In this
article, Michael Pollan takes us on a revealing journey into the issue between
organic food, mainstream food, and the hybrid of the two that claims to be
organic. Pollan introduces us to Gene Kahn, the “father” of organic farms. He
delves into the issue many have with Pollan “joining the big leagues” in the
industrial end of food, taking his organics into the factories with him. The
biggest issue is the emphasis on what “organic” means to us, to the farmers,
and to the industries who are determined to make that word beneficial to
themselves.
First
off, I think the struggle with “finding a definition of organic” is what
bothers me most. From my research, I have found some related definitions:
· -of, relating to, or derived from living matter
· - (of food or farming methods) produced or involving
production without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or other
artificial agents.
· - characterized by continuous or natural development.
This
definition never went away, so I don’t know what these corporations were trying
to find. What they were trying to find was a loophole for themselves to be able
to produce “organic” things to sell to the interested masses while still
producing their foods cheapyly, adding “nonliving” or “artificial” substances.
These additives literally, according to the true definition, defy what it is to
be organic.
Pollan
introduces us to research from the 1940s that talks about the “connection
between the health of the soil and the ability of plants to withstand diseases
and pests”. This is why industries have to alter the food so much, so it
withstands disease and be cheap and we can eat. Plants absorb what is in the
soil, there is little nutrients so they are infused with chemicals. Humans eat
food to absorb energy, we absorb everything we need can from what we eat. With
basic biology, it is easy to see how industrialized food has become nothing but
a circle of illness for the humans eating it and the Earth producing it.
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