Werneke Human Geography: October 2010

After seeing the movie, Food Inc., I have many new thoughts on the way we get our food. I feel like I never want to eat meat again after seeing what they do to their animals and how they treat them so unfairly. We need reform in our food system because if we do not we will just keep having the big companies controlling everything. I think if everyone at more organic we could stop enabling the big companies in controlling what we eat. If we continue to have our food system run by only a few companies it will become even worse than it is.

First off, I feel I should become a vegetarian or at least a vegan. It is just so cruel what people do to animals. If we can change our system we would not have any animal abuse in the food industry. I think I will not buy any more food from the supermarket unless it is locally grown. By doing the map where I got my food from I now know I help others economy but not mine. I am going to change the whole way I look at food from meats to locally grown fruits and vegetables. Next year I plan to have a garden in my back yard. I hope this will make being organic easier and it would also cut down on the cost of our food. Since I have showed my parents this project and talked to them about it, we have come to a conclusion that we will buy more local meats. I think watching Food Inc., opened my eyes to all the food we eat on a daily basis. I could not believe how much of our food is actually made out of corn.

Also from watching Food Inc., I have thought more and more about eating organic foods from the super market. Having thought of eating more organic foods I am planning a garden next season. I hope eating organic will help improve the way big companies make their food. I hope John Carroll will start a garden on their property. It would be nice if they then sold that vegetable in the café so we can have a more organic cafeteria. This would help us spend less while becoming more healthy and organic. Having my family become more organic is another thing that I hope I can change. Right now my family is not the most organic but we are trying. My dad grew up on a farm so we hope with his help we can make an awesome garden. I have told my mom that she should cook with more organic ingredients and not using so many processed foods. Eating organic is just healthier and that why my parents hope we can change our life style. My family has also talked about having a composting bin for our house so we can have less trash and save on fertilizer. We will change our life style and become even more organic than we already are.

Food Inc., really surprised me in many ways. Firstly I can not believe how our food system is only owned by a few big companies. I thought originally there were many companies involved in it. I think we should change that and let the market be owned by small local companies to keep businesses in competition with each other. This would help our economy and food safety standards. With higher standards less people would get sick. Secondly I could not believe how much corn we use. I thought corn was only in few different products but now it is in almost everything we eat from meats to processed foods like chips and soft drinks. Even though corn has revolutionized the way we eat and look at product it also has its drawbacks. When cows eat corn it does not digest so we get viruses intruding into the cow’s meat. I think we should feed cows more grass and maybe people will be less sick because of foods. Also by feeding cow’s corn we increase a demand for corn which raises corn prices to where poorer countries can not get the corn. We are not just hurting the cows but other people in other countries. Finally I could not believe the ways animals are treated when they are the animal lots. At the lost they looked horrible and sick. I had known that was happening to the food I eat I would just become a vegetarian years ago. The way we treat animals should be the way we treat humans. We get fed right, then why not them? I believe it is and important subject that we should address to our government. It is not just the cows that are mistreated it is chickens and other poultry, pigs, and other animals we eat.

This is how Food Inc. has changed the ways I think of the food I eat. We can not just ignore this problem we must face and have our government change it. If the big companies change the way they produce food to a more natural way that would make our foods more organic and healthy. It would also treat animals much better. With treating our animals better we can have healthier conditions for our animals. Having healthier conditions for our animals will make it less likely for people to be sick of tainted meats. I hope we can start a change that will affect our food system for generations. If we can do this by everyone planting a garden that would just help everything organic and everyone can pay less and be healthy. If we don’t change we will have the same spiraling downward food system. I don’t think big companies should bully us around by suing us for saying things against their company. We need to stand up and fight these companies for control back over our food system. What would you do to start a revolution against the big food companies to stop their cruelty?

Werneke Human Geography

Human Geo Test 2

Human Geo Test

Practice Test

Personal Food Essay

Food Map

Food Journal