In the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Barbara Kingsolver's is living in the dry state of Tucson, Arizona with her husband, Steven Hopp, and her two daughters, Camille and Lily. Because Arizona is mostly desert, the land does not receive a lot of water and Kingsolver began to feel that they had a lack of local organic resources such as fruits and vegetables. The family owned land property in the Appalachia region that they visited every summer which could be used to farm crops. One year Kingsolver decided to move her family to the property in the Appalachia region. Since Kingsolver felt deprived of fresh grown food in Arizona, she began a year-long experiment with her family to eat only local food grown in the Appalachia region. …show more content…
Negative chemicals such as carcinogens cause harm to the land, water, animals, and the humans who consume them. She argues that although people who eat organic food may think they are eating healthy; they never know what chemicals or farming methods were used on the land in previous years that could affect the product now. Her family also wanted to reduce their carbon footprint, which meant that they had to stop buying produce that was shipped from long distances like foods transported in refrigerated trucks. One major ingredient in many processed foods that the family cut out of their diet was corn syrup since there was an extremely high cost of producing and transporting processed corn syrup. Since most farmers live a poor life, she claims that it is Americans job to buy from them to help support their families while getting good nutritious food. When people think about changing their diet to become healthier, they think mostly about eating more vegetables and fruits. Kingsolver argues that changing your choice in meat is just as important as the fruits and
In the video, “America Revealed: Food Machine,” the host, Yul Kwon, investigated the modern American agricultural industry, with an emphasis upon the contrasts between contemporary farming and the American farming of previous generations. At the start of the program, Mr. Kwon discusses the route of a pizza delivery person in New York City, and he describes the origins of the ingredients of the pizza. To do this, the host travels to California’s Central Valley, a region that was once a desert, but is now the breadbasket of the United States. In this valley, thirteen million tomatoes are grown per year as well as fifty percent of the country’s fruits and nuts. Water is the most expensive resource in this region, as it must travel many miles from
Tomatoland is a book written by Barry Estabrook, an investigative food journalist. Throughout the pages of Tomatoland, Estabrook explores the path of tomatoes, from the seed in South America to the hands of migrant workers in the fields of Florida. Through his exploration he discovers several issues that exist within the fresh tomato industry in Florida. Two of the major issues that he discovers include the use of highly toxic chemicals that cause severe damage to the health of humans and the environment, and the exploitation of migrant workers. Estabrook directly blames the continuation of such issues on those who support the tomato industry, “it’s a world we’ve all made, and one we can fix”; this includes consumers, crew bosses, the government and the corporate farm owners, like the executives and those who work in the business side of farming. Although there are many who are at fault, Estabrook directs his blame more towards the government and the farms corporate owners. Estabrook’s assessment of blame is substantial because the government and owners of the tomato corporations are the ones who have the strongest power towards regulations and production.
The Bean Trees touches on the plight of refugees, both in the real life struggle of a Guatemalan couple living illegally in the US, as well as her main character that in a way is a refugee herself, although only from Kentucky. In Animal Dreams, Kingsolver looks at the people living in Nicaragua and how the US government was/is involved. While the characters and personal stories are fictionalized, the situation seems taken from real life headlines. Kingsolver also touches on environmental issues in Animal Dreams, through the people of the fictional town of Grace, Arizona's struggle against an all consuming mines attempt to poison their water and crops.
American society has grown so accustomed to receiving their food right away and in large quantities. Only in the past few decades has factory farming come into existence that has made consuming food a non guilt-free action. What originally was a hamburger with slaughtered cow meat is now slaughtered cow meat that’s filled with harmful chemicals. Not only that, the corn that that cow was fed with is also filled with chemicals to make them grow at a faster rate to get that hamburger on a dinner plate as quickly as possible. Bryan Walsh, a staff writer for Time Magazine specializing in environmental issues discusses in his article “America’s Food Crisis” how our food is not only bad for us but dangerous as well. The word dangerous could apply to many different things though. Our food is dangerous to the consumer, the workers and farmers, the animals and the environment. Walsh gives examples of each of these in his article that leads back to the main point of how dangerous the food we are consuming every day really is. He goes into detail on each of them but focuses his information on the consumer.
Summary and Response to Barbara Kingsolver’s “Called Home” In “Called Home”, the first chapter of the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in Food Life, Barbara Kingsolver presents her concerns about America's lack of food knowledge, sustainable practices, and food culture. Kingsolver introduces her argument for the benefits of adopting a local food culture by using statistics, witty anecdotal evidence, and logic to appeal to a wide casual reading audience. Her friendly tone and trenchant criticism of America's current food practices combine to deliver a convincing argument that a food culture would improve conditions concerning health and sustainability.
The U.S. government spends billions of dollars every year subsidizing corn production, livestock feed, processed foods, and ethanol production account for the greatest uses of corn in the United States. Supplying the livestock and processed food industries with cheap corn ultimately leads to an American diet that is heavily based on the consumption of meat and sugary processed foods. This diet is thought to contribute to America’s obesity epidemic. Corn subsidies also encourage production of ethanol. Ethanol may be no better than fossil fuels because of the required energy inputs and the environmental damage caused by its production.
Former editor of Us News and World Report and recipient of Guggenheim Award,Stephen Budiansky in his article, “Math Lessons For Locavores”,published in August 19,2012 addresses the topic of locally grown food and argues it as a more sustainable choice in terms of freshness and seasons.I agree with Budiansky for growing food locally,however; with three other reasons: we can reduce food waste,(which will benefit the environment), and obesity(which will help an individual mentally and physically), and improve our economy. The purpose is to illustrate why locally grown foods would be a finer option for an American lifestyle. Budiansky adopts an informative,persuasive,and insightful tone for his audience,readers
Michael Pollan and David Freedman are two reputable authors who have written about different types of food and why they are healthy or why they are damaging to our health. Michael Pollan wrote “Escape from the Western Diet” and David Freedman wrote “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”. Imagine Pollan’s idea of a perfect world. Everything is organic. McDonald’s is serving spinach smoothies and Walmart is supplying consumers with raw milk. The vast majority of food in this world consists of plants grown locally, because almost everyone is a farmer in order to keep up with supply and demand. How much does all this cost? What happened to all the food that is loved just because it tastes good?
Many people and organizations, like PETA, are huge advocates for the ethical treatment of animals. But does it really matter if animals were treated ethically or not if they end up getting slaughtered and put on a plate for people to consume anyway? Gary Steiner wrote the article “Animal, Vegetable, Miserable” and explains his life as a strict vegan and why even eating ethically raised animals is inhumane. Eating animal products, even if treated humanely, is still considered unjustified to vegan lifestyle supporters, such as Steiner, but I happen to disagree with some of his argument.
land when the drought came. Her brothers did not like the idea of it, but couldn’t stop her. She
One point Berry makes about people’s ignorance is that they do not recognize their connection to the agricultural cycle. He appeals to the reader’s sense of logic when he describes the process food goes through to reach the consumer, and how eating ends it (3). He uses their sense of reason to persuade them as he continues to point out how oblivious eaters are by saying that “food is pretty much an abstract idea” to them even though they should realize it does not magically appear in the local store (4). Berry mentions that not only do they ignore how it gets to the store, but also the location and type of farms their food comes from (4). He says ...
To help keep crops from being destroyed, conventional farmers use many methods such as pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Nearly 1 billion pounds of these chemicals are used every year (“pesticides”). Because of this excessive use, some scientists express concern that using artificial chemicals in the farming process could produce unhealthy crops. People who ate it over a long period of time could suffer from degraded health and stunted growth (“Organic Foods”). For example, in 1989, the EPA banned the use of Alar which was a chemical used to ripen apples (“Farming, Organics”). This chemical proved to be carcinogenic after causing tumors in mice after several laboratory tests (“Organic Food”). As a result of these findings there was a dramatic increase of the sales for organic food (“Organic Food”). Another study found that Atrazine (one of the most widely used herbicides in the United States) has the potential of being carcinogenic and reducing sperm counts in males (“Organic Food”). This was further proven when evidence was found that chemicals u...
THE SILK ROAD Name Institutional Affiliation Table of Contents Introduction 3 Why Silk was in Demand 3 How and Where Silk was Cultivated 3 What was the Silk Road 4 Contribution of Silk to Cultural, Religious, Agricultural, and Economic Exchange 4 Conclusion 5 References 6 Introduction This report is aimed to talk about the history of silk and how silk shaped the ancient world trade. It further elaborates on the cultural, religious, agricultural and economical effects of silk trade on the ancient world population Why Silk was in Demand Silk production has been a main economic activity for a very long time.
The most harmful, from all the different types of processed foods, is ultra-processed foods. Ultra-processed foods are a mixture of cheap ingredients. Some examples are: sugar, high fructose corn syrup, food coloring, and enriched flour. Sixty percent of American’s calorie intake is ultra-processed foods. Cara Rosenbloom, from The Washington Post, explains “… ultra-processed foods are high in sugar, fat and salt, and lack fiber, vitamins and minerals. People who consume more ultra-processed foods have a greater risk of obesity, hypertension and high blood sugar levels, which can lead to heart disease and diabetes.” Even though Ultra-processed foods are very harmful to adults and children, processed foods use pesticides to keep it
First of all, the main reason that people choose organic food is that people think organic foods have less chemical residue, such as pesticide, and fertilizer. In the article “Organic foods contain higher levels of certain nutrients, lower levels of pesticides, and may provide health benefits for the consumer”, Crinnion indicated that organic foods just had 33 percent of the amount of pesticide and fertilizer residues that found in conventional foods, and conventional foods contain two or more types of chemical residues than organic foods (Crinnion, 2010). In addition, Crinnion used a study of Seattle preschoolers as an example to demonstrate organic foods have less pesticide residues. The study of Seattle concluded that children who ate more conventional foods had six times higher level of pesticide resi...