The fourth and last quarter of my book has taught me many new facts once again. I still am amazed about what goes on in our society with our food industry and before this book I really had no idea. The fourth part of my book included six chapters that once again went hand in hand with what we have been discussing in class. The chapters include:
- Reversing the Spread of Hunger
- Pandora's Pantry
- Farmegeddon
- The Emperor's New Foods
- The Turning of the Tide
- Conclusion: Our Food, Our Future
They were all very interesting and full of information that I think that all of use deserve to know, after all it is what we are putting in our bodies so shouldn't we have control. But as of now this is not the case. The first chapter covered was, Reversing the Spread of Hunger. According to the text nearly one billion people on the planet are not given enough food to eat and nearly one third of children in the world are close to starving, causing severe health problems in most of them. It is easy to see that trying to fight world hunger is something we should all do, but is producing meat and opening McDonald's around the world the answer probably not. According to John Robbins this method is not sustainable, and only the wealthy are able to afford the meat, singling out many populations whose meat is in turn shipped to wealthier nations such as the U.S. Also when we use land to produce grain to feed the cattle we are taking away farmland, and grain that could be used to feed many starving nations. It just doesn't make sense at all. In some countries livestock eat three times as much grain as people and nearly double us in total weight, and the percent of grain produced in those countries that is given to live stock is nearly forty percent. This chapter also gave some other very interesting statistics. The number of overfed and underfed malnourished people in the world is equal at just over one billion, many of the over fed being in the United States. He is trying to get us to realize that we are wasting resources and energy on something that is not sustainable and we need to rethink about how we really want to combat world hunger and what is good for all of us.
The next chapter Pandoras Pantry once again touches on the topic of genetically engineered food, and the benefits, that are most likely not benefits at all. Many of the issues in this chapter were already brought up in class such as the first genetically engineered food, the "
FlavrSavr" tomato, and the Infamous Monsanto Corporation. According to the text the amount of genetically engineered crops planted has been steadily on the rise since it was first introduced in the early 90's. Monsanto accounts for half of the global pesticide market, and own nearly twenty-five percent of the commercial seed market. It almost seems as if they have complete control over everything that we eat. They sell Round Up which we learned in class needs to be used in large doses in order for the crops to grow. Overall we know what effects that this type of farming can have on us, but why are we still continuing to do it, I think that its something that we all need to think about.
The next chapter Farmegeddon, seems to have a very fitting name for what its talking about. The end of farming in a healthy way it seems. The study of genetics is not necessarily a new topic of study , but the idea of genetics when it comes to food is. According to Dr. David Suzuki, he warns that genetics have enormous implications. It is full of benefits, but it is not something that should be fooled around with. When you put genes into something you exactly where they will end up, which can be a scary matter when you think of certain things mutating and crossing into others creating certain diseases and changing the functioning of the organism which could lead to things that we do not know how to control. Medical researchers estimate that twenty-five percent of the population have food allergies of some kind much of this is thought to be linked to genetically engineered foods.
One of the biggest aspects of genetically engineered foods that is very alarming is the use of the Bovine Growth Hormone, which is used to stimulate mile production in cows. Because the actual hormone was to expensive Monsanto created a cheaper genetically altered version called
rBGH. rBGH does in fact increase milk production, yet it also has many other side effects. That can cause increases amonts of milk that is not necessary and many of the cows are ordered to be killed because of the massive amounts of excess milk.
The next chapter Emperors New Foods once again talks about Percy Schmeiser, whom we watched a video about in class, and how he was effected my Monsanto and how they insist on putting patents on seeds. His own canola got crossed pollinated with Monsanto's genetically engineered canola. Something that is becoming much more popular now days. The book introduces a term 'Frankenfoods' which is used to describe all of the genetically altered foods. And due to lack of labeling most of eat these foods on a daily basis and most of us have not idea that these genetically altered products are even in the.
The final chapters of the book definitley sum up everything that the author was trying to say. The turning of the tide shows us the uprise of the demand for organic food. Now that more and more Americans are aware of the effects of our food industry, they want to put healthy and organic things in their body and not pesticides, or genetically modified food. By the year 2000 nearly seventeen million acres of organic food was planted world wide. And even the the number of U.S organic crops is only under one percent the number continues to be on the rise showing us signs of hope. The author brings up a really good point saying the in 1980 there was no genetically engineered food, but in just a few years that completley changed. There is still hope though for that to change again.
Overall this book has been one of the most influential that I have ever read. Before reading this I had no idea of the hearsh reality that went on in the food industry. I had no idea the harm that such foods could do to my body, and most importantly I had no idea that it was such a problem in our society. This book covered so many different topics including, global warming, cattle and poultry, pesticides, heart disease, and everything along with environmental health it seemed. But ultimately it all led back to the same things. The first being that our earth at the way we are treating it is not sustainable and we need to make changes so we can have an impact. We only have one and if we choose to abuse it we will loose it. The second point that the book makes is that ultimately we do not have much control over what we put in our bodies, because of lack of labeling. Everything is interconnected with politics, companies, food, etc. We really need to take a stand for what we feel is right because every little bit helps. The last but I feel the most important part that John Robbins tries to reitterate is that ultimately we are in control if we want things to change they can with time and hard work. I encourage all of you to step out of your comfort zone and do what you deem is right. John Robbins states, "
Whether or not we like it, and whether we accept it or not, the choices we make, individually, and collectively, in the coming years will make an incredible amount of difference, perhaps more so than at any time in the history of our planet. It is not just the quality of our personal lives and the health that depends,now, on the choices we make. And we are each apart of how it will turn out" And I could not agree more. With that I encourage us all to continue to do what we can to help make our world a better place.
