Blog Post #12 (Final)

My favorite reading from this class was "The Omnivore's Dilemma". I have always been a food junkie, but this book changed how I viewed food. I guess I should not have been surprised to learn that the food industry is primarily driven by economics, but the situation was worse than I had imagined. I was disturbed that the food industry strived to produce as much food as possible in a quick and cheap way without any regard for ethics or morals. It made me wonder where our food comes from and what are the health and environmental consequences of eating conventional food? Organic food is not a much better choice either since it is a marketing scheme. It isn't completely organic most of the time and places a larger strain on the environment than conventional food. American consumers are eating food that is cheap (which is great), but is it worth endangering our health and nutrition as well as the environment. The most powerful message from Michael Pollan's book is we are what we eat. I think most of us have heard this message our entire lives, but like me, never put much though into what those words mean. Eating meat and produce that has been ethically produced is much better for us; our bodies can tell the difference!

 A few months ago, I went to Ruth's Chris Steak House. It is probably the fanciest steak house I have ever been to. When I looked at the menu, I was shocked that they serve only corn fed beef. Since it was such a nice steakhouse, I had thought that I would be able to find grass fed beef, but that was not the case. When I asked the server about the meat, he proudly told me that all of their beef is USDA certified only corn fed. If I had not known any better, I would have assumed that cows actually eat corn and love it.

The problem is that people do not know how their food comes from a farm onto their table and many people are still convinced that all food is the same. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to sustainable food and not everyone can afford it. I am hopeful that as long as there is a growing trend in getting sustainable food or food from local farmers we know, more options will open up to consumers. In fact, there is a new farmer's market oriented grocery store called Fresh Thyme near our campus in Prospect Park!