Trying to eat healthy food nowadays is expensive. Many people choose the cheaper food instead of purchasing organic food. In the video “What’s wrong with our food system”, Birke Baehr discusses how the industrial farms are producing the food in a rapid way but making the food to cause long-run diseases. He has found a sustainable way for people to get healthy organic local food. Birke encourages everyone to purchase their food at their local farm which have no chemicals. Furthermore, the article “Fixing Our Broken Food System: The Plate of the Union Initiative” explains how the food system is broken because the food that people can afford are from the industrial farms. It emphasis to fix this problem, people need to support the farmers by investing in research for sustainable …show more content…
Many people select the cheapest food because fresh fruits and vegetables are unaffordable for many Americans (“Fixing Our Broken Food System: The Plate of the Union Initiative”). Society needs to be aware that the fruits and vegetables are being sprayed with harmful chemicals and then radiated for them to last longer (Barhr). Society needs to know they are putting their health at risk by consuming the industrial farms food. Purchasing their food at a local farms is convenient in the long run because as Barhr said “we can either pay the farmer or we can pay the hospital”.
Different groups are being affected such as the farmers, the people who cannot afford organic food, and the industrial farm companies. The farmers are affected by the industrial farms because they are the competition. The farmers’ fruits and vegetables are expensive comparing to the industrial farms companies. The people are affected chemicals sprayed to the produce causes health problems on long run such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. Furthermore, the industrial farms companies are affected because people are teaching the communities how industrial farms grow their
Many people propose that industrial is better because farms aren’t always near by and meat is cheaper for bigger families. It’s true, in fact, the food is cheaper and low income families need cheaper things. It’s indeed true that farms aren’t always near by everyone, especially in cities. However, people who argue that should also consider their health instead of just how to get food and should considering taking effort into getting safe non-processsed foods for their families. This proves that they should go with the healthy choice of
America’s vast food supply has increased. Foods that were once hard to come by can be found in almost all the grocery stores across the nation. In the article “What’s Eating America”, by Michael Pollan, who is a professor of journalism, explains how the bounty of food came about. He writes about the creation of synthetic fertilizer and how it was used to fertilize crops and essentially make all the foods today. He writes about the harmful effects that are occurring as a result of the chemically made fertilizer. In another article called written by Katherine Spriggs, a student from Stanford University, she writes about the benefits of buying local versus becoming dependent on the import of food. She feels that buying from local farms
Nobody denies that the need for more food grows with the global population. Factory farms seem to be a solution to this problem since they produce mass quantities of food for cheap compared to their organic counterparts, which are forty-seven percent more expensive (Consumer Reports). The factory farming business, however, is not the best way to feed more people since it pollutes the environment. The factory
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, written by Michael Pollan, gives light to the question, “What should we have for dinner?” that he thinks Americans today cannot answer simply due to the fact that there are too many food options. This book serves as an eye-opener to challenge readers to be more aware and accountable of what is consumed daily. In order to understand fully where our food comes from, we must follow it back to the very beginning. Pollan goes on to discuss three different modern food chains in which we get our food: the industrial, the organic, and the hunter-gatherer. By tracing our food back to the beginning, we can understand that most of the nutritional and health problems America is going through today can be found on the farms that make our food and the government that can decide what happens. America deals with many food related illness such as, heart disease, obesity, and type II diabetes. Majority of a human and animals diet consists of being corn-fed leading to a high cause of obesity in the United States these are just some of the many diseases that come with over processed foods and diets we are unaware of. In this study, we will highlight the environmental and health issues and impacts related with modern agriculture and how these systems can be made more sustainable.
In this critical response to the article America’s Food Crisis and How to Fix it by Bryan Walsh. I am going to talk about how animals are being harmed and are given antibiotics to keep them from becoming sick, where the farmers put all the waste from the animals, and how people could fix it.
Journalist and novelist Michael Pollan writes about the trials and tribulations surrounding food in North America and raises questions regarding Western diet, which is mostly comprised of refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup and corn in general. He reiterates that chemically generated food is creating disease in North Americans; If we eliminate these factors and adopt the eating habits of less industrialized places in the world will we in our lifetime see rates of heart disease, type two diabetes and obesity decline dramatically? The western diet has evolved drastically in the last sixty years, so much so that people have become codependent on the government, dietitians and food agencies regarding their health and what to consume. The land is suffering from pesticides and singular plant farming, the alternative to this is to buy organic but at a higher price. Media has influenced the consumer to read the label and accept and trust the daily vitamin percentages on the box, as this is what is best for them. Money is the key factor in all of this and the government, scientific research and media know that, therefor the public is in for a shock when they realize that the very labels that are supposed to save them have fooled them.
Throughout the US there has been the big concern of where the food we eat comes from and if it is healthy. Everyone wants healthy food, yet we fail to eat the healthy food that is right in front of us, instead we eat industrial made food that causes the death of thousands of people each year. In the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, you explore the pros and cons of our five main food chains; industrial,industrial organic, organic, sustainable, and hunter gatherer. In all ways, the sustainable food chain is the best food chain to feed the US. Animals and plants are developed naturally without any chemicals or pesticides and all of the produce is grown and sold locally and harvested by hand.
The food we eat and the quantity of it is what industries base their investments on; they use this to their advantage and produce more quantity than quality for us to consume, without taking into consideration the effect this might have on us or on the world as a whole. In the article “When a Crop Becomes King” written by Michael Pollan we see what the excessive use of a crop can do to our health and the environment. The vast production of products made with corn has made it the crop which is grown more than any other in the United States, but the process of adapting to the high consumption of corn came at a high cost. While corn is the easiest and cheapest substitute for sugar and animal food it is also linked to the cause of chronic diseases and serious, long-lasting damage to our ecosystems. The production of certain things is something we might not have control of but what we should have control of is our health and what better way than denying anything that we know might give us a hard time the power to do
800 Word Essay Food, health and medical technologies have a large impact on individuals and communities today and in the future. Throughout this paper, discussion will involve the issues that society faces regarding food and health and how we can create a healthier and safer world for our future. The food industry has a large impact on individuals and will affect wider communities in the future. The rush of today’s society has pushed food production to become more commercialized with prepackaged/premade based foods. For numerous reasons such as time, work and costs of living, people are wanting meals that are cheap, fast, easy and don’t require much effort.
Consumers have become increasingly detached from their food as America’s food system grows larger and continues to ruin the environment. The main problem is that most consumers do not know how their consumption habits affect the ecosystem around them. Nor do they know about how their food was produced. Information about how and where the food is being produced and wasted is essential, so people can shop responsibly. Short of legislation, Americans make choices at the grocery store. It is essential for all Americans to cast in a vote with their dollars to change the way that food is produced in the United States resulting in more sustainable food being more accessible in the aisles of the grocery store for all Americans.
The way we eat food has changed drastically in the past few decades. When I think of the process of how our food is made and produced, I think of a farm with happy animals lying around, eating healthy green grass, with bright blue skies. In the fields growing is sweet smelling fruit picked right when fresh, all in order to be taken to our grocery stores. Most people usually picture our food coming from a farm in this manner; however, this image is far from the truth. The food industry purposely wants us to picture faming this way because they want to hide the reality of how our farms actually look and operate.
Nations are judged and measured by their production and selling of goods and services. Not only has increased consumerism resulted in ecological imbalance, it is also depleting earth’s natural resources, which in turn is creating an environmental crisis. One of the biggest products being consumed is food. Rapidly growing world’s population requires increased food production. Author Anna Lappe does an excellent job expounding on the impact that food production and distribution has on the environment. Lappe (2015) argues that modern practices of food production directly contribute to air pollution and increases carbon dioxide emissions (par. 11). Crop production uses an absurd amount of land, artificial fertilizer, and harmful pesticides that seriously pollutes the environment and threatens young children and wildlife species. Author Sandra Steingraber (2015) also argues that increased consumerism has led to a high usage of harmful chemicals to produce products for consumers (par.
Society must educate itself on what type of food is healthy such as fresh or fresh frozen vegetables, lean meats, whole grains and fruits. Parents should take the time to explain what these are and why they are important, educating themselves if necessary. Families can also extend this education to a hands-on experience but starting a small vegetable garden which produces some of the vegetables they eat. Author and farmer, Sharon Astyk, and sustainable systems land planner, Aaron Newton, argue that people need to take back the control of the food selection and prices by growing their own or purchasing directly from local farmers. In their article, “The Rich Get Richer: the Poor Go Hungry”, Astyk and Newton (2015) write, “When we grow our own food, or buy it directly from local farmers, we take power away from multinationals” (p.518). I agree that society should become more involved and self-sustaining pertaining to food to retain independence from companies that are loyal to shareholders. This education will provide the current and future generations necessary resources to make improved food choices, thereby reducing the obesity and diabetes epidemics gripping our nation.
We live in an age in which we have come to expect everything to be instantaneously at our fingertips. We live in an age of instant coffee, instant tea, and even instant mashed potatoes. We can walk down the street at 5 in the morning and get a gallon of milk or even a weeks worth of groceries at our discretion. Even though it is great that food is now readily available at all times, this convenience comes at a price, for both the producer and the consumer. Farmers are cheated out of money and are slaves to big business, workers and animals are mistreated. And, because food now comes at a low cost, it has become cheaper quality and therefore potentially dangerous to the consumer’s health. These problems surrounding the ethics and the
The food industry does not want you to know anything more than what you think about what goes on within our farms, because if you knew, you wouldn’t want anything to do with it and they would lose millions of dollars. The reality of it is, these are not farms we are getting our food from, it is a factory. Your image of the cows, pigs, and chickens running around freely is not what “farms” are like today at all. Our meat is being produced by huge corporations that have all the power in the food industry to do whatever they please to. The fruits and vegetables are being picked while still green all over the world wherever the food is in season after being sprayed with harmful chemicals so it stays fresh till it hits our kitchen tables. Our food is coming from factories, mass farming, and assembly lines, where the food has become a danger to us and the people producing it. This issue has a personal meaning for me because, I