During this week in lecture, our class had the pleasure of watching a ‘commercial’ put out and created by an organization called SumOfUs that showed the devastating effects that the palm oil ingredient in Doritos chips can have on our planet’s forests. The commercial showed a couple who met and bonded over their love of Doritos, only to eventually visit where Doritos are made and instead of seeing something wonderful and heavenly like they expected, came face to face with the deforestation their yummy little chips were causing.
Forests cleared for oil palm plantations in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia.
However, Doritos are not the only food that is manufactured and processed that is bad for our planet. Any type of packaged and processed food is not great for the environment because of the energy-intensive production processes, the plastic packaging, not to mention the added chemicals that are not good for us or for the planet.
Looking back at Michael Pollan’s book after watching that video, I think an obvious yet interesting connection can be made: the foods that are bad for us are also bad for the planet. Just as Doritos aided in deforestation, the bowl of cereal you ate this morning might not be much better. This might seem obvious, but it’s hardly something I have ever thought in depth about. Like Michael Pollan says, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants”. If we followed that advice and stayed away from processed and packaged foods like Doritos, the planet and our bodies would be equally better off.