Throughout this course in its entirety, we’ve discussed and observed many different aspects of today’s food industries. While looking at authors like Michael Pollan, Tracie McMillan, and Joel Salatin and their respective works, we’ve seen the food industry’s process from harvest all the way to its distribution, and the many issues processed foods have caused. After taking this course, if there was one thing I could change about the American food supply would be processed foods in general.
I believe our nation, as well as the world, would be entirely better off without processed foods in our diet, and that we should return to the way nature intended us to eat: a world without dozens of chemical processes to aid us in food preparation. I’ve chosen to change this one aspect of our country’s food supply for several reasons. For starters, the industrial food industry, which creates processed foods, is a major polluter. The industry requires all the raw materials for the processed foods to be sent to their factories where they can be refined and used in whichever way the corporations want to use them.
This requires thousands of trucks to deliver the livestock or harvest, which in returns accounts for a massive amount of energy. Once these materials make it to the factory, energy consumption doesn’t stop. The factories themselves require massive amounts of energy in order to run fully functioning machinery to process the meats and other products being made. Once the products are made and packaged, they must again be shipped to other outlets, such as retail stores, where they can be bought by customers. As one can guess, this too consumes an exceptional amount of energy, and adds even more pollution to the atmosphere.
According to the USDA, the amount of energy used by the U. S. food industry is only growing. The data found by the USDA “suggests that food-related energy use as a share of the national energy budget grew from 14. 4 percent in 2002 to an estimated 15. 7 percent in 2007″ (Canning “Energy Use in the U. S. Food System”). In a time where the world is working to create renewable energy sources and desperately trying to halt climate change in its tracks, the food industry continues to use more and more energy, while polluting and adding to global warming.
If processed foods were completely eliminated from our diet, a major consumer of energy and a major polluter would vanish from society, as people would be forced to eat locally, and even grow their own food. Processed foods have been found to be very unhealthy as well. By eradicating processed foods from our diet, the obesitystricken country of American would become much healthier. This concept is actually shown in Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. Pollen was discussing the results of experiment conducted by Kerin O’Dea surrounding 10 unhealthy, middle-aged individuals being sent into the bush to fend for themselves over seven weeks.
He states, “All had lost weight and seen their blood pressure drop. Their triglyceride levels had fallen into a normal range. The proportion of omega-3 fatty acids had increased dramatically” (Pollan 87). O’Dea herself went on to mention that all signs of previously diagnosed type Il diabetes were nowhere to be found. If anything, this experiment just shows how unhealthy our scientific creations we call “food” just really are or just how healthy natural food really is. Over just a short time of seven weeks, returning to a normal, natural hunter gatherer lifestyle had reversed the effects of a lifetime of digesting processed foods.
If processed foods were eliminated for good, the same effects could probably be felt by everyone in America. While all the effects wouldn’t be the same since most individuals would not be traveling on foot actively searching for food like the subjects were in the experiment, all the food would be just as healthy. In addition to this, recently findings have shown direct relations between processed foods and cancer. Just a few months back, the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that processed meat can cause colorectal cancer in humans, classifying it as a Group 1 Carcinogen.
Alice G. Walton, an author at Forbes, reported on the issue. She said, “The World Health Organization (WHO) declared today [October 26th, 2015] that red meat falls into the category of compounds that are ‘probably carcinogenic to humans,’ Group 2A, while processed meats fall into the graver Group 1” (Walton “Processed Meats Are ‘Carcinogenic to Humans,’ Says WHO”). This means that eating heavily processed meats, like hot dogs and sausages, are as deadly as smoking cigarettes, and that eating any kind of red meat can increase changes of developing cancer.
While the red meat portion of this report by the WHO would essentially still be an issue if processed foods were taken out of our diet, the more dangerous Group 1 carcinogen in processed meats would be entirely removed. As cancer is a disease that takes hundreds of thousands of lives annually, eliminated processed meats and the risk of cancer associated with them would save thousands, while additionally making others much healthier. Its common knowledge that digesting chemicals does not do the human body well, so why would eating food with chemicals listed in the ingredients be any different?
While eliminating processed foods from our society entirely would reap many benefits, one great consequence cannot be ignored. As technology increased and our society became more advanced, so did our food industry. While processed foods are unhealthy for our consumption, these is one thing that cannot be denied. The food industry has provided our society with an abundance of food in all areas of our country that are readily accessible, and relatively cheap as well. With processed foods completely taken off the market, our nation would be healthier, but at the same time, many would struggle to get by, more so than today.
With less food on the market, the demand for food locally would increase dramatically, and so would prices. With that being said, there would be less food for individuals in certain areas to eat, and if there was even enough to support everyone, many would not be able to afford it. This is the sole reason processed foods are beneficial to society. The solution to this problem, however, would be quite simple. Individuals in our country would simply need to lose their interdependence and begin providing food for themselves. They could grow all their produce in gardens on their property, and begin to raise poultry and livestock on their own.
More farms would also need to be brought up in areas where there would not be enough food available for all. If everyone who could grow their crops and raise livestock did such that, the loss of processed foods would have a minimal effect on the availability of food, and would not cause a major issue. That being said, most people would find themselves with an inefficient amount of time to plant their own gardens and take care for cattle, and society would have a major issue adapting, as would the economy, as the food industry is a major power house in term of finances.
With all that is wrong with America’s food supply today, I believe by changing one simple thing could actually fix many issues. By eliminating processed foods, Americans would find themselves much healthier, and the Earth itself would be a little healthier as well. Society does, however, thrive with processed foods. They’re cheap, bountiful, and require no prior time commitment to consume. Without them, many could potentially find themselves starving with no access to food.
With the food industry being as big as it is, our economy would also take a hit. Despite all this, our country could use a change like this. With obesity, diabetes, and many other conditions once rare to humankind now running rampant in our country, there needs to be a change. I think a necessary change would be to take processed foods out of our diet, but it is a goal I know will not be achieved in our lifetime, as it is something that cannot be achieved overnight, but rather with decades of time.