Final Essay #1

The history of food is a very long history and boring up until the last 1% of human existence. Humans were hunters and gatherers. This means that they went around looking for plants to eat and animals to hunt. People weren’t overweight and they traveled a lot looking for more food. Occasionally there were some problems like when they hunted woolly mammoths to extinction. Hunting and gathering was the only life for humans and seemed to be fine until agriculture was developed. People started to domesticate animals and started growing plants. This allowed the tribe to grow in size, have food available and allowed more time to sit around and relax. This allowed cities to appear. Things stayed like this until the invention of the tractor in the early 1900’s. Tractors allowed more food to be produced for less money. Industrialized food really started in the 1950’s after World War 2 because while looking at the enemy’s research labs that had poisonous gas, they were able to switch some molecules and make pesticides. The variety of foods being grown decreased and now the main products are corn, soy, rice, and wheat. Corn is used in a countless food items because scientists discovered its many possibilities including high fructose corn syrup which is used as sweetener in soft drinks. Corn is also used to feed the animals we eat. Just as the plants are grown and sold in the most efficient way, animals are treated the same way. They are kept in big buildings cramped into small spaces and fed with corn, something cows aren’t made to eat, just to get them heavier the quickest way possible. Health problems have appeared in humans that are food related because of this new system. Obesity is just one thing that would never have happened if we were still hunters and gatherers. This modern food system relies on fossil fuel. They need it to fertilize the plants, to keep bugs away, and to distribute the food. It is destroying the earth. Fishing boats are catching all the fish and destroying the bottom of the ocean so the fish can’t reproduce, and using pesticides and fertilizer destroys the natural ecosystem that would be there. If they stop using those things, nothing would be able to grow naturally. As everyone knows, fossil fuels will run out. This system cannot last forever and based on calculations by scientists, peak oil will come very soon. As the oil decreases, more and more sustainable farms will appear. Sustainable farms need very little oil and some don’t need any. Using nature’s relationships farmers will be able to produce a good amount of food. For example cows will eat grass and their waste will lie on the ground and flies will lay eggs in it and then the farmer will bring in chickens to spread the waste which helps fertilize the grass and they eat the maggots the flies eggs have hatch into. When there isn’t enough oil to ship it or when the price is just too expensive, people will have to live close to a farm or start their own. People won’t start hunting again because there isn’t enough game out there but people will learn about wild plants and start gathering those.