What Are You Eating?
The super markets of today are scary places. At first glance it may seem like a utopia of year round fruits, vegetables and quality food, but once the curtain is pulled back the truth is portrayed. Supermarkets are fun houses of deceiving labels and questionable ingredients. When you’re putting that hamburger meat into your cart you don’t question if that animal was raised on the spacious farm that is on the packaging label, or even how many cows are in this one package. The thought may not even cross your mind about whether that meat is safe to eat. Food companies will do anything to make a bigger profit even if that means sacrificing the people’s safety. One way to ensure that you know what is going onto your plate is to buy organic. Sure this sounds like a simple alternative, but for some families they don’t have the means to be able to make that choice. Although organic food is better for you it is a lot more expensive. Food Company’s main focus is no longer on people’s safety it is only on making a profit which is why organic food, a safe and healthy option, should be available for everyone.
A lot of people today consider themselves aware of where their food is coming from and think they know enough about the processes that our meats, fruits and vegetables go through. I was one of those people and thought I was pretty well informed about by food but didn’t realize how wrong I was until I watched the movie Food Inc. This movie goes into detail about the food process showing you feed lots where cows are kept until they are old enough to get slaughtered. In these feed lots they stand knee deep and covered in their own waist. There are no pastures filled of green grass like the packaging labels show you. They are forced to stand around in filth and are given corn to eat which could cause them to have E. coli 0157:H7 which “is estimated to cause infection in more than 70,000 individuals a year in the United States, and the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests E. coli 0157:H7 is responsible for the majority of "E. coli" outbreaks in the U. S.”(Medicine Net) Because cow’s bodies cannot process corn correctly it may cause them to have E. coli, but they are fed it anyways because it is cheap and makes them grow faster. Chickens go through a similar hell while being raised. They are also confined to tight quarters and are constantly feed corn because again it makes them grow quicker. The chickens we eat today usually never see the light of day because their coops are kept dark which helps farmers catch them more easily. Also most chickens cannot walk more than a few steps without having to sit down because they grow so quickly that their bones cannot support their weight. Food today has become strictly business, and is no longer focused on the wellbeing of the animals and people but only focused on profit. If it is possible to grow a chicken in half the time it would usually take companies are going to do so whether it’s good for the animal or not.
Plants are grown a lot differently today then they ever have been before. With science we are now able to genetically mutate an organism to make it have the qualities we want. Corn for instance we can make grow faster and be more resistible to diseases. We can also make it so corn stalks can grow closer to each other allowing us to fit more plants in an area at once. This new science of GMO sounds great from the outside but the reality is that these are “living organisms whose genetic material has been artificially manipulated in a laboratory through genetic engineering. This relatively new science creates unstable combinations of plant, animal, bacterial and viral genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods.”(Non GMO Project) With a science this new we don’t know what the long term effects could be on people. Another thing companies do is genetically mutate plants so that they are resistant to pesticides. Farmers use “pesticides to protect their crops from molds, insects and diseases. When farmers spray pesticides, this can leave residue on produce.”(Mayo Clinic) Like GMO’s Pesticides are a relatively new product that has not had a lot of long term research. These pesticides are put onto the food we eat and eventually end up in our systems and we have no idea what they could cause. Pesticides are designed to kill or otherwise adversely affect living organisms” (help guide) so what good could they do for us.
There are other options other than to eating food with pesticides and that are genetically mutated, one of those being organic foods. With organic foods you know exactly what you’re getting because since 1990 the Organic Foods Production Act has required the “United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop national standards for organically produced agricultural products to assure consumers that agricultural products marketed as organic meet consistent, uniform standards.” (EPA) With organic farming farmers use soil and water conservation and reduce pollution. They also “use natural fertilizers to feed soil and plants, and using crop rotation or mulch to manage weeds.”(Mayo Clinic) Organic farming allows animals such as cows and chickens to graze on grass and are not forced to eat corn. These animals have a better quality of life and are also better for people. The only negative that goes along with organic food is the cost. Since organic farmers don’t use cheap corn to get their animals to grow faster the process takes longer. Also since their plants are not genetically mutated they will only get what that plant can naturally produce. These factors cause cost to increase. I strongly believe that organic food is better for you and should be available to everyone but was wondering if it was even feasible for an average family to live off of organic food due to the prices.
In order to answer my questions I decided to go out and experiment whether an average middle class family can afford to live off of organic food. To do so I created an experiment. I decided to go to the supermarket and buy fifty dollars’ worth of food that my family would usually buy, and fifty dollars’ worth of organic food. I would see how far I could stretch my dollar and see how much of each I could get. Buying the regular food was easy I looked for sales and was done rather quickly. On the other hand buying the organic food was a little more difficult. I had never ventured into the organic section before, it was like I was in an entirely new store. I looked again for sales but there weren’t as many. Everything I bought in the organic section was smaller. If I was able to find something at the same price as the regular brands I would buy it would be around half the size. There were so many things that were new to me and I wanted to try but couldn’t because I was on a budget. I was especially surprised when I was able to get four loaves of giant brand wheat bread for five dollars and one loaf of natures promise wheat bread for three dollars. I would have to say the milk prices were the most shocking considering an average gallon of milk was four dollars and a gallon of organic milk was six.
Although the prices for organic foods were higher it was well worth the dent in my wallet. After sharing all the new types of organic food with my parents we could all agree the organic food tasted much better. The organic food made what we usually buy look like card board. After doing this experiment both of my parents were more interested in what was going into our food and wanted to start buying more organic. Even though my parents would want to switch to organic immediately that is not going to be a possibility. All of us love the food but we were able to buy so much less organic food that it wouldn’t get us through the week on our budget. This goes to show that even though the healthy food is there is isn’t open to everyone.
Even if my family cannot afford to buy organic every week we have decided to try to buy it whenever we can. I am very happy with this outcome because every organic purchase makes a difference. The major food companies today follow the trends of what people want in the market. If people start purchasing more organic food, even just one product a week, they will see this change and want to shift toward that market. The food system we use today needs to change and this could be the first steps to us making a difference. I am not sure how the food companies will slowly make the switch to organic, that would be something for future research, but hopefully we can slowly start moving in the right direction.
Here I have attached a spreadsheet of what I was able to purchase with my fifty dollar budget:
organic_vs._ragular_food.xlsx | |
File Size: | 9 kb |
File Type: | xlsx |