While food is clearly a crucial aspect of living, it seems that it has become so engrained into our (American’s) everyday lives that it is often not thought about in a deeper level. The role of food in our society and how it has, in a way, controlled our lives since the very beginning of our kind it quite thought provoking. The ability to store food and what power came with that is something that I never really looked into and took a second thought about before. Fast forward to current times, the industrialization of agriculture has greatly impacted our society, in more ways than we can count. In lecture, the routinization and specialization of labor was compared using the following statistic: 1900- 60% of US Farming, 2000- < 2%. I thought this comparison was quite alarming and eye opening to just how advanced our society has become.
The U.S. food policy and nutarianism lecture was quite interesting to me. I was unaware that the US had a low population density compared to others and honestly, I felt that it was more dense. After learning about our large scale agriculture production, I was able to understand just how spread out our country is in comparison to others. I knew that the US was a powerhouse in the food market, but I guess I naively was not aware of how much we partake in exporting. For being such a leader in agriculture and farming, I couldn’t help but think about the obesity rate here in our country. One would think that a country surrounded by the best farming and agriculture would be healthier and not the other way around. But, the evolution of packaged and processed foods has led to this unfortunately. As Americans, we like things that are sweet, colorful, and easily accessible. We LOVE to “Super Size” our meals. This shift in the way we consume food has led to the rise of obesity and has become an epidemic across our nation, specifically involving our youth. Beverages and what they’re composed of are filled with ingredients that are not only harmful, but of what we do not need… yet we still consume and produce them. Why? This is a question that I hope will be further answered in the upcoming lessons. Learning that many of the additives are not tested and haven’t been proved are not harmful is extremely upsetting. While I know that over time additives in food and ingredients have become more strict and improved, I feel that there is still a long way to go.
Image URL: http://www.dukandiet.com/obesity-epidemic-in-america