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Organic food vs processed foods
Organic food vs processed food essay
Organic food vs processed foods
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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.
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?
The 2009 movie Food Inc. describes the major role that food production plays within many lives. This movie revealed that there is a very small variety of companies that consumers purchase their food from. These few companies actually control what is out on the shelves and what we put into our bodies. These companies have changed food production into a food production business. Many of these companies experiment with ways to create large quantities of food at low production costs to result in an enormous amount of profit for themselves. Some of the production cost cuts also result in less healthy food for the population. Instead of worrying about the health of the population, the companies are worried about what will make them the most money.
Recently there has been a debate on whether organic and natural produce are healthier alternatives to commercial produce. Since this debate began, there are now grocery stores dedicated to providing products that are all essentially all natural or organic. Various examples of these grocery stores include Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Safeway, and Super Target. Skeptics of this argument suggest natural and organic food industries are all marketing ploys targeted toward consumers in search of healthier food choices. The final question we must ask ourselves to get to the bottom of this debate is: Are organic and natural foods actually more beneficial or are they just a marketing hoax?
Over the years food has changed from more natural occurring products to quick and easily accessible ones. I for one blame the companies who accept and encourage this. From the previous essay, it also provides a series of questions for which we should be analyzing our food: “How fresh is it? How far was it transported? How pure or clean is it?” (Berry). Simply, we need to be more aware about our food. Food used to be only grown. There was no way
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.
Through the manufacturing and industrialization of foods many foods are made into frozen meals which are a lot easier to prepare. Pre-packaged frozen food that interviewee would eat she thought was semi healthy because it included a vegetable and meat or pasta. The price of the frozen food is something that she mentioned as well, these are a lot cheaper than buying fresh fruits and vegetables. The main ingredients that she found she used seemed to be a lot less healthy than what her mother would make her family for dinner. A lot of the main ingredients in meals prepared by her are pre-cooked or frozen foods such as vegetables and fruits which seem to lose their nutritional value (Scrinis, 2008). With living in a farming community, she tries to eat vegetables and fruits that are grown locally which helps to add some nutritional content to her food. One thing that the interviewee talked about during the interview was about the amount of packaging that is used today to help protect food to last longer on grocery store shelves. With grocery stores being so accessible and convenient it pushes a lot of people away from unpackaged and local foods. Interviewee believes that with grocery stores being so convenient and needing to provide food for multiple people the quality has decreased drastically. With having so much low quality food that is easily accessible it is pushing people’s health down which can be visibly seen according to the
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.
Many people ask the question of what is organic food? This paper is going to go into many things that people might have questions about when it comes to organic food. What is organic food? Is there a difference between Organic and conventional food? Is growing organic easier on farms soil compared to conventional farming? What does it take to be organic food, who watches and regulates what is considered to be organic? Why does organic food cost so much more than conventional? Is it really worth the higher cost? Organic food, is it more beneficial than that of conventionally grown food. Why? What is the difference between CERTIFIED organic and organic foods that are not certified? We will go into all of these questions and more throughout this paper trying to find the answers
America’s food source has altered drastically in the last century and so has the health of many. Americans used to thrive on natural foods for nutritional value, now Americans thrive on processed and manufactured food for just for convenience. Food companies have changed the very way we view nutrition. They have taken chemistry to a whole new level and added what they want it to what we now call food even if that harms our bodies in the long run. Food companies have also caused many hard working farmers to lose their jobs. These food companies have lost insight as to what is truly important in a food product and don’t care if that means taking someone else’s job.
There is no surprise that food is important in all aspects of our lives—it is shared amongst families, celebrated as a major part of our culture, and crucial to our daily routine that keeps us fit, healthy, and active. Today’s western culture glorifies a skewed perspective on how food is supposed to fit into our lives. Somehow this perception has led us to believe we no longer have the time or money it takes to prepare a wholesome, healthy meal that is shared at the dinner table with family. Instead, we are trained to want a meal that is fast, cheap, and easy. This meal is usually highly processed and filled with sugars and fats. This has led us to a problem of epidemic proportions characterized by the rapid increase in obesity and diabetes.
With the world’s population continuing to increase, the demand for food is higher than ever. This increase in food demand also calls for more efficient ways of growing and providing the food. Two methods that are very controversial are the organic and conventional method. While many people support the organic method because of its known benefits, others feel that it is an over inflated industry that cheats consumers out of their money. But recently many studies have disproved those critics. These studies prove that Organic food is a better choice than conventional because it is better for the environment, avoids the use of chemicals, and is generally more beneficial.
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.
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
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.