Karina
Ortega
Professor
Martin
English
114B
May
02, 2012
What are you eating, really?
Throughout thousands of years of
evolution, to the centuries where our technology has greatly progressed, we are
on a verge of consequences for going against our evolution. We are
deteriorating ourselves, our food, our environment and worst of all we are
allowing it. The progress in technology has greatly reached its high potential
over the years. It has completely changed and altered the way we store, cook,
eat and buy our food. Consequently over the past few decades evidence and
circumstances have put consumers on the verge of health problems because of the
intake and cheap prices of these “genetically altered” foods that exist on the
shelves in markets as well as on the menu in a fast food restaurant. Thus the
reason for our want of intake of food is causing us to fall in debt, reach
astonishing levels of obesity, and finally, causes illness because it produces a
bacterium that is due to mutations of our era of fast-food meat.
Throughout the United States, many
people, tourists or residents, stop by their occasional fast food restaurant
because of the convenience and the price tag without thinking twice about the
food they are putting in their bodies. The meat that comes from corn-fed cows
translates into obesity and unhealthy consumers. The attempt at trying to eat
healthy backfires, especially for those who lack the financial stability within
a household. The price of vegetables and fruits per pound cost more than a
burger or cheeseburger at any fast food restaurant; this is easily seen simply
by walking into a grocery store and comparing it to a McDonald’s menu. With
that unbalanced scale, it is clear the choice is more a force of the
circumstance than anything else.
With this quick input of just how
important it is to know how we are being tempted into dangerous eating habits,
there have been solutions presented for this special circumstance affecting
thousands in the United States. This includes supporting local farmers with
their organic food that is, aside from being healthier, helps the environment
due to less pollution to the air when the food is distributed across the United
States. Aside from the air pollution from the transportation of food, the gas and
diesel usage is putting this country on a bigger addiction that keeps
increasing over the years. Evidently what must be done to help reduce air
pollution and dependence on petroleum can be found by visiting local food
markets from local farmers. This solution would greatly help reduce
environmental contamination.
Furthermore, the likelihood of obesity
in our nation is at a higher rate now than it has been in the past few decades.
Furthermore it is all due to the convenience of the price tags on the food in
fast food restaurants. The things we put in our bodies are also to blame for. When
the food we eat is alive and unhealthy due to its inability to roam free and
eat grass then we have a problem. Cows are meant to, throughout evolution, eat
grass. Cheap corn puts these cows at a higher rate for becoming completely fat,
corn that is found in diapers and batteries. In “Fast Food Statistics in the
United States of America” it brings the case that fat and cholesterol is bad
for your health, and it is true but only due to the great lengths of surpassing
moderation. Therefore the chances of humans getting overweight and possibly
obese in a country based on “bigger is better” then the problem begins and ends
with that, and not with a solution.
The consequences of cows eating meat
have also resulted in mutated bacteria. The chances of enforcing a new diet in
a farm of cows where they all interact and therefore share the same space,
makes it easier to pass on the man-made mutation that occurs when one puts one stimuli
and a variable together, resulting in unaccountable effects that do affect the
consumers, which are thousands. The stimuli being the corn that is fed to the
variable the cow, thus multiplying them together and the result is mutated
bacteria that is consumed by thousands of Americans that are put at risk to get
life-threatening poison caused by the pairing of cows and corn. Yes this is the
easier equation of the risks that has been growing over the past half century.
Yet, although there has been an increase
in size, many still do not blame anyone and stay away from pointing fingers.
Yes it is true that there are many farms to choose from, as well as the
advances in technology, but you cannot hide the sun by blocking it with one
finger. Something has occurred behind closed doors that our food has doubled
and tripled in size, but yet, dare not point or blame anyone because of the
advances in technology. Our chicken breasts are bigger and are feeding an
entire nation in time record. What could their secret possibly be other than
the fact that poultry is being given hormones to mature in size with less
amount of time, than half a century ago. There is an issue resulting from these
hormones in children like younger girls that have gotten enlarged breasts way
before their time of puberty.
It has become a worldwide problem
that is growing before our eyes, and no one believes it is up to us to make a
change. America’s children are becoming obese and it’s all because bags of
chips containing elements of cheap corn are ingredients that produced a low
cost snack whereas the healthier foods are higher in price and take longer to
be ready in hunger-time than a quick grab at a fast food restaurant. It is not
just the meat, but foods that contain preservatives, and other ingredients that
include either corn syrup or soy bean. Although there are organizations that
want to encourage the change of diet, and the movement towards healthier animals
therefore healthier meat, that discourage cholesterol-induced foods, the human
body needs cholesterol, the good kind of course. What they should encourage is
moderation, and reading the food labels that are put on cans and boxes for the
consumers welfare.
All we can begin to do is to support
local farmers that help our economy and our health, both physically and
environmentally. In the documentary “Food Inc.” there are many cases brought
up, but yet those who talk about the reality of the food industry are not
vegetarian. Therefore this brings up a good case, that it is important to
acknowledge the information of where our food actually comes from, and to be
smart about how we cook, store, and buy our food, especially when it comes to
meat, fruits and vegetables grown in farms across the country. Moderation is
the answer and listening is the solution.
WORKS CITED
"Fast Food Statistics in
United States of America." SweetAdditions. 29 May 2010. Web. 29
Apr. 2012.
<http://www.sweetadditions.net/food-drinks/fast-food-statistics-in-united-states-of-america>.
Food Inc.
Dir. Robert Kenner. Perf. Michael Pollan. 2008. Online Video.
Staff, LiveOAK. "Monsanto’s
Food, Inc. “Facts”." Greenupgrader.
LiveOAK Network, 12 June 2009. Web. 23 Apr. 2012.
<http://greenupgrader.com/8020/monsantos-food-inc-facts/>.
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