The Benefits of Local Farming Essay

Regardless the person, everyone still orders from restaurants, or they microwave a frozen dinner meal once in awhile. In contemporary society, it 's much more efficient to order take out rather than to cook and prepare your own food due to the lack of time. Sadly people even forget the taste of fresh, home cooked meals. Nowadays people don’t know what it’s like to sit down and enjoy a nice hearty home cooked meal, instead they’re always on the run grabbing a quick bite here and there. Unfortunately with such busy lives people don’t have the opportunity to watch cooking shows, go to cooking class, or even cook for their children. People just want to come home and relax they don’t want to have to worry about cooking and all the preparation that comes with it, they would much rather order take out and avoid all the hassle of cooking. In Berry Wendell’s Essay “The Pleasures of Eating”, we are given insight on how very little common people know about where their food comes from and what it goes through. “When a Crop Becomes King” by Michael Pollan reveals how corn, a single crop could be involved in such a wide array of industry and be used in almost everything. David Barboza’s article “If You Pitch It, They Will Eat”, focuses on how in modern society advertising is everywhere and it is taking a big role in everyday life. Through the work of Berry, Pollan, and Barboza we are shown that ignorance is a defining human trait.

He probes them to learn the what, where, and how of dinner – knowing what is going into the body, knowing where that food came from, and knowing how that food was made. By first knowing what is being consumed, people can make better informed decisions about their purchases. Nutrition, or lack thereof, is a key component in the battle against obesity. Food giants are hoping to hide the often unnecessary filler present in their products by use of dodgy claims and socially engineered advertisements. In general, most consumers probably couldn’t say where their food came from. This usually boils down to the fact that shoppers typically don’t think about it. Breaking this reliance on mass-grown foods is the second part of Pollan’s proposition. The third and equally important element is how the food is produced. More specifically, Pollan is concerned whether or not the food has been produced in a sustainable manner. Preserving the biodiversity of food, maintaining fertile land for future generations, and ensuring consumers receive food that does not compromise health are all factors of sustainability. Without informed consumers, what, where, and how will continue to be unanswered questions. Whether it is for nutritional or ethical choices, a particular food’s history is something that needs to once again become common

Finally, in the book The End of Food, by Paul Roberts, the author displays the impracticality of the local food movement. When discussing how much of a poor fit a locavore food system is in the modern United States, Roberts states “...in the United States, 80 percent of us live in large, densely populated urban areas, usually on the coast, and typically hundreds of miles, often thousands of miles, from the major centers of food production”. This exhibits how eating locally would be a

In addition to his solutions, Pollan’s modern narrative sheds light on the façade of our food industries; asking us to rethink what we know. Despite the mention of certain inhumane acts in All Animals are Equal, Pollan takes us one step further to uncover the reason for which we continue to purchase our corrupt food. We all know animal abuse exists, but the average consumer like myself is more worried about the best price and the fastest way to get a burger rather than how fairly the animals are treated in the process. Whether it be the confined living space of chickens or the mental and physical torture of pigs, we continue to blind ourselves from reality. Is it purely out of selfishness? Or are we too ignorant to come to terms with our wrong doings? Like Pollan explains, it takes seeing the abuse before the shame of our disrespect can be felt (pg.6). After seeing Pollan’s truth, I might now think twice before eating out and the choice to support organic produce can make a dramatic difference for those farmers who promote the ethical lifestyle.

Our nation’s industrial farming has become more than just feeding people; it has become a way for the food industry to make more money as human population continues to grow. Jonathan Safran Foer in his book Eating Animals, illustrates the effects factory farming has had on animals meant for human consumption. Furthermore, Foer asks many questions to the reader on what will it take for us to change our ways before we say enough is enough. The questions individuals need to be asking themselves are: how do we deal with the problem of factory farming, and what can people do to help solve these issues? Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, also illustrates the animal abuse that goes unseen within the food industry as well as Bernard Rollin and Robert Desch in their article “Farm Factories”, both demonstrate what is wrong today with factory farming. Foer gives such examples of employees who work in slaughterhouses giving accounts of what goes on in the kill floors, and stories of employees who have witnessed thousands and thousands of cows going through the slaughter process alive (Animals 231). Namit Arora in the article “On Eating Animals”, as well as Michael Pollan in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, both address some of the issues that animals face once they hit the kill floor. The food industry has transformed not only how people eat, but also the negative effects our climate endures as a result of factory farming as illustrated by Anna Lappe in “The Climate Crisis at the End

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.

Have you ever been in a rush, low on cash, and looking for something to eat so you didn’t really have a choice but to grab a burger with fries at your local fast food place? Have you ever paused or stopped to think about where the burger really came from, or the process that went in to be made? The Food Inc documentary investigates and exposes the American industrial production of meat, grains, and vegetables. Robert Kenner the producer of the film makes allegations in this film and he explores how food industries are deliberately hiding how and where it is our food is coming from. He emphasizes that we should find out where our food comes from and why is it that the food industry does not want us to know. Food Inc. does not only uses compelling images, such as hundreds of baby chickens being raised in spaces where they do not see an inch of sunlight, it also includes the speeches and stories of farmers, families, government officials, and victims of the food industry. The four current problems facing today’s food industry are the reformed usage of the false advertisement within the labeling of products , mistreatment of farmed animals, and the harmful chemical in our meats. The documentary Food Inc uses very persuasive tactics that demonstrates strong elements of pathos, ethos, and logos make an effective appeal, while uncovering the dark side of the food industry.

American food culture is not like other countries in the world; the diversity in foods and ethnicity creates its uniqueness. However, Americans mindset of “what should we have for dinner” and the poor decision making about food choices created the “omnivore’s dilemma” or what Pollan, in The Omnivore’s Dilemma calls the American national eating disorder. Pollan explored more about the food that Americans consume in “an investigation of food called the industrial food chain”(Pollan, Omnivore 110). While studying the products in supermarkets, Pollan realized that supermarkets offer a large variety of foods that contain corn, an unhealthy component, in most of its products. While Pollan is compelling claiming that American’s healthy food

In Slaughterhouse Blues, anthropologist Donald Stull and social geographer Michael Broadway explore the advent, history, and implications of modern food production. The industrialized system behind what we eat is one of the most controversial points of political interest in our society today. Progressions in productive, logistical, retail, and even biological technologies have made mass produced foods more available and more affordable than ever before. This being said, the vague mass production of ever-available cheap “food” carries with it several hidden

The locavore movement encourages people in towns to consume more locally grown food, by society consuming locally grown food transportation is cut down which helps better the environment. Since locally grown food is produce that is cultivated in the community transportation is down to a minimum which is a blessing for the environment. “ Eating local is better for air quality and pollution than eating organic. “ ( Source A ) less transportation use helps lessen the pollution in the air which in turn helps provide the community with cleaner fresher air. “ The move towards local food for all its trendiness highlights one of the problematic pieces of the modern food economy : the increasing reliance on foods shipped halfway round the world. “ ( Source E ) The

It’s no secret, Americans love their processed, energy-rich foods. And undeniably, this love affair has led to an obesity epidemic. In spite of the evidence against processed food, however, there are some who believe the problem may hold the key to the solution. David Freedman, author of “How Junk Food Could End Obesity,” criticizes Michael Pollan for his argument in support of unprocessed, local foods due its impracticality. Freedman’s criticism is based on the idea that “It makes a lot more sense to look for small, beneficial changes in food than it does to hold out for big changes in what people eat that have no realistic chance of happening” (Freedman Sec. 1). He contends that processed foods already play a big part in our diets, so instead of trying to expand the wholesome food business, we should try to make processed foods healthier. Freedman’s argument, however, overlooks many negative effects of processed foods and conventional farming. Michael Pollan’s wholesome food movements takes into account not only the obesity problem, but also the quality of the environment and the rights of farmers. Although Pollan’s solution to obesity may not seem the most efficient or time effective, the trades offs it provides in terms of environmental sustainability and the well-being of farmers outweigh the loss of efficiency.

Michael Pollan in his book titled ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ takes a critical look at the food culture in the Unites States. According to him, the question that seems to bother most Americans is simply ‘What should we have for dinner today?’ To Pollan, Americans face this dilemma because they do not have a proper tradition surrounding food. ‘The lack of a steadying culture of food leaves us especially vulnerable to the blandishments of the food scientist and the marketer for whom the omnivore’s dilemma is not so much a dilemma as an opportunity; (Pollan). He cites the example of the Atkins diet and how an entire nation changed its eating habits almost overnight. A nation that had deep rooted food culture values would

In the cover story, “Loving Animals to Death” by James McWilliams, it discusses how important it is to know where you get your meats from. For example, Bob Comis of Stony Brook Farm is a different type of a professional pig farmer, in fact, the good kind. He believes it's important that the animals he has should be raised with dignity and not unfairly and crudely. Although Comis' believes what he does for a living is wrong, he does it because it's what we all enjoy eating regardless of how much we truly know about it. What's most important when it comes to food is where it's coming from and how it will be prepared. If a person loves pork, that's fine, as long as the pork comes from a local humane farm. The food movement is basically more constructural rather than nutritional. Eating anything you want is fine as long as it comes from a place that is nonindustrial.

Another important element to look at for food is how our food is made and our options to food. Over time, Dan Barber explains that we have shifted our approach to eating from family style that consisted of a classic meal centered on a large cut of meat with a few vegetables. Later shifting to a cautious approach that we expect our meat is from free range animals and the vegetables are locally sourced. Whereas, today we are more of an integrated system of vegetable, grain, and livestock production that is fully supported by what we choose to cook for dinner. Since we experience no upper limit on the amount of meat we can consume. As a result from the industry becoming too good at producing a lot of animals too cheaply.

After the visit to "Wayne Bradley's" farm, Peter Singer and Jim Mason share some very important information on the experience with farming. Singer and Mason together examine negative impacts that individual Americans food choices have upon farmers, they believe should be the basis of dietary basics. The negative effects of much agriculture on animals, human health, and our environment as they have little faith that the American government will actually take the initiative to force the food industry to change without a lot of pressure, with this being said consumers, such as Mr. Bradley, force for reformed market behavior through demand for the food product, animals. Singer and Mason spend considerable time at Mr. Bradley farm to expose the