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Impacts on animal agriculture and environmental essays
Impacts on animal agriculture and environmental essays
Essay on animal agriculture impacts
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Our current system of corporate-dominated, industrial-style farming might not resemble the old-fashioned farms of yore, but the modern method of raising food has been a surprisingly long time in the making. That's one of the astonishing revelations found in Christopher D. Cook's "Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis" (2004, 2006, The New Press), which explores in great detail the often unappealing, yet largely unseen, underbelly of today's food production and processing machine. While some of the material will be familiar to those who've read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or Eric Schlosser's "Fast-Food Nation," Cook's work provides many new insights for anyone who's concerned about how and what we eat, …show more content…
and how those choices affect animals, the environment and other people around the world. Cook persuasively argues that the forces favoring large-scale, big-money agriculture have been at work since the earliest days of the American Republic, when Alexander Hamilton's vision of a free-market farm system battled Thomas Jefferson's ideal of the yeoman farmer as the cornerstone of an agrarian democracy. "True freedom and independence, as well as genuine political participation, could only come through one's ownership and use of land," Cook writes. "Jefferson linked giving free land to small farmers, and taxing estates, with egalitarian democratic development. Ultimately, however, Alexander Hamilton's free-market agenda, which promoted land speculation and ownership for the highest bidder, prevailed, despite the periodic interruptions of homestead policies." While those and subsequent developments -- expensive, high-tech farm automation, assembly-line livestock raising and slaughtering, high-yield but costly genetically modified crops, monoculture cropping and subsidy-driven global trade -- have generated an unprecedented surplus of food, they haven't translated into benefits for small farmers or even, ultimately, consumers, Cook argues. However, he closes his book on a positive not by reviewing some of the burgeoning movements seeking a better way of producing and distributing food: farm-to-cafeteria programs, community-supported agriculture, farmers' markets, community gardens and more. "What could be more important for sustaining both present and future generations than providing good food in a manner that sustains not only its consumers and its producers but also the planet itself?" Cook asks at the book's conclusion. "There must be a larger commitment that ... takes into account the needs of the whole society -- consumers, workers, farmers, the environment, and even animals -- and not just the concern of one group or another. Food is part of the web of life. How we produce and consume it is a measure of a people." After reading Cook's insights into how we produce and consume our food, it's likely you'll never look at a simple lunch or dinner the same way again. Are sweets forbidden? Is Sex a Fat-Killer? Do whole grain products make lean and carbohydrates fat? Learn hear about the biggest Diet mistakes.Almost weekly TV, Internet and woman's magazines report about new and effective weapons against fat rolls and beer belly. In the desperate willing to lose weight those brand new nutritional discoveries arouse the hope for a quick and easy way to lose fat without using the traditional of dieting and exercising. Unfortunately, most of the so called expert advices are a lot of hot air and there is no scientific proof behind this knowledge. Find below a list of the 4 most common mistakes. 1. Who does not eat breakfast, saves calories! If you think the best way to a low energy account is the waive breakfast and save calories, then you fall for the first diet lie. A study of the University Minneapolis, USA, confirmed exactly the opposite. They discovered that people eating breakfast usually weight 2-3 kg less then those who skip the breakfast. The reason is that the metabolism does not work properly and secondly it will create cravings for sweets and high calorie food. Result: Breakfast keeps slim! 2. When dieting Sweets are prohibited For those who already feel like mutated rabbit, because they only eat salads, we have a joyful message. Even during the diet it is aloud to eat the moderate amount of sweets all your favorite meal. If you forbid your body during a diet to get some of your beloved food, do what I is a stop your diet or even get eating attacks and put weight on. It is better just eat one or two pieces of chocolate or once a week your favorite meal and to feel good. 3. Wholegrain products make slim Whether you eat noodles, rice or bread - the whole meal version provides almost as many calories as those from white flour. The fat content of 8.5 grams is more than twice as high as in the white version. Nevertheless, you should choose whole grain because it contains more minerals, trace elements and thick fibers. But only switching over to whole grain product will not reduce your weight automatically. 4. "Problem Zones" can be exercised away That is not really true. Exercising will help you to lose weight and to reduce the body fat but this will happen all over the body and not only on a specific body part. Not everything what you hear is true therefore always check your diet information before you end up adding weight instead of loosing it. According to a study from the UK, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, people that are vegetarian have a lower risk of getting cancer.
They've studied about 53.000 participants. Among these participants were about 17.000 vegetarians. They've studied the data of all these participants and something interesting became clear: People that were not consuming meat during their lifetime had fewer cancers on average than people who were consuming meat. There was also a remarkable result. Colon cancer is a type of cancer associated with consuming of red meat. However it became clear from the study that vegetarians had more colon cancer than other participants. Although the results are interesting, it's not completely new. It is already well known that people can reduce the cancer if they regularly eat fruit and vegetables. If you stick to this then it is said that you can decrease the risk of getting cancer. The new element of this study however is the fact that it concentrates on full vegetarians. The study doesn't only focus on meat eaters that eat fruit and vegetables occasionally. This gives a better view on the effect of meat by itself on the development of cancer. The researchers studied the participants from the age of 20 to 89. These people were organized into 4 groups. There were of course the meat-eaters. Also people who ate fish got their own group. The remaining groups were the vegetarians and the extreme vegetarians. Extreme vegetarians are also called vegans. What the difference is between vegetarians and vegans is that vegans are very strict. Vegetarians just avoid meat and such things. Vegans avoid every ingredient that is related to animals. Vegans don't even want to wear clothes that were made of animals. So vegans go much further than a 'normal vegetarian' The group of people who ate fish and the vegetarians showed fewer cancers than meat eaters. So it's not only vegetarians that show better results. The people who eat fish also
have a serious advantage compared to the meat eaters. As mentioned there was a bit of contradiction in one of the results from the study. Colon cancer has always been associated as a cancer that could develop when a person would eat a lot of red meat. This result of the study shows that cancer is indeed a complex disease. It's not without reason that curing cancer in 2009 is still hard. In this respect, the result of Colon cancer on vegetarians is not a complete surprise. It involves many complex circumstances for the development of a certain type of cancer. Although it became clear from this study that vegetarians have a lower risk of getting cancer, this is not true for all types of cancer. The colon type is one of these. It's on average however that vegetarians have the advantage. source: Timothy J Key, Paul N Appleby, Elizabeth A Spencer, Ruth C Travis, Andrew W Roddam, and Naomi E Allen, "Cancer incidence in vegetarians: results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition." The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Many families in America can’t decide what food chain to eat from. In the book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan lists four food chains: Industrial, Industrial Organic, Local Sustainable, and Hunter-Gatherer. The Industrial food chain is full of large farms that use chemicals and factories. Industrial Organic is close to it except it doesn’t use as many chemicals and the animals have more space. Local Sustainable is where food is grown without chemicals, the animals have freedom and they eat what they were born to eat. Lastly, Hunter-Gatherer is where you hunt and grow your own food. The omnivore's dilemma is trying to figure out what food chain to eat from. Local Sustainable is the best food chain to feed the United States because it is healthy and good for the environment.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma In the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan challenges his readers to examine their food and question themselves about the things they consume. Have we ever considered where our food comes from or stopped to think about the process that goes into the food that we purchase to eat every day? Do we know whether our meat and vegetables picked out were raised in our local farms or transported from another country? Michael pollen addresses the reality of what really goes beyond the food we intake and how our lives are affected.
In the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan talks about 4 different models that we consume, purchase, and add it to our daily lives. Michael Pollan travels to different locations around the United States, where he mentions his models which are fast food, industrial organic, beyond organic, and hunting. I believe that the 3 important models that we need to feed the population are fast food, industrial organic, and beyond organic. Fast food is one of the most important models in this society because people nowadays, eat fast food everyday and it is hurting us in the long run. We need to stick to beyond organic or industrial organic food because it is good for our well being. Ever since the government and corporations took over on what we eat, we have lost our culture. In the introduction of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan states that we have lost our culture:
Food, especially meat is such a central part of human society that it cannot be ignored. Just as big minds came together in the 60’s to make a better chicken, they can come together to solve a crisis that harms every person living in this country. Jonathan Safran Foer’s book gives an important look into what goes on behind the scenes of factory farms, and offers logical solutions. However, it will take more than this, and more than just vegetarian encouragement to make any lasting changes. It will take the votes of consumers both in the supermarket and on ballots to evoke a better system. Take a look at what is on your plate next time you sit down for a meal. Did you vote well?
One can look back in time and see how things have changed. It might have been because of one thing that set a different course, or a series of small things that might have seemed insignificant at the time. The culture of farming has changed drastically over the years due to new founded ideas relating to the food system. In the article, “How Genetically Modified Crops Have Transformed Rural America”, Adam Riesselman explains the effects of GMOs on farm life. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan explains how the production of corn has changed farms. Both these pieces of writing express ideas about GMOs, new technology used on the farm, and the diversity of crops on farms.
In the book “Omnivore’s Dilemma” , Michael Pollan delves into the the evolution of the industrial food system. There are many parallels that can be drawn from what was discussed in the book and covered in lecture regarding food systems. One example is the importance of corn. The central ingredient to the industrial food system is corn. In fact, Todd Dawson, a biologist at Berkeley describes North Americans as “corn chips with legs” (Pollan, 2007, p. 23). Until reading this book, I was not aware of the profound impact corn has on our lives. The book focuses on corn’s role in North American diets. However, in this course we learned about the significance of corn in certain cultures. In fact, corn is central to the culture and identity of guatemalan people that when they move away they rely on MASECA to continue eating their beloved corn tortillas (Maupin).
In veterinarian Holly Cheever’s story, a Brown Swiss dairy cow gave natural birth for the fifth time out at pasture. The following day she and her new calf were led to the milking line where the baby calf was separated from her. She was let out to the field every morning after the first milking of the day, later to return for milking in the evening, and again was let out to graze the field for the night. This was back in the days when cows were allowed to spend some of their time in natural surroundings. The mother cow kept returning to the milking line in the morning with empty udders. The farmer decided to follow her and discovered the reason for this puzzling situation. The mother cow had given birth to two calves; she submitted one to the
Most people think that Cheerios are a healthy breakfast cereal, but did you know that there are eleven different varieties of Cheerios and only one is low in sugar? Michael Pollan, the author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, argues that modern omnivores are confused about what to eat because they have too many food choices, their taste buds have not evolved for modern times, and they do not have a food culture to guide them in the United States.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma addresses what food is “good” for us and why. There are many foods that we can eat, but to figure out what is healthy and obtained naturally is difficult. The author, Michael Pollan, goes on multiple trips to find food that was made without any unnecessary chemicals. Many vegetables grown by large companies have countless chemicals sprayed on them. These chemicals can be poisonous to humans, but the companies leave it out long enough for the chemical concentration to lessen. Industrial companies also have feedlots for the animals. Feedlots are enclosed buildings where animals are kept in one spot for all of their lives. They are treated unfairly and the industry will not let you go into the slaughterhouses, unlike other
Many people have tried many diets to eat healthy. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan talks about the different food chains that many people think should be used. The food chains are industrial, which is like processed meat (like in fast food places). Next is the industrial organic food chain, this food chain is when the food is grown safely, but are shipped thousands of miles and uses a lot of fossil fuels. Then there is the local sustainable food chain, where the food is grown safely and the people have to actually go to the farm to get the vegetables that they want. Lastly, it is the hunter-gatherer food chain, which is basically the the people have to make the meal themselves. People have to kill their own meat and hunt for their
For millennia, corn has been a staple food crop for North America. Its indigenous location was critical to the development of pre-Hispanic life in the New World. However, modern society has elevated Zea mays into a commodity strongly connected to systems of economic control and capitalism. Consequently, corn has played an essential role in colonization, industrialization, and the arrival of genetic modification. The literatures of numerous new world cultures, along with the literatures of modern Western cultures, offer a perspective on corn's current stance in western society. The impact that corn has on the economic systems of the world expose a great deal about the commoditization and globalization of food crops. This paper
Before I began reading The Omnivores Dilemma, I was oblivious to the amount of choices of food that we have in our small world. The minute people walk into the grocery store, they are surrounded by an abundant variation of produce. First laying eyes on the fresh fruits and veggies that can overwhelm the human eye. Then onto the endless isles of canned food, pasta, cereals, bread, etc. Finally, ending with the large array of meats and frozen foods. Throughout the book The Omnivores Dilemma, we travel through the thoughts of Michael Pollan as he explains the paradox of the incredibly overwhelming choices people are forced to face today with choosing what foods they put on the table for dinner. We also see how the industrial world has changed
Food is the most essential part of every human’s life. It provides energy to keep people alive. The problem is, people do not actually know what they are eating. The novel The Jungle by Upton Sinclair exemplifies how the food packing industry used to work. The movie Food Inc. shows how the food industry has evolved. While it may appear that things have improved, they have actually worsened due to the brutal treatment of animals and the conditions the workers are placed in.
In today’s society, the puzzling question of how to help our environment and better our health comes with challenging answers filled with ethical questions and contradicting advice. In The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan, Pollan uncovers the truths of the real meaning of words like nutritious, healthy and organic. The entire book leads back to one simple truth, eating is an act full of ethical issues. Pollan tries to make the public aware of how reliant they are on particular types of food, solely based on its easy accessibility, cheap cost, and quick consumption; despite our knowledge of what is actually in this food or where it came from. He writes on the idea that cheap means of producing foods have
The health benefits of a vegetarian diet are hard to ignore. Vegetarians have a lower chance of developing many diseases, such as cancer and diabetes. Women who eat meat daily are more likely to develop breast cancer. According to an article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, “consumption of well-done meats and, thus, exposures to heterocyclic amines (or other compounds) formed during high-temperature cooking may play an important role in the risk of breast cancer.” Men are also more than almost more likely to develop prostate cancer than those who do not include meat in their everyday diets. “Up to 80 percent of prostate cancer is attributed to dietary practices, and international comparisons show strong positive associations with meat consumption” (Alexander, 2010). Vegetarians have also shown to have lower blood pressure, better digestion, and more energy than humans with a meat based diet. The effects of a vegetarian life style ...