Organic Food Essay

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The Costs of Organic Foods: The Food Industry’s Biggest Lies Truly organic foods are hard to come by and, the price of organic foods has become unparalleled to the costs of ailing fast foods. The average American has easy access to fast foods but struggles to find truly organic foods causing the obesity rates to skyrocket. Obesity seems to be a constantly rising epidemic in America, but we as Americans seem to be oblivious to the obvious. Buying organic whole foods may seem to be the solution to the problem, yet the issue seems to lie deeper. Is it not coincidental that in the most underdeveloped parts in America, the only available local food options are fast food restaurants and gas stations? The lies from the colossal food marketers may Large food corporations are quite witty in the ways they con Americans today. Michael Pollan, an American author, activist, and professor of journalism eloquently describes this process in “Big Organic,” that demonstrates how large corporate food companies are using the word “organic” to sell their products. Although large corporate ways of selling their vices has vastly changed through the years, one of the most recent changes has happened to major food companies and their usage of the word organic, and their uses of this word on labels and products that are not clearly organic. During my own field research I found that the main grocer that I go to, the Pleasant Hill Price Chopper, items featured items at the front of the supermarket that were all labeled as organic whole foods. An unsuspecting American shopper would pick one of these organic items up thinking everything about it is kosher and well. Pollan explains many situations in his essay where a product may say it is “organic,” but the way these products are made and how the way they raise their livestock should turn a few heads. Pollan also expresses that these products are being advertised as livestock Hank Cardello, a former food executive, expresses the idea that grocers and other food executives do not have your best interest in mind in “What Grocers Don’t Want You to Know.” Cardello states that grocers set up supermarkets “like taking a choreographed tour through Disney World”(30). Getting to all of the products you want is easier than ever, but getting what you need has proven more difficult. During my own field research, I had discovered that getting the bare necessities (i.e. milk or even bread) were the hardest items to find in the supermarket I visited. It was even harder to find the truly organic form of these products. Why is it so hard to find something healthy in the food market? This is due to the subsidizing of these large food companies and them teaming with grocers to sell their products. Although it is hard to find these natural products, it is possible. Larger food companies use a lot of things to keep their items on the shelf. Preservatives are commonly found in these unhealthy products. Vileisis states in another chapter “Rise of the Modern Food Sensibility” that throughout history these preservatives have proven to be harmful. In one study she covers Harvey Wiley, a member of the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry, discovers that in 1904 that many preservatives, are harmful to our kidneys and livers (126-28). This can cause many

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