Let me set the scene a little bit. Imagine for a moment, you’re standing in a field, the summer sun shining down warming your skin. A slight breeze blows, creating a whistling sound through the hay that stands nearly as tall as you do. You look to your right and acres of green invade your sight. Within those acres there is maybe 15cows peacefully grazing, without a care in the world. You look ahead and in the distance you see a small home grown garden. This scene isn’t a scene at all. This is my sustainable world. A world I never fully appreciated until our discussions in English 151.
The setting I discussed in the previous paragraph is what sustainability means to me and how I connect it to my life. Where I lived, the place I call home. We raise our own cattle that we eventually eat. We grow our own fruits and vegetables. All accomplished in an environment that is not enhanced by chemicals or altered in any unnatural ways. Sure like everyone else we would go to the grocery store to buy food, food from company far away. I never really saw a difference in the two. I for most of my life never questioned it and never really realized the difference between the two different areas.
That all changed one day with one video. My freshman year of high school I watch a PETA video that I can’t recall the name of that in a way changed my life. It depicted the gruesome details of treatment of animals on farms. Now I knew this was not how we treated our cows, however I couldn’t get the images of bloody animals being tortured just so we can have a slice of meat on our table out of my head. After watching that video I became a vegetarian.
After watching Food Inc., I really felt assured that I had made a good life decision. Not only is the treatment of animals in factory farms inhumane it also affects our health. Animals our shoved by the thousands in small buildings, pushing up against one another without a space to even breathe. There they are left to breathe in their feces. This makes it easier for disease to spread. Farmers then have to give the animals anti-biotics just so that they may stay healthy. The problem however is that our bodies after eating this meat develop immunities to the anti-biotic. It makes it harder for doctors to treat illness and diseases in people.
Food Inc. also discussed how pesticides our used on our non-meat product foods. Pesticides that end up in our bodies and also hurt our environment. The pesticides are used both to make the plants grow faster, make them bigger, and also to keep bugs from eating the crops. These pesticides can create many health problems such as anything from cancer to autism. Pesticides kill our soil and make it difficult to grow anything later also. It also contributes to air pollution.
So after all the discussion I think I’m going to go back to that scene I discussed in the first paragraph. One that is healthy and dependable not unnaturally altered. I have high hopes that we can get away from these industrial farm agendas and back to the old days where almost everyone grew and raised their own food. It would provide for a healthier environment not to mention how wholesome and humbling it would be.
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