I took a tour of the food supply on http://www.cspinet.org/EatingGreen/tour.html and learned a lot of incredible statistics about the food we eat in the U.S. and how it affects our economy. Did you know that 22 billion pounds of fertilizer is consumed each year from producing feed for U.S. livestock? The energy used to manufacture the fertilizer could provide one year's worth of power for one million Americans! This is a statistic we hardly think about, and yet it is affecting us.
Less than one quarter of adults eat the recommended number of fruits and vegetables each day. This means that a lot of packaged and processed food are getting eaten instead. Not only does this problem point to poor use of things in the environment (plastic, paper, etc.), but it also shows the reason why people are less healthy and overweight.
Americans eat a lot of meat. In order to keep up, feedlots for cattle are packed full with as many cattle as can fit. These cattle are fed high energy grains which is not part of their natural diet. Because of this, they accumulate a lot of fat and people who eat the meat are consuming a lot of fat as well. It is a domino affect because the cattle eat grain which causes them to be less healthy, then the consumer eats the meat which can lead to health problems.
Thinking about how the food supply in America is linked to a lot of other issues in our environment is unreal. For instance, people eat meat high in fat because that is how it was manufactured. This often leads to obesity, heart problems, diabetes, and other things which makes medical and related costs very high. I learned a lot from this website on how one thing affects another. If we want to change one problem, many other problems must change along with it. The point of these statistics are to encourage people to eat 'green'. This means seeking out foods that are un-processed and produced locally. Hopefully we can start to see some positive changes!
You bring up a lot of great points.
ReplyDeleteIt is weird to me that the thinking that having cows eating diets not natural to them is a GOOD thing. Or that the cow will be OK and healthy long term. Then again, I guess the humans are being pushed the same way. We are told to eat processed food or other food not natural to our diets at all. So, until that is seen as a problem by greater masses who have control, will there be a shift??
I have heard the argument that we humans will just adapt to it. It is an evolutionary process. I'm not sure sure if I buy into that 100 percent. The change has happened fast, and our body needs to get used to many foods that aren't really food to fully adapt. Feels, to me, anyway, that there is a lot of down sides to that process if it does happen.
When I eat processed foods I don't really think of how it is effecting our environment. A reason I eat processed foods is that they are more convenient and as a college student, it usually more expensive to eat fresh fruits and vegetables so I choose to eat processed or packaged foods. Now that I am aware of the effects these foods have on the environment I will try to make wiser choices in the foods I eat. Also, one fact that amazed me is that the energy used to manufacture fertilizer could power one million Americans for an entire year!
ReplyDeleteOne thing that always strikes a nerve when I think about meat production is that we don't NEED all that meat. One can argue that meat is an important part of a balanced diet (still not sure I agree)... But even so, it is pretty clear we absolutely do not need as much meat as we are producing.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if people just don't realize that we eat much more meat than we need or if we're just greedy. It's hard to tell, and I'm sure its different for everyone. Its really easy to forget, when you're helping yourself to a second hamburger or serving of chicken, where it all came from.