Marcus Aurelius, stoic philosopher, and roman emperor said, “Everything you hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything you see is a perspective, not the truth.” Countless companies in the US encourage families to try out their appealing foods, but it seems these families are not interested in knowing what is in the food they’re consuming. People should avoid prepackaged foods.
People should be avoid prepackaged food because it can be artificial. An artificial food consists of several materials and ingredients to replicate the appearance of a real food. According to Michael Pollan, Author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma stated, “Now there are tomatoes year round, picked when it was green and ripened with ethylene gas” (Food Inc). In other words, these chemicals are utilized to convince society that it’s simply a healthy tomato, but only few understand why it is so deliciously red. Also, just like these tomatoes are inflamed with gas, a vast majority of other foods are affected by food coloring, dyes and other additives to improve the form of fresh foods. Allowing businesses to genetically modify, process, and artificially preserve for human beings to consume and naming it “food” insults peoples’ health. These prepackaged edibles can be found at any corner of a local supermarket. The dyes and additives themselves cannot be seen or tasted, however they are used to enhance the flavor and aspect of these foods. The additives used to preserve food are not only found in the nourishment section, but are also used on other products such as make-up and toothpaste. Modern testing was done to assure certain food coloring ingredients were harmless, “Many countries with similar food coloring controls also ban Red No. 40” (Food Colouring 2). Individua...
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...s. The foods are artificial, cause health risks, and are controlling. Obviously, The food industry is in drastic need of change. It is significant that people are aware about this problem because soon the food industry will take full control of the food supply. If people don’t want to give them that power then they should buy organic foods and learn how to hunt themselves.
Works Cited
"food colouring". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2013
Hayman, Mark. "How Eating at Home Can Save Your Life." Web log post. The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 09 Jan. 2011. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
Jauregui, Andres. "National Beef Recall: E. Coli Possibly Contaminated 22,000 Pounds Of Ground Meat, USDA Says." Web log post. The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 June 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
In the documentary, Food Inc., we get an inside look at the secrets and horrors of the food industry. The director, Robert Kenner, argues that most Americans have no idea where their food comes from or what happens to it before they put it in their bodies. To him, this is a major issue and a great danger to society as a whole. One of the conclusions of this documentary is that we should not blindly trust the food companies, and we should ultimately be more concerned with what we are eating and feeding to our children. Through his investigations, he hopes to lift the veil from the hidden world of food.
By accepting misguided information about the food that is being purchased from the marketers, consumers are letting the food industry shape buying patterns, even when it is not to their benefit. Pollan supports this claim when he writes, “With all the variety and constant stream of messages from the food industry and media, how can we make up our minds” (86). Pollan’s quote elaborates on how the the constant stream of messages affects what Americans put into their bodies.
Michael Pollan and David Freedman are two reputable authors who have written about different types of food and why they are healthy or why they are damaging to our health. Michael Pollan wrote “Escape from the Western Diet” and David Freedman wrote “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”. Imagine Pollan’s idea of a perfect world. Everything is organic. McDonald’s is serving spinach smoothies and Walmart is supplying consumers with raw milk. The vast majority of food in this world consists of plants grown locally, because almost everyone is a farmer in order to keep up with supply and demand. How much does all this cost? What happened to all the food that is loved just because it tastes good?
Michael Pollan discusses two categories of food: one is real food (the kind our great-grandmother would recognize), while the other is “edible food-like substances”. The category that needs defending according to Pollan is the real food. This category of food is minimally processed, fresh (will eventually rot), and includes mostly things that are taken straight from the source (the ground, tree, etc.). When one walks into a store, they should look for and pick the foods that are more “quiet”such as fresh produce than the ones that have more labels that say they are more healthy, or better for you.
Over a period the human body can develop a series of sicknesses when it intakes an excessive amount of artificial food, these sicknesses may include cancer, ADHD, and obesity. The human body is made to digest Earths natural nutrients, either if its meat, grains, herbs or crops. The question is ‘do we really want to know what we are consuming? Over the years, many scientists toiled in labs trying to figure out what chemically engineered products we would like best, either if it is from the taste, scent, texture, or appearance. Businesses care more about the wealth of the product than about our planet's well being. The scientists load up the product with a preferred amount of salt, sugar, and/or fat, just so the consumer will purchase the item. The dyes in food alone are so unnatural that they could cause serious complications in children.
CNN Wire Staff, . "USDA recalls beef headed for Georgia school lunches." CNN. N.p., 24 Sep 2011. Web. CNN.
In our fast pace society, we base everything on time and money. This need to save money and time has transformed the way we see food and purchase food. Food is an essential part of all cultures. It plays a role in every person’s life. The population has the power to choose what we eat and how the food industry is shaped. There are many important questions that we need to ask ourselves in order to keep the food industry in check. These questions are: How do we know our food is safe? What should we eat? How should food be distributed? What is good food? These are simple yet difficult questions.
American society has grown so accustomed to receiving their food right away and in large quantities. Only in the past few decades has factory farming come into existence that has made consuming food a non guilt-free action. What originally was a hamburger with slaughtered cow meat is now slaughtered cow meat that’s filled with harmful chemicals. Not only that, the corn that that cow was fed with is also filled with chemicals to make them grow at a faster rate to get that hamburger on a dinner plate as quickly as possible. Bryan Walsh, a staff writer for Time Magazine specializing in environmental issues discusses in his article “America’s Food Crisis” how our food is not only bad for us but dangerous as well. The word dangerous could apply to many different things though. Our food is dangerous to the consumer, the workers and farmers, the animals and the environment. Walsh gives examples of each of these in his article that leads back to the main point of how dangerous the food we are consuming every day really is. He goes into detail on each of them but focuses his information on the consumer.
Most grocery stores now sell food products labeled “organic” due to the increase in demand. Organic food became popular in the 1990’s and has since remained on anupward trend. Although there are more and more supermarkets stocking organic food products on their shelves, non-organic food products seem to outnumber the amount of organic food products. Organic food products are labeled with a green and brown sticker that says USDA ORGANIC. When most Americans see this label they think that what they are buying is better than the average product. But do they have any proof that organic is better?
Many people in America do not make informed decisions about what they eat and are uninformed about where their food is coming from. There is an abundance of food in America, but people need to seriously reconsider their food choices and start making better choices about organic and genetically modified foods. Although people believe organic foods are a major benefit to our environment, the organic system needs to be reassessed and standards need to be changed in order to conserve the food quality and the environment.
Organic foods have become more and more popular over the years, and consumers may or may not be knowledgeable when shopping for organic and/or conventional foods. This report will help define the difference between organic and conventional foods and farming, including the health benefits and risks. The demand for organic foods will also be discussed briefly. The purpose of this research is to describe and identify the advantages and issues that are involved with organic and inorganic foods.
More and More people are becoming concerned about what they eat, especially if they consume food products that are manufactured in food industries. However, it is hard to know what exactly you are consuming if food industries provide false nutrition content and mislead consumers by placing false advertisements on the packaging. When a company produces a product that contains misleading label, consumers are not receiving complete information about the food they are eating which could lead to health issues including allergies and problems with diabetes.
Food has been a common source of necessity in our everyday lives as humans. It helps gives us nutrition and energy to live throughout our life. Over several decades, the development of making foods has evolved. They have changed from natural to processed foods in recent years. Nowadays natural ingredients are barely used in the making of foods like bread, cheese, or yogurt. The food industry today has replaced natural food making with inorganic ingredients. The cause of this switch is due to processed foods being easier, cheaper and faster to make. Artificial nutrition and processed foods have been proven to last longer in market shelves then natural foods. Also, due to artificial additives in processed foods they help satisfy consumers taste more than natural ingredients. The method of producing processed foods is common in today's food industry and helps make money faster and efficiently for companies. Examples of this can be found in all markets that distribute food. Even though processed foods may be easier and faster to make, they are nowhere near as healthy for consumers compared to natural foods. Natural foods are healthier, wholesome, and beneficial to the human body and planet then processed foods.
Organic food is food that is grown without any pesticide or fertilizers. In recent years, sales for organic foods are increasing every year. A lot of people go to supermarkets in order to buy some organic foods, because they think that organic foods are healthier than conventional foods. People purchase organic foods for different reasons such as personal health, the quality of organic foods, and taste, but the most important reason is personal health. The topic that whether organic foods have more benefits or not is very controversial for a long time. Maybe some people believe that organic foods are beneficial to human health, but some other people disagree with the viewpoint, so buying organic foods depend on people’s choices. People believe organic foods are healthier because they generally think organic foods have less pesticide and fertilizer residue, more nutritional values, and are beneficial to environment.
There has been a cultural adjustment to organic farming and eating that is critical for future human and environmental benefits for three reasons. First reason is that a person’s health counts on good food being consumed into the body. Organic foods do not contain any artificial colors, preservatives, flavors, or pesticides making them healthier for Consumers. The EPA makes an educated guess that approximately 90% of all fungicides, 60% of all herbicides, and 30% of all pesticides are all chemicals found in conventionally grown agriculture, and these chemicals causes cancer, and organic food does not have these malicious substances. The bottom line is that these chemicals are toxic poisonous designed to kill living organisms and