Share and Voice: Can a Happy Meal Grow Old?

Over the past couple weeks in class we have been talking a lot of meat production, fast food industries, and overall food production in our Country.  The other day  I was on CNN news website and came across something very fitting.  Every one all over the world is familiar the one of the biggest fast food chains ever, McDonald's.   According to the McDonald's website they have been cooking up food and smiles since 1955.  They strive to offer many different things nutritious food, or their new sustainability plans.  However most of know that their food is not the most healthy. Its not surprising that it is sodium packed and full of preservatives.  But just how much preservatives is a good question and many are starting wonder the same thing.  A New York photographer thought he would do a little experiment.  He set out a happy meal and simply took a picture of it.  He wanted to see what happened to it as it aged.  He left it out for six months and wanted to take another picture of it.  To his surprise, the happy meal had not aged at all, there was no mold or signs of decomposition.  It really makes you wonder ?

http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2010/10/15/happy-meal-stays-forever-young/

Read"N"Seed 4: Third Quarter of The Food Revolution

The next section of my book was nearly as interesting as my first.  A lot of the same information was covered, but in a different way.  After reading the last section of my book its really made me stop and think, so I couldn't wait to read the next.    Another thing that I think is really cool is that my book pretty much is going along with what we are talking about in class, and I think that is really cool because it really puts thins in perspective fore me. This next section covered four new chapters.  These chapters included:

• Misery on the Menu
• Eating with a Consequence
• Choices for a Healthy Environment
• Once Upon a Planet

Over all they once again provided me with some new, very interesting information.  The first chapter, Misery on the Menu dives into the topic as animals as food.  John Robbins talks about how we have dogs and cats as pets, and it would be so wrong to hurt them, but yet we insist on eating cows and chickens?  I never really though of it that way, but it is true and very sad.  One of the topics is dicusses is the horror of veal calves.  Veal, thought to be a Divine slice of meet, hardly live a Divine life at all.  Its sickening to hear what they go through.  Some of the things that they endure during their short lives include

• made anemic
• separated from mothers at birth
• chained for life in cages only 22 inches wide

Many may wonder why people would do that, but to many meat is still just meat.  Another topic that is discussed is the raising of chickens in mass quantities, which is also very alarming.  Most of them get de beaked and get their claws taken off.  They are kept in cages to small to  spread their wings, and are subject to forced molting (a method of starving to produce more eggs) if their their production is not high enough.  And many of these chickens are pumped with anti-biotics so much that they can no longer walk  due to obesity. Another sad statistic is that many chicks are killed and ground up daily because there really is no use for the males.

The next chapter, Eating with a Conscience.  The point of this chapter is really to get us to think about what we are putting on our bodies.  One scary story that John Robbins shares with us is about a meat packing plant in which more that 30% of the cows that are slaughtered are not knocked out, meaning that they can feel the pain as they are being slaughtered.  This just seems so cruel to me I couldn't believe it.  And according to research done every 24 hours there are 90,000 cows slaughtered.  It really does make you stop and think when you hear facts like that .

Choices for a Healthy Environment was the next chapter covered.  It talks alot about the ecological foot print and how our food choices can have a large impact on it. The scary part is talking about our good water supply and how it is disappearing due to the mass meat production in our country.  It takes 5,214 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef and a mere 23 gallons to produce lettuce, tomatoes, or potatoes.  And according to the author you may save more water by not eating a pound of beef than if you didn't shower for 6 MONTHS! It makes you realize how big of an impact  you actually have.  We need to conserve water more than we think we do.

The last chapter Once Upon a Planet  talks about global warming and the changes our environment are going through,  We are devastating it at an alarming rate.  The manure from cattle can produce harmful chemicals that in turn can deplete the ozone layer.  One fact from World Watch Institute states that "livestock account for 15 to 20 percent of all global methane emissions.  Much of that is from the United States.

Overall this book still continues to open my eyes to what I'm really putting in my body.  Every thing has a consequence and eating certain things can be a big one, not only for me but for my environment.  I think that it is important for us all to continue to be educated on our food choices.  Try new things and think about the earth when you do it.

New Blog Header

Here is the new header I created using picnik.  I think that this is a really awesome way to edit photos and it provides a lot of neat ideas.  I love black and white pictures, and my chucks so I chose this one from my computer to make a header out of.