The Oil We Eat By Richard Manning
Richard Manning.“The Oil We Eat:Following the Food Chain Back to Iraq.” Emerging:
Contemporary Readings for Writers, Bedford/St. Martin's, 2016, pp. 264–273 Print.
Richard Manning in his article, “The Oil We Eat:Following the Food Chain Back to Iraq”, argues about the careless use of energy in modern agriculture. Manning starts his article by establishing his credibility as a writer by discussing the scientific aspect of energy by bring up the first law of thermodynamics. Manning uses the food chain to show that plants get energy from the sun then some animals get energy from those plants and then human beings get energy from those animals. Manning compares how past human beings would hunt animals and gather plants which would benefit everyone …show more content…
Manning does not only focus on energy in terms of animals and plants but also the fossil fuels like oil that are used in the machines that are involved in the food industry or that energy in soil is used in fatty foods. Manning’s ultimate solution to the problem of wasting food is by getting food that is not processed or local foods because it requires less energy to be used. At the beginning, Richard Manning’s use of statistics like, “Both conclude that we humans, a single species among millions, consume about 40 percent of Earth's primary productivity, 40 percent of all there is”(Manning 264), is intriguing because that means that people use almost half of a plant’s energy. His use of comparing past human beings way of life and modern human beings way of life, “Agriculture is a recent human experiment. For most of human history, we lived by gathering or killing a broad variety of nature's offerings”(Manning 265), is important because it shows a time before the modern food industry. His view towards vegetarians, “Animal rights aside, vegetarians can lose the edge in the energy argument by eating processed food, with its ten calories of fossil energy for every calorie of food energy produced” (Manning 272), interests me and will
Contemporary Readings for Writers, Bedford/St. Martin's, 2016, pp. 264–273 Print.
Richard Manning in his article, “The Oil We Eat:Following the Food Chain Back to Iraq”, argues about the careless use of energy in modern agriculture. Manning starts his article by establishing his credibility as a writer by discussing the scientific aspect of energy by bring up the first law of thermodynamics. Manning uses the food chain to show that plants get energy from the sun then some animals get energy from those plants and then human beings get energy from those animals. Manning compares how past human beings would hunt animals and gather plants which would benefit everyone …show more content…
Manning does not only focus on energy in terms of animals and plants but also the fossil fuels like oil that are used in the machines that are involved in the food industry or that energy in soil is used in fatty foods. Manning’s ultimate solution to the problem of wasting food is by getting food that is not processed or local foods because it requires less energy to be used. At the beginning, Richard Manning’s use of statistics like, “Both conclude that we humans, a single species among millions, consume about 40 percent of Earth's primary productivity, 40 percent of all there is”(Manning 264), is intriguing because that means that people use almost half of a plant’s energy. His use of comparing past human beings way of life and modern human beings way of life, “Agriculture is a recent human experiment. For most of human history, we lived by gathering or killing a broad variety of nature's offerings”(Manning 265), is important because it shows a time before the modern food industry. His view towards vegetarians, “Animal rights aside, vegetarians can lose the edge in the energy argument by eating processed food, with its ten calories of fossil energy for every calorie of food energy produced” (Manning 272), interests me and will