Recently, I've been researching how to eat more ethically and socially responsibly. By that, I'm referring to eating more locally produced foods, searching out humanely slaughtered animals (doesn't that just sound like an oxy moron) and how to eat less commercialized and prefabricated foods. Not only is all this better for me in body and mind, but also better for our environment and of course the animals I will consume.
Beyond reading through many websites and online articles, I picked up a few books on eating more responsibly, in one book the author refers to this type of eating as "sane eating". As in, it just makes plain sense. This book is called, "Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating" by Mark Bittman. The book begins by recapping how we, North American people (more specifically, in the book, Americans), used to eat, and how there used to be food production places called....farms.
Very little of our food in supermarkets is grown on what we think of as a farm, but rather a lot of it is produced in factories and plants where they douse chemicals all over the so called food. The animals raised in these conditions have no sort of quality of life. In fact, I would argue they have no life at all. They are born and raised indoors, being fed grains and corn meals. When you think of a cow, how do you envision it eating? Grazing on grass? That's their natural state, cows aren't designed to eat grains and corns. However, when kept in small factories these cows have no other way to gain any sort of fat in a timely enough fashion for the meat producers. Because of the close quarters these animals are subjected to, they are much more vulnerable to diseases and general sickness so they are given just enough antibiotics to keep them alive and put on weight. Now, instead of a cow, chicken or pig, instead put your pet into that situation- would you be ok with your dog or cat living in those conditions? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you said no. So why then, do we allow the meat producers to treat other animals this way?
Of course, beyond the animals' rights in this situation, the consideration of how those antibiotics and hormones affect the humans consuming them.
The author also discusses how unnatural (though tasty) junk food is for us. We all have our own definition of junk food, but the author considers anything made without naturally occurring ingredients, especially those with overrefined carbohydrates, highly processed oils and high fructose corn syrup to be in the category of junk. Of course, the expected items are mentioned (candy, chips, pop), but others such as, white bread and breaded chicken are brought into the category of "junk". Never once, however, does the author define what junk his readers should or shouldn't be eating, nor tell anyone to not eat anything. Instead, he gives the facts with the main one stating these foods all have empty calories. Meaning, no nutritional value. And in large quantities do more harm than good for your body. I don't feel as though this would be a surprising fact to most North Americans.
He then puts it into environmental perspective and says, "To give you an idea of how much more energy goes into junk food than comes out, consider that a 12-ounce can of diet soda- containing just 1 calorie- requires 2,200 calories [of fossil fuel] to produce, about 70 percent of which is in production of the aluminium can." What!? Who knew one small can of pop had such an environmental affect just in the production. Now imagine if the consumer doesn't recycle that can.
I could continue on and on, essentially reiterating the author's thoughts and feelings, but why bother when you could go out and read the book yourself? What's even better about this book is the first 108 pages are all information about how to eat with the environment, your health and animals rights' in mind (as in, eating less meat, but no need to completely eliminate it from your diet). The remaining 190 pages contain recipes on following his recommendations of eating less meat, eating more plants and being aware of what's involved in the making of your food as well as the ingredients in your food. I would definitely recommend
* reading "Food Matters" by Mark Bittman as an easy-to-read informative source on healthier and socially responsible eating. He also has an entire cookbook following these principles he outlines in the book.
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* I have received no compensation for this recommendation, nor was asked to do so. This posting is all personal choice and opinion
