Free Range

24 April 2012

Free Range

Agriculture was once about taste, quality, and pride in food. Nowadays, it is about supply and demand, who can supply the most food while spending the least amount of money. Freezers across the nation are filled with genetically modified foods designed to last longer, decreasing the quality, while producing mass quantity. Food is now wheeled across assembly lines on thick plastic belts, not freshly harvested and boxed for home delivery. As it turns out, quantity tastes nothing like quality, and high quality food is grown organically. Buying locally organic food provides health, community, and environmental benefits.

Eating healthy is not about buying foods that contain less fat, it is about buying food that does not contain chemicals. As a result of factory farmers feeding corn diets to cattle, when cattle are naturally herbivores, the United States has had strings of e-coli outbreaks, hospitalizing and killing numbers of people across the nation. Scientists have now begun using ammonia and hydrogen peroxide as methods for cleaning meat to reduce bacteria while using ethylene gas for ripening crops (Kenner). Unlike organic agriculture, crops that are grown through the earth's natural economic system, factory farmers are spraying ammonium nitrate to provide a source of nitrogen as well as creating pesticides, insecticides, and weed killers with petroleum. These chemicals are based on poison gases developed for the war (Pollan 35-47). The chemicals are not only harmful when ingested, but decrease the vitamin enrichments that are produced in organically grown food. Dr. Donald Davis of the University of Texas Biochemical Institute in Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has recently discovered a decline in the nutrients that are typically found in garden grown crops. Based on forty-three garden crops, Dr. Davis found that six out of thirteen nutrients showed declines in the last fifty years. The vast decline in our crops nutrients are raising consumer questions as to how modern agricultural practices are affecting crop sources (Davis). The nutrient decline could be a significant reason as to why consumers of store purchased foods are seeing increasing results in weight, leading to extremely high rates of obesity and diabetes. In just two generations, America has eaten their way into diabetes and obesity. The industrial food system may have found cheaper means of supplying our Nations food source, however, these industrial farmers have managed to provoke poor eating habits causing four out of ten food related diseases (Taylor). Take a look around, obesity in America has risen substantially since the great depression. According to Centers for Disease and Control Prevention, more than one-third of the Nation's adults are obese and approximately seventeen percent of children living in the United States between the ages of two through nineteen are also obese ("Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," par. 3). Obesity leads to other potential threats, such as, heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. One out of three American's born after the year 2000 will contract early onset diabetes. One out of two of those American's will be minorities (Taylor). It is imperative to eat healthy, naturally grown foods.

A wonderful benefit to buying food locally is being able to see how the food is grown and raised. In most cases, farmers will allow customers to tour the farmlands in which the food is grown. Local farmers offer many events and workshops teaching the community about the benefits of buying locally grown foods. Classes are also available to help educate children in agriculture and crop development. Annually,