Number of Americans suffering from preventable diseases such as obesity and cancer are growing. One major cause of these health problems is our contemporary food culture, or the lack thereof. Typical American diet has a high calorie content, and contains too many animal products and processed food items. The food industry promoted the convenience of fast food stores and packaged-heat and serve boxed dinners besides adding many chemicals to our diets to enhance flavors or to preserve freshness of the products they are selling.To have an upper hand in the competition, many restaurants increased their portions; but to keep the costs down they turned to cheapest food sources and added sugars to draw more customers.
With changing food habits and a growing population, farming techniques had to be adjusted as well. Nowadays most produces are grown with added pesticides, fertilizers and other products to assure a high yield. Most of these manipulations damage the environment and also is passed onto us through our diet. Moreover, meat is cheap, and is in great demand. This leads to crowded animal facilities where chickens never get a chance to run and cows are fed food that is not part of their natural diet (a.k.a. CORN) besides their accelerated hormone-induced growth. Like the health damages and increased health costs are not enough due to bad eating habits and high-efficiency fast-farming, these techniques increase the carbon emissions immensely.
The article written by David Biello in 2009 in Scientific American explores the future of farming. The article implicates that there are new methods to enrich the soil with organic material and reduce the high carbon emissions. This way, we may have better farming practices, thus less impact on the environment. However, the author states at the end of the article that future of farming depends on the eating habits of the population.
2) Novelty
I was happy that there are techniques that may undo some environmental damage we cause for our high-demand food production.
3) Discussion
Although I agree with the author that the eating habits of the population will influence the future of farming, I also believe that eating habits of the population will be influences by statistics and findings of health research. I think this topic is important for the future of the American family for several reasons. First, even though food is an important part of any culture and society, our book did not cover anything related to eating habits of the American family and the consequences of it. Second, obesity and bad eating habits may lead to decreased lifespans, parents dying of related conditions (such as clogged arteries, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, etc) at a young age, leaving their children behind without adequate support. Next, in my observation, some families, especially of lower socioeconomic status are less aware of food-related conditions and are more prone to eating processed foods, fast foods, and the like. In the long run, we may observe poor getting fatter and sicker, whereas rich staying healthier and leaner. Maybe education in school would teach young children about better eating habits but I believe a family has more influence on a child's future eating habits than the school; not to mention terrible school lunch programs all around the nation.
Eser
Original article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=the-future-of-farming-09-07-21
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