The world we live in today is a horrible place that most of us are sheltered from by the luxuries we buy. Things never used to be this way. Before agriculture, humans only took from nature what they needed to survive. When agriculture came around, so did the need to control and manipulate nature because of the rising population. In modern times nature is continuously being destroyed. The human population skyrocketed when fossil fuels started being used heavily. With the human population so huge, agriculture needs some help from scientific research to feed everyone. Food in our culture is one aspect of a larger nightmare.
Food is becoming more and more unnatural. With the growing population people are looking for ways to produce food as quickly as possible and as cheap as possible. With this mentality, problems always occur. Corn, soy, wheat, and rice are the 4 main plants grown on farms. Corn is used in far more products than most people know. It is made into high fructose corn syrup which is used in all of the soft drinks. And corn is also used to feed the cows in the feed lots to make them get to slaughter weight the fastest way possible. They force the cows to eat corn instead of grass which is what they were meant to eat. The corn causes the cow’s health problems which get to their worst point just as they are slaughtered. In the slaughter houses, the conveyor belts are running too fast for the average person to handle let alone untrained illegal immigrants. They are treated badly and get paid very little. They often get cut by the knives they use and take drugs to help them stay focused. The worst part about food is the creation of fast food. People can order their salty, tasteless, greasy food and eat it while driving in their cars. Obesity and diabetes are just two of the various health related problems fast food has caused humans. All of this is made possible by the use of fossil fuels. Fertilizer, pesticides and the trucks used to transport the food all use oil. The world revolves around oil these days.
The larger nightmare includes oil, poverty, nuclear weapons, global warming, and corporations. There are conflicts in the Middle East and oil has something to do with it. Innocent people die because people want oil. While most people have food and a place to live there are always those who don’t. If world war 3 were to start because of an oil dispute I don’t think it would last very long because nuclear weapons would kill everyone in an instant. Global warming is destroying the planet because of humans. In the last century we have done more damage to the earth than anyone ever imagined could be done. Corporations only care about money, not how they affect everyone else. The workers might be mistreated, or the environment might be harmed, but everything is fine if they are creating profit.
There are many more destructive things on the earth and as long as there is oil to fuel everything, these things will continue. More corn will be grown, more cows will suffer their horrible lives, and more trucks will release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere helping global warming. Food in our culture is one more aspect of a larger nightmare.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
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.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
article response
I read the article about how calories work. I thought it was interesting that 217 big macs can power a car 88 miles. I thought it was also interesting that food labels dont always tell the truth. How hard is it to write the real amount of calories. Knowing that calories help you breathe and pump blood makes the idea of starving to death worse than i origionally thought.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Peak Oil comments
Since the predictions for global peak oil range from now to 2035 i think society should be doing more to prepare for life without oil. i think life will go back to the way it was before oil was discovered. the population will steady itself out or even decline. I think the reason people arent focusing on the changes that need to be made because its too hard for them to see the future. they want to see it to believe it and it will be to late to change before chaos breaks out.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
comment on simone's blog
great paper. I think you should read over your paper to catch grammar errors. YOu explain the IFS very well but maybe you should give your opinion on the future of the IFS too.
comment on brian's paper
Nice paper. You talked a lot about the past and present of the IFS but maybe you should add something about where you think the IFS is heading in the future.
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