Organicand Processed Foods
Withthe increase in population and the desire to satisfy the demand thatcomes with it, many scientific breakthroughs have been made. Today,more than any other time in history we are experiencing a generationthat survives on genetically modified organic and processed foods. Asa result, there is a thin line between what is healthy and not. Also,the USA today is faced with the menace of unhealthy citizens with anincrease in obese patients, both in adults and children (Moss 473).This has been contributed by manufacturing of junk foods that areaddictive, thus, hooking consumers (Moss 477).
Ascitizens, we have a responsibility to work together with ourgovernment to tackle this issue it cannot be handled from one side.While the government puts in place policies that protect its citizensfrom unscrupulous food producers, citizens, on the other hand, shouldtake responsibility for their health issues by being conscious ofwhat they eat, for the war to be won (Balko 467). Thus, my thesisstatement is as of today there is little or no food that can beregarded as purely organic while those that are processed are harmfulto our bodies. To support my thesis statement, I will use StevenShapin, Jonathan Safran Foer, Radley Balko, and Michael Mossarguments.
Tobegin with, Steven Shapin in his article “WhatAre You Buying When You Buy Organic?”he tries to show what today’s organic food has been reduced to. Hestates that, soil that has been treated with artificial manure,result in artificial foods that have artificial nutrients (434). Hesupports his statement by analyzing the Pollan’s story of fourmeals. According to Pollan, what is purely organic, eats and producesorganic. This principle is difficult in this era and can be found infew places. Today, a heifer will feed on corns which have been dosedwith artificial fertilizer the same heifer will be given antibioticsto prevent it from being infected by various diseases. When I consumesuch cow’s meat, do I consume a purely organic meat? This iscertainly not the case.
Shapinquotes Nixon’s secretary of agriculture, who says that ifartificial fertilizer were not used today, there would be deaths ofabout 2 billion individuals (439). The fact that no such number hasdied confirms that, what we find at our lunch or dinner table is“nonorganic.” Also, Jonathan S. Foer supports my argument, whenhe states that turkeys have been genetically modified to an extentthey cannot naturally reproduce, (457). Thus, the consumption of aturkey is consumption of a very big GMO creature.
Onthe other hand, the rise of processed foods has resulted in a lot ofhealth epidemic in our country, the USA this can be supported byMoss’s article where Michael Mudd is reflected reading slides whichshowed that 12 million children were obese (473). To make it worse,food companies are advertising those products to children withoutwarning messages. These foods have been proved harmful (Moss 464). Asa result, some states governments have started to ban food and drinkslike snacks and sodas from the vending machines in school (Moss 467).Other additional foods that were found to be harmful were red meatsweetened beverages and processed sugars according to TheNew England Journal of Medicine.The case worsens when people start skipping their regular meals andsubstitute them with processed foods such as snacks (Moss 490,486)
Thus,from the articles of Shapin and Foer, much food that ends in ourtable is mainly fake organic as there are always elements ofartificial input whether it is fertilizer or manure or pesticides. On the other hand, processed foods due to their sugar and salt haveproven to be harmful to the populace government and its citizen needto work together to eradicate this menace before it is too late.