In today’s world of fast food and mass production, it’s easy to overlook where our meals come from. We’re conditioned to think of food as nothing more than a product, a neatly packaged item in a grocery store, a quick fix for hunger.
However, behind the convenience lies a system built on efficiency at all costs, often at the expense of ethics, sustainability, and even basic animal welfare.
Factory farming has become the dominant method of food production, with billions of animals raised in confined, industrialized environments. The goal? Maximize output, minimize costs—even if it means sacrificing the natural life cycle of living creatures.
As consumers, do we ever stop to think about the reality of what we’re eating? Or have we become too desensitized to care?
The Reality Behind Mass Production
When you look into the way large-scale farming operates, you’ll notice a few unsettling trends:
✔️ Selective breeding & genetic engineering – Animals are designed to grow abnormally fast, sometimes to the point where their bodies can’t support their own weight.
✔️ Crowded, confined spaces – Millions of chickens, pigs, and cows live in environments where they can barely move, let alone exhibit natural behaviors.
✔️ Efficiency over ethics – The industry prioritizes profitability over well-being, leading to questionable farming practices that go largely unchecked.
The end result? A system that treats living beings like machines, existing only to serve the demand for more food at a lower cost.
When Music Meets Social Commentary
Art has always been a way to reflect the world around us, and music is no exception. While documentaries and news reports shed light on the issue, some artists are taking a different approach. They are using music to spark conversation in unexpected ways.
Take the song “When They Drop” by Arrive by 9, for example. At first listen, it’s a high-energy trap/house track built for the dance floor. But beneath the surface, it’s something more:
🎵 A darkly humorous take on factory farming
🎵 A self-aware chicken realizing its fate
🎵 A satirical critique of modern food production
The song paints an absurd yet unsettling picture of an animal bred solely for mass production. It’s genetically modified, unable to move, and existing only to lay eggs. The repetition of “cluck, cluck, cluck” over a heavy beat turns into something hauntingly ironic.
If you’ve ever questioned the ethics of mass food production, this track might make you think twice about where your meals come from. It’s music that makes you move, but also makes you think.
Food for Thought: What’s Next for Our Food System?
As lab-grown meat and genetic engineering become more normalized, we have to ask: Where do we draw the line? If efficiency is all that matters, what happens to ethics? To quality? To the natural way of life?
While we might not have all the answers, one thing is clear: The more we ignore these issues, the further removed we become from the truth.
So the next time you sit down for a meal, take a moment to ask yourself—what’s the real cost of convenience?
🎧 Listen to “When They Drop” by Arrive by 9 and dive into the conversation.