whats good to eat essay

What is a good way to eat? Everybody is different in the way their body uses the food that is given to them. Some people need more calories to just be alive than others. The question is where to get those calories. Of course there are the obvious choices concerning health. For example you might want to choose a salad with chicken in it rather than a bacon cheese burger. But if you are a person with high metabolism and gets enough exercise you wouldn’t have to worry about which one you chose. What you would have to worry about is how it got to your plate. What sort of chemical pesticides were used on the lettuce? How much space did the chicken have to live in? How healthy was the cow before it was killed? Someone could have a diet good for themselves and be completely healthy, but why do that when you could be just as healthy maybe even healthier by eating food coming from an organic sustainable farm. A sustainable farm is the opposite of the industrial food system. Instead of having cows all in one place and all the chickens in another, all the animals are on the same grass. The quality of the food comes how healthy the environment is on the farm. There are no chemicals involved in the farming process which is healthier than feedlots. Farmers markets carry everything the farm produces so it is very accessible. The animals live better lives, workers are not exploited, and it is all sustainable.
Eating plants and animals from an organic sustainable farm is healthy for multiple reasons. The first reason is that organic fruits and vegetables are grown without chemical pesticides. The animals are also not fed hormones or antibiotics. Organic means that you have a closer relationship with the food you eat. Pesticides are just one more step coming between you and your food. It is further from what nature intended it to be. Same goes with hormones and antibiotics in the animals. Animals that live their normal lives should not need antibiotics or hormones. Another reason why the organic sustainable foods are healthier than normal foods is that since things are working they way nature intended it to, all the nutrients are they way they are supposed to be. Since the animals are eating grass instead of corn, omega-3 fatty acids are in the meat instead of omega-6 fatty acids which appear when animals eat seeds. Omega-3s help with neurological development and omega-6s help in fat storage (Pollan). It is important to maintain a 1-1 ratio with these fatty acids. When you eat meat from a sustainable farm you are more likely have that ratio which will keep you healthy. Healthy animals mean healthy meat. Of course if you just eat meat all the time you won’t be healthy but if you balance it with all the other food groups you will be healthy.
Eating food from an organic sustainable farm is very convenient if you live near a farmers market. All you have to do is walk a few blocks and buy whatever you want. You could even start your own organic garden in your backyard if you don’t live near a farmers market. Then to get the meat just go to the supermarket and look on the label to find out where it came from. The prices shouldn’t be too much higher than other foods but it is more expensive. It’s more expensive because it does not rely on corn like everything else. Farmers in the Midwest produce too much corn so any product that has anything to do with corn, which is a lot, is very cheap. Spending the few extra bucks is well worth it.
Ethically, eating from an organic sustainable farm is one of the best food choices a person could ever make. First of all it is not dependent on oil like industrial farms. Even though there are vehicles that use oil, they could live without them. When the peak oil crisis finally arrives, these farms will continue to produce healthy food without a problem. There is no place for oil on this farm. The animals do all the work. They way a sustainable farm works is how the animals do what they are supposed to do. Cows eat grass then drop their waste and move on to another patch of grass. After 3 days when the maggots in the cow pies get big, chickens come and scratch the cow waste all over the patch of grass, which fertilizes the land, and then eat the maggots. Other chickens eat other patches of grass and their waste provides nitrogen to the ground to allow the grass to continue growing healthy. The farm just tries to imitate symbiotic relationships found in nature (Pollan). By doing so the animals are happy doing their job. This is how it is sustainable. The farmers make sure things are working and help the animals along and maximize the production without harming the animals except of course when they are slaughtered. In industrial feed lots, the animals are fed corn all day and have no space to move. They are not happy or healthy. Their lives are meaningless compared to animals on a sustainable farm. Choosing to eat from a sustainable farm is the right ethical choice. Workers are not exploited on sustainable farms. There are no conveyer belts of meat waiting to be sliced at a pace to quick for a normal person. Animals are killed when they are ready to be killed. In industrial meat factories illegal immigrants from Mexico come to this country because the overproduction of corn has destroyed their economy. They work long shifts and sometimes take drugs to stay alert. This doesn’t happen on sustainable farms. Sustainable farms have good ethics.
Eating a balanced diet from the industrial food system with enough exercise will keep you healthy. The industrial food system has 3 major flaws though. It isn’t as healthy as sustainable farm foods, it is cruel to animals, and it exploits workers. You might find a good way to eat using the industrial food system but the right way to eat is by sustainable farms. Michael Pollan the author of The Omnivores dilemma and of Unhappy Meals (an article for the New York Times), has done a lot of research and is very reliable. People should know why it is important to know what the right way to eat is because when fossil fuels are limited in the near future the industrial food system will collapse. In order to get through the oil crisis people need to know about sustainable farms which is how nature intended it to be. Oil made Americans fat and unhealthy, organic sustainable farms will make people healthy again.