Summary of “On Buying Local” by Katherine Spriggs Having the luxury of eating any fruit or vegetable at any time is amazing but it can come at a cost to our bodies and our environment. Buying local is a way we can counteract this because local farms are more sustainable and overall better for the environment. The United States play a huge part in global warming. But this is an international problem and many companies are putting billions of pounds of pesticides and chemicals into our water, air, and soil.…
We have choices to make when purchasing food; when we buy chicken do we get organic or not? These choices do impact us globally; hence “Think Globally, Act Locally.” Our environment is important and it’s also the nesting ground for our food source. We as the people should make sure our actions and decisions gear toward protecting the world we live in. When purchasing our food I do believe that the best would be organic. It supplies our animals with the healthiest appetite to provide the best produce to us. Farmers markets are the best way to support your town or community and making sure you also are getting healthy food for you family. Everything plays apart with something else and making sure we do our part would be making sure we are the healthiest we can…
The film, Food, Inc., argues that our food system has been corrupted by corporate interests; as a result, we are put in danger by very items that should guarantee our survival. We should reclaim our right to health by eating more locally produced organic food and ensuring all people have access to such food. The film wants the viewers to think negatively of the business of mass production of the foods that we eat on a daily basis. The logical fallacies allow the film to capture the attention and emotions of its audience by giving a reason for their concerns, but without any legitimate statistics or facts to back up their claims. The use of these logical fallacies in the film help strengthen its arguments by making the audience feel as if the corporations are exploiting the farmers and their traditions, causing families to go through avoidable obstacles, and making the companies and government look like the “bad guys” in this web that is called the food industry. However, the reality is that the food industry isn’t as evil as depicted by the fallacious arguments in the film.…
The Toulmin method is a method of reasoning that includes a claim, ground, and a warrant. This method of analysis breaks down the paper into parts in a way that makes the argument more effective overall. The passage, “The Locavore Myth,” goes over the disadvantages of people whose diet consists only of locally produced food. The author goes over several statistics and studies that show the harmful effects of buying from nearby farmers. According to the Toulmin method, this argument is very effective.…
One of the most essential advantages that locavorism contributes is economic welfare. Eating food locally ameliorates the country in generating more money that can be spent harvesting further nutritional produce. The local economy gains double the amount of money for every dollar that is spent purchasing local food (Maiser). Moreover, the local food movement has revived a number of small farms, which supplies the economy with more locally grown food that is to be grown and bought. According…
Throughout history, human beings have grouped themselves together in communities. The concept of communities offered two major benefits; first, defense against enemies that might threaten the community. And second, the ability to sustain a constant food source to subsist on year-round. The need for a constant food supply became a major factor in early farming practices (Pollan, 2006) through animal husbandry. The waste from the livestock was used as fertilizer for the other crops that were raised on the farm. These crops were utilized to feed the farmers, sell at market, as well as feed the livestock through the next winter. In this manner, there is a continuous lifecycle on the homestead. The overall mindset is different, first, I will feed my family, second try to make a profit, and third, I will try to keep livestock for the next year in order to grow my farm. When the production of beef became more about profit the respect and love for the land fell catastrophically to the wayside. Modern feedlot operations are creating environmental problems that will affect our country in the future, as well as health issues for consumers, which would to corrected by implementing strong regulations in the handling of feedlot waste and a mandated correction in the diet of the cattle.…
A locavore is someone who wishes to eat locally to strengthen their community, in addition to becoming healthier except locavores forget one thing, the rest of the world. For people who think they are improving Earth they are actually harming it further. Furthermore, not only is it bad for mother Earth, but also even the locavores themselves. Locavores assume they decide to eat locally; however, in reality locavores are forced to eat locally. Now understand the locavores plus their local food movements as it can be viewed like every other eye, but do not assume until carefully analyzed.…
being a locavore means eating from a locally grown products, but “ in the United States 80 percent of us live...hundreds of miles, often thousand of miles, from major centers of food production.”(Source F) Sometimes it is almost impossible to become a locavore as you cannot get locally grown foods because the community may not have local farms, but only supermarkets.. Although you can start your own garden, but your soil may not have…
Have you ever wondered where your food comes from? The Omnivore’s Dilemma, written by Michael Pollan, digs deeper into this question. He explains the different food chains and argues that some are more wholesome and healthy than others. In this way, he solves “the omnivore’s dilemma”; when people can eat everything, what should they eat? Pollan proves that guidance is necessary in order to improve people’s eating habits by writing about healthful food choices from the past, how our senses are fooling us to make the wrong food choices, and how culture impacts the food on everyone’s plates.…
This is the omnivore’s dilemma. This problem is amplified in America, a melting pot of diverse people without a single unified culture. Supposed experts advise a smoothie-only diet, to skip every other meal, or other extreme, often unsupported solutions. With all kinds of differing opinions on the best diet, how can anyone decide on what to eat? Utterly perplexed by this longstanding dilemma, Michael Pollan set out to figure it out himself. His hands-on approach begins with research about the composition of food, and moves onto thoroughly analyzing each aspect of the industrial food chain, the industrial organic food chain, the hunter-gatherer method, and small, local farms.…
“Buying local” is such a useful and efficient way of living in order to better the entire world as a whole. Global warming, pollution, and dwindling fossil fuel resources create harmful wastes that are causing many problems in the atmosphere. Smaller farms would begin to have an advantage over larger farms across the country. The economically, efficient factors will start to increase. Spriggs clarifies that buying local can reverse the trend towards a positive farming outlook (Spriggs 94). The advantages of “buying local” outnumber the few downfalls by a landslide.…
While I already knew that I eat a lot of food, what I did not realize was how much of the food I eat is packaged. In the tables 1 and 2, I put everything that was a local food into a bold font. It was only one item for each week, four brats the first week and three the second. They are from a local meet market, but even they are not very sustainable. Meat is very resource intensive to produce. Many more pounds of grain are fed to the animals to fatten them up than we get in return as meat. According to Lester Brown (2011), 35% of the world’s grain harvest each year goes towards making animal protein. Brown (2011, pg. 173) also states, “With cattle in feedlots, it takes roughly 7 pounds of grain to produce a 1-pound gain in live weight. For…
In Michael Pollan’s essay “Escape from the Western Diet,” he informs Americans about the western diet and believes they need to escape from it. The reason Americans should escape the western diet is to avoid the harmful effects associated with it such as “western diseases” (Pollan, 434). To support his view on the issue, Pollan describes factors of the western diet that dictate what Americans believe they should eat. These factors include scientists with their theories of nutritionism, the food industry supporting the theories by making products, and the health industry making medication to support those same theories. Overall, Pollan feels that in order to escape this diet, people need to get the idea of it out of their heads. In turn he provides his own rules for escaping the western diet as well as the idea of nutritionism set forth by scientists.…
The locavore movement is affecting small businesses across the country. Local farmers markets are a big part of how the locavore movement is improving local economies. The…
The slow food movement implies a mindset of living to eat rather than eating to live. The slow food movement began in 1989 as a protest against McDonald's and stands for the same. This movement signifies a push against fast food and strives to reconnect people to what they are eating. Michael Pollan writes of the slow food movement in The Omnivore's Dilemma. Pollan wishes to reform the lost connection that humans once had with their food in the aspect of farmers, crops, plants, and animals. The slow food movement opposes any convenient means of eating which includes, fast food, processed foods and pre-made meals. Overall, the slow food movement offers an alternative to the conventional food system that our society so closely relies on, however,…