Michael Pollan suggests how industrial food system is unsustainable because of monocultures, which means a lot of the same species are grown together and that’s only possible by using antibiotics to keep them alive. To keep crop healthy, fertilizer is needed. For example, in Iowa, all the farms were corn and soybeans, which are for industrial use mainly. Separating the animals from the farms raises a huge sanitation problem and the animals are not happy with the conditions, a pollution problem occurs as well. Society is obsessed with productivity becoming cheap, which has made more problems regarding pesticides.
While traditional farming choose to grow organic produce and struggle to keep their businesses alive. In Jeffrey M. Smith book, Genetic Roulette the intro talks about the experements they had with animals and the GMO foods. Many of the animals organs were becoming defecting or mutated over time. After looking at the results, animals that consume the modifications continusly it can lead to serious health risks. In addition the animal’s lifespan was shortened and their offspring a lower chance of survival.
Conventionally raised cattle have long been fed fats and proteins along with grass and grains; it helps them gain weight more quickly. Unfortunately, much of the fat and protein they’ve been fed in more recent times comes from other animals. This to me is a huge ethical issue; we have gone from letting our cattle naturally eat grass, which they have always done, to changing their diets to something completely different. The FDA still permits cattle to eat feed containing byproducts of pigs, fish, chicken, and horses, among other animals, to promote weight gain. This weight gain is not necessary, it is just desired because cattle can be slaughtered at a younger age and more meat can be produced.
Diet For New America : Yahel Michaeli, Section# 3155 1. What are the main health problem and the main environment problem that the movie talks about? - The main health problem in the movie are : Heart diseases , diabetes , cholesterol, and breath cancer . The environment problems are water problems: to grow cows and authors animals for meat we need to use thousands of gallons of water, in that case lots of water are wasted the earth is getting dried and we will stay without water , also if people will stop to eat meat, there won't be so much pressure to grow more and more cows . The cows will live by their self , and we'll have more water for us and the whole environment.
Farmers believed they could raise more livestock indoors in cramped quarters. But that soon became an issue because of disease. Over the years factory farming has become cruel and unjust not to mention unsafe for animals and for those humans who consume these animals from factory farming. Factory farming is inhumane; animals are being drugged, slaughtered and kept in cages until they have reached full maturity, then slaughtered and sold for human consumption. This act towards animals, have two sides.
Diamond mentions on page 107 that a possible ideology that many people that knew about the processes of farming were thinking was, “Shall I spend today hoeing my garden (predictably yielding a lot of vegetables several months from now), gathering shellfish (predictably yielding a little meat today), or hunting deer (yielding possibly a lot of meat today, but more likely nothing)?” Humans and animals are always prioritizing by availability and preferability of food choices. Availability played a key role because as wild game was hunted, its numbers depleted and became harder to hunt, offering less possibility of a decent payoff. This is possibly why in central and southeastern Europe the hunter-gatherer lifestyle became less effective, thus being a less likely life
Sadly because corn is not in the normal diet for these animals it can and it is harmful not only to the environment but also on human health. Pollan who was informing us of all this information then goes on to say the feces from the animals at the immensely large farms can in fact pollute water supplies of the surrounding areas. The film then goes into a truly touching story from a lady named Barbara Kowalcyk, whom is extremely passionate about food safety, because her 2 year old son had been infected with E.coli and had sadly passed away. Barbara was followed throughout the film while she was working to get a law passed, Kevin’s law, for
Henry Gonzalez Professor Moore ENC 1102 16 February 2014 Food INC. Summary Food INC. goes behind the farmhouses and shows us how the livestocks are being treated and fed. It also talks about how some of the big meat packaging companies manipulate the farmers, by making them ask the banks for loans to make their farmhouses bigger, so they can produce more for them and if the farmers don’t agree with what they want than their contracts are terminated and they are left with a debt to the bank. Many of these companies like Tyson and Smithfield ask the farmers to feed the cows and pigs corn, because it help accelerate the process killing these animals. Feeding them corn, makes them get fatter and juicer, but not in a healthy way, many of these
Genetically Modified Foods Genetically modified (Gm) foods are integrated into products that we are not even aware of such as vegetables, fruits, grains, est. GM is a new way for creating foods, therefore scientists do not know ALL of the health and safety risks from eating genetically intergraded foods. The process of producing GM foods is difficult and the failure rate is high. This is why we (my partner and I) feel GM foods should be banned until scientist’s know ALL the affects Gm foods has on humans and the environment. Genetically modified foods use the latest molecular biology techniques and are commonly used for growing crops for human or animal consumption.
He intended to provide an industrial basis for China by ordering 25,000 strictly regimented communes, thus making agriculture more efficient which would enable more farmers to labour in industry. He also believed that the abolition of private ownership would stop peasants indulging themselves by overeating so more mouths could be fed. However these ideas of Mao backfired and the disruption caused by ending private farming was a major cause to the famine because it discouraged peasants from producing food beyond their own immediate needs. The results of collectivisation were disastrous because the production simply didn’t compare with the population, in 1958 China produced 200 million tonnes of wheat and by 1960 it had fell 143.5 million. The falls in production led to 300,000,000 Chinese deaths so Mao’s agricultural policy was extremely responsible for the scale of the great famine in China.