Organic food Essay

We have all heard the phrase What you slangt know wont hurt you and it has undoubtedly applied to umteen situations in our lives that we argon still unaw be of. We like to toss around this phrase without worrying too much(prenominal) almost what it implies because that is the exclusively point of the phrase, non to worry. When it comes to what we are putting into our bodies, though, what we do not know git thusly hurt us immensely. In the United States, we have grown accustomed to not thinking much about what we are consuming. The main factors we look for in sustenance are taste and price.We live in a consumer society where money rules our nation, it rules our lives, and it rules us. Money has become the main focus for every decision we rat, unless when it comes to something as of the essence(p) as our health, should we look at a few other factors? With societies concerns focusing on wealth and profit, there is no surprise that the nourishment constancy finds the loude st ways to produce the most fare. Consequently, this produces numerous negative effects on aspects of our lives such as our health and the surround. When choosing what aliments to consume, we should begin to pay more attendance to factors other than the price tag.The food industry obviously plays a big role in this pestilent of processed food, just they are not the only ones to blame. Yes they are the ones taking advantage of our ignorance by mass-producing cheap food that they know we will not think twice about, but the ignorance is our fault. Author of The Omnivores Dilemma, Michael Pollan, describes the flow foundation of the food industry, Our food system depends on consumers not knowing much about it beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner. Cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing (Pollan 245).Pollan is correct in his hypothesis that most Americans do not know much about their food besides how much it cost. roughly of them are not even cognizant tha t they do not know what is in their food. They subconsciously grab that chicken is chicken and cheese is cheese, but unfortunately that is hardly ever the case. M any(prenominal) volume necessitate to live along these guidelines of ignorance is delight by not paying attention to the horror stories of the food industry they turn their heads from documentaries on animal treatment and plug their ears at the mention of the real ingredients of their precious snacks.As long as the food they are eating tastes good and did not cost a litter of money, they are content with not knowing how blebby it might be. Pollan further explains another reason people buy the cheapest available food It makes good economic sense that people with limited money to snuff it on food would spend it on the cheapest calories they can find, especially when the cheapest caloriesfats and sugarsare precisely the ones offering the biggest neurobiological rewards.(Pollan 108) People with lower incomes are confine d to purchasing cheap food, typically the most processed and unhealthy food, because with their limited funds they cannot afford to care about the quality of what they are eating. They buy what is cheapest because that is all they can get. As long as they have food in their stomachs, they do not complain or worry too much about the side affects. Eating food that may not be very healthy definitely outweighs the alternative of eating nothing and starving.Americans are ignorant of the food that they obtain either because they choose not to educate themselves or because they really have no choice. Either way, they are missing out on other possibilities of obtaining food that have many advantages. Not knowing what our food is made of also prevents us from knowing what alternative food options are available to us. Because we see no problems with our current food choices, we see no reason to discover new ones. The processed food at the supermarket is all we know because it is the most co nvenient and affordable from of nourishment we can obtain.Pollans book includes the tribute of someone who buys food from a local, organic farmer, for me its all about the taste, which is just so variousthis is a chickinier chicken. Arts chickens just taste cleaner, like the chicken I remember when I was a kid (Pollan 252). The food available from local farmers is not only better for our health and the environment but it also tastes better. We have grown accustomed to the artificially flavored food we buy from grocery stores and do not realize that the food we eat could taste better and more natural.The locally grown food tastes healthier and more natural because that is precisely what it is. The artificially engineered taste of chicken in a everyday chicken nugget is not what a chicken should taste like. Besides enhanced taste, buying from local farmers offers many other benefits as well. An organic farmer interviewed in The Omnivores Dilemma explains some more benefits of buyin g locally, With our food all of the costs are figured into the price. Society is not bearing the cost of peeing pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illnesses, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and waterof all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap. (Pollan 243)One of the main reasons why people do not sine qua non to look into these alternative methods of eating is because they are more expensive. People overlook these opportunities because the organic food appears overpriced, but when you evaluate all these factors it might not be as overpriced as you might think. Yes the food is more expensive but it stands true that you get what you pay for.When paying more, you are receiving a whole lot more that benefits your health, community, and environment. The extra money that would be spent on food, you might save on your medical bills and taxes. Locally produced food is healthier for you and it carries a much less chance o f containing disease and illness. some other bonus of buying from local farms there is less pollution created than in the factories and slaughterhouses of the globalized food industry. If people became aware of alternative food options and the benefits associated with them, they would be more inclined to pay better attention to what they are buying.This would not only improve ones personal health, but also the environment. Although money remains a very important role in deciding what we purchase, it would benefit us to consider a few other aspects of the food that we buy. Paying attention to details such as what goes into the food, where it is produced, and how it is produced would lead us to make healthier decisions. more than often than not, a satisfying answer to these questions will not be found in the food at our local supermarkets, but rather a local farmer. Buying from these farmers would mean supporting a healthy environment and body.Their production methods are healthier and much more environmentally friendly than any factories in a big-name food industry. While it may seem that this is a simple choice, many Americans will continue to ignore these truths. When it comes down to it, money rules everything and it will take a lot more than the predict of better health for people to overlook a price tag. They say ignorance is bliss, but when that ignorance leads to decisions that contaminate our bodies and our environment, the bliss will be short lived.