still limited significantly, and its instability is likely to lead to a series of new infectious diseases and thus cause the loss of humans various genes. Ultimately, it could lead to an uncontrollable disaster around the whole world. During the process of researching organ cloning, it is really easy to develop some new diseases which may cause huge consequences. So far cloning animal organs is still a new technology, and new technology often has limitations and safety issues. If cloned animal organs were transplanted into human bodies, I personally think the consequences would be disastrous, says Professor Peter Cherbas, after all, animals and humans are different species, so genes will be different for sure. You know, there is no 100% guarantee in the world. It shows that the uncertainity of human cloning can make people exposed to all kinds of diseases easily and can lead the whole human beings to extinction ultimately. Thus, human cloning has potential danger and it lacks stability as well. On the other hand, others hold that human cloning can bring huge benefits to medical treatments such as organ cloning and fertility problems by promoting scientific progress. Particularly, organ cloning provides great chances for those people who need organs. According to a recent survey conducted by COLUMBIA, Missouri (CNN), At the moment, approximately 75,000 Americans, awaiting organ transplants. Many people died of shortage of organs. Meanwhile, large amounts of organs are in need, but the offers of human donor organs still keep steady. However, researchers say they have taken a major step toward cloning pigs whose hearts, lungs and kidneys could be safely transplanted into humans (Research). With the development of the cloning technology, scientists could clone human organs instead of using animals organs. Secondly, cloning can help infertile couples to have their own children so that they do not have to use other peoples sperm or eggs. Furthermore, even lesbians and gays can ha ve children of their own as well. For example, if the male or husband is sterile, or does not produce sperm, DNA from one of his cells could be inserted into a de-nucleated egg from the female or wife who would also bear the child. Both would then be contributing to the make up and birth of the child. If the woman is infertile, another womans egg could be used along with the DNA of the infertile woman or her husband or partner (Lauritzen 456). It shows that people have rights to get a bright future since human cloning will benefit many people and widen the modern medicine worlds horizon. Therefore, human cloning technology can improve medical improvements, and huge potential strengths of human exist in cloning technology. Another benefit of cloning is that it could be used to treat many incurable disease so that many patients can regain health. Moreover, cloning technology covers diseases such as cancer, the Parkinsons disease, and other disease. Additionally, cloning technology can also prevent genetic disease to some extent, and this would greatly improve the population fitness. In article Medical Research, it illustrates specific points and detailed examples to explain human cloning technology can provide chances to cure various diseases. To illustrate, It was thought that embryonic stem cells had the potential for a great number of medical applications, including the development of laboratory-created organs for donation, and treatments for ailments including heart disease, diabetes and Parkinsons disease, among many others (Medical). Specifically, it helps better explain how human cloning cures diseases. However, because of the governments complete ban on it, human cloning technology cannot bring its advantage to medical area. However, advances in technology are always built on the basis of risk. Thus, if human cloning is delayed, it will be a loss of scientific success and a torture for many unfortunate suffers because the diseases could have been prevented. Besides the advantages of human cloning mentioned above, another huge benefit is that it could be used to protect environment and increase the amout of endangered wildlife. Luckily, scientists have successfully cloned some endangered ones. The recent report surprising success in cloning mouflon (a species of wild sheep) is notable for several reasons. The success rate was much greater than when the domestic sheep, Dolly, was cloned. It is also noteworthy that the donor nuclei were obtained from dead donor mouflon (Ryder 372, 373). The success of cloning a mouflon proves that cloning could be used to collect endangered wildlifes gene data. The activities of humans have led to the extinctions of many species. If we have a gene database of endangered species, we can maintain the ecological system by saving endangered plants and animals. According to a video of Sky News, British scientists are using a pioneering form of cloning to help save the northern white rhino from the brink of exti nction. There are only nine of the animals in captivity and even fewer out in the wild (Sky News). It proves endangered wildlife could be protected by the technology of cloning and thus to maintain the ecological system. Therefore, maybe after several years, pandas can be seen in every country around the world. In short, cloning technology plays an important role in fighting diseases and it can help people stay healthy as well. Simultaneously, cloning still needs some improvements because it is not absolutely safe at the moment, and it has the possibility that it might lead to a lot of harms and disasters. Personally, I am of the opinion that cloning should be encouraged in a right way because I think its advantages are greater than its disadvantages. There is an old saying that goes No pains, no gains. Technology is improving, and social is making progress as well. Finally, it is true that social morality is important, but the projects which are beneficial to mankind cannot be measured based solely on the standards of morality.