I just finished reading The Omnivore’s Dilemna by Michael Pollan – a fascinating book about the things that we, as omnivores, choose to eat. And a disturbing tale of what we are doing to ourselves by going along with industrial food production as the major source of our inputs. I will not look at a farm in quite the same way again, and I will certainly be more mindful and wary as I decide what goes into my grocery cart.
It opened my eyes so many things about today’s industrial farming processes and what a road to ruin it appears to be. It is amazing how a series of small and likely well meaning decisions has led us away from small self-contained and relatively sustainable farming to the large scale agricultural monocultures that we have today. One part of the country is growing either corn or soy beans with the help of vast amounts of artificial petroleum based fertilizers, and the other part raising vast numbers of identical animals (pigs, chickens or cattle) in absolutely horrible conditions with the aid of lots of antibiotics and feed (corn) that many of these animals (the cattle at least) weren’t even designed to eat (they are ruminants).
Nevermind that the food produced may not be the best, from an environmental standpoint it is a disaster. One part of the country is suffering from toxic run off from over-fertilized fields while the other is floating in lagoons of excrement that we don’t know what to do with.
Anyway, a very good book (as was his previous book – The Botany of Desire), that I highly recommend. Check out Bill Maher’s interview with Michael Pollan on Amazon.com’s Fishbowl program.
No comments:
Post a Comment