In his book Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, Richard Robbins weighs the environmental costs of a staple of the US diet: beef. In mathematical number of calories, beef is an inefficient food that requires huge food input. Cattle feed accounts for 80% of US grain production and about half of US water consumption. This inefficiency is magnified as… Read more »
“Aquaculture is a rapidly growing, highly valued and extremely important sector of the seafood industry. It is predicted that by 2030 it will account for more than 60% of global seafood production” (Dowle et al.). There are two basic forms of aquaculture, extensive systems and intensive systems. Extensive systems are powered by the sun, have a relatively low environmental… Read more »
The people that will suffer the most by climate change will have had the least to do with causing it… that is a truly disappointing and sad reality. It is difficult to think about how to place myself within that spectrum from cause to effect, responsibility and helplessness. I try to make ethically sound decisions and support initiatives to address global… Read more »
Bananas are found in every grocery store as cheap, affordable produce, but the fruit represents more than just something we eat and enjoy. It is symbolic of the many economic, social, environmental and political problems where the cheap price-per-pound label on the banana comes at the cost of the lives of workers in the banana industry in order to keep… Read more »
The enormous ecological footprint of large scale food production, particularly as a direct result of petroleum energy inputs stands out as the biggest deterrent to a sustainable food system. In order to generate the highest yields, factory farms are intrinsically dependent on oil, from the equipment required to cultivate and harvest, to the necessity for soil amendments that promote the… Read more »
The modern world is divided economically into the global north and global south, or simply put, developed and developing nations. Due to the economic inequalities between developed and developing countries, there are vast disparities in the daily lives of the citizens of France for example, and those who call Chad home. While families in France visit a local market… Read more »
The interconnectedness of the topics discussed in the course thus far offer a thought provoking global view on the future of the human species on Earth. The issues of populations growth, the recognition of the impact that we have on our ecosystem, the global food system, and the water and ecological footprint we are leaving on our planet, are huge… Read more »
The unsustainable course of human evolution over the past century and a half has been driven on by an overarching, undeniable domination of market mentality that pervades all areas of life, including the stuff of our very sustenance: food. The expectation, or even faith, that a market can regulate itself, correct itself, and provide its own checks and balances is… Read more »
As a professional chef, avid world traveler, and conscious global citizen, analyzing the industrialization of food is of particular interest to me, and equal parts fascinating and disturbing. Humans’ relationship to the food they eat, for most of history, was based on what food was available in a given geographic area. That same type of relationship continued as humans became… Read more »
Food is one of the basic needs of everyone. The problem here is when food becomes so integrated into the industrialized process, people forget to understand the ethics behind what they are doing. While I appreciate how the industrialization process as an important notion in providing for the many, I feel that the process on animals is very inhumane because… Read more »