10 Reasons to Improve Your Food Choices

Why look for food that is local and/or produced sustainably?

1. 70 percent of all antibiotics that are given to living organisms in the United States are given to farm animals in our food system. [i]

2. The food you eat everyday travels and average of 1,500 miles from its source to your table.[ii]

3.  From 1950 to 2005, the average amount of milk produced per dairy cow has quadrupled...at the expense of the cow. Cows that are given the synthetic hormone rBGH will produce 10-15 percent  more milk than normal, but they will also wear out faster. When a dairy cow doesn’t produce enough milk to be considered profitable, they are sent to slaughter. About half of the beef in the fast food industry is from under-producing dairy cows. [iii]

4.  70 percent of all processed food at the supermarket has some genetically modified ingredient. [iv]

5.  Farm raised Salmon are given antibiotics because of the way they are raised, densely packed in pens near ocean shores. Plus, the pink coloring of the farm-raised salmon flesh is from synthetic chemicals added to the salmon’s food; otherwise it would be a sickly and unappetizing whitish-grey. Wild salmon’s flesh is pink from eating krill, shrimp, and other similar organisms. [v]  

6.  Each cow that is produced by the traditional factory farm method eats an average of 66 pounds of chicken litter, and the FDA authorizes it. [vi]

7.  Turkeys raised for food have been bred so that their breast is too big for them to mate naturally.  All turkeys raised for food are artificially inseminated. [vii]

8.  Buying local and sustainable food strengthens the local economy.

9.  Buying local and sustainable food supports endangered family farms.

10.  Buying local and sustainable food helps to protect the environment for ours and future generations.

I have heard and read that if Americans knew how their food was produced, they wouldn’t eat it. While I am not encouraging anyone to boycott any particular item, product, or brand, I hope to persuade you to look deeper into what you are feeding your family. Would you eat or feed your family chicken litter scraped off a chicken house floor? I don’t know of anyone that would. But why is it acceptable to eat beef from cows that are fed chicken litter? And why does our government consider this an acceptable practice? I will publish my investigations into this issue at a later date. What I have found out so far is disturbing.

Are you interested in reducing the amount of petroleum this nation uses? You can help this effort by doing more than just driving less. When you eat meat that is not local, you are supporting the use of gasoline being used to truck your meat for an average of 1500 miles. Imagine how much gasoline is used to do that!

Locally produced meat products travel much less than those purchased at your local grocery store. That is, unless you live in an area like New Melle, where the local grocery store is The Bavarian Smoke Haus. I had the pleasure of visiting this store the other day. Stay tuned for my observations of this unique grocery store and of their supplier, Dan’s County Meats.   I’ll give you a hint, the rib eye was delicious!

[i] Inside cover, Food, Inc. DVD

[ii] http://www.foodincmovie.com/about-the-issues.php

[iii] http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/dairy/

[iv]Michael Pollen, Food, Inc. DVD.

[v] http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/expert.q.a/01/08/salmon.fresh.farmed.jampolis/index.html

[vi] Peter Singer and Jim Mason, The Way We Eat. Why Our Food Choices Matter, Rodale, 2006.

[vii] Ibid.