Why Food Matters
by Alex Ketchum
Everyday we eat- simple right? Our body consumes proteins, fats, and lipids, converting each morsel into usable energy. Once the biology lesson is over we can stop caring, correct? Wrong!
Recently the Argus published an article about Usdan’s lettuces. Students complained about a few bugs in the food and conventionally grown agriculture was offered as if it were a reasonable solution to debug our food.
The time has come to change our perceptions about food and cleanliness…
Think about it for a minute. When food is sprayed with pesticides it kills bugs. Yes, we are bigger than bugs, but that same POISON is not good for us. It may not outright kill us, but it definitely isn’t a friend to our bodies.
I know that I would RATHER EAT LETTUCE WITH SLUGS THAN POISON.
Photo: Alex Ketchum
Here is what conventional industrial agriculture provides you with: food without bugs, without nutrients, and without flavor.
When large-scale monoculture is continuously performed on the same plot of land, the soil is not replenished naturally. To keep plants growing on that land, large amounts of nitrogen are sprayed upon the soil, so that the plants will grow, but they will lack many of the other vitamins and minerals that a plant grown in healthy soil would have. The excess nitrogen also runs into water supplies and causes large algae blooms which harm aquatic life.
Choices made in industrial agriculture are made in order to enhance the produce’s ease in shipping and shelf life. Food isn’t grown to enhance flavors or nutrients.
Photo: Katherine Bascom
Organic agricultural products have not been sprayed with poison and are more likely to have a higher yield of nutrients. While your food may not look “perfect,” you may have a lopsided apple that doesn’t shine, you will know that this food is better for your body and better for the planet.
Your economic support of organic agriculture does not fund a practice that hurts your body and the planet.
Obviously this is a very complex issue, but I wanted to draw attention mostly to how we perceive the aesthetics of food. A bug in a bowl at Usdan seems like nothing in comparison to nutrient deprived, poison covered lettuce that is bugfree.
Photo: Alex Ketchum
