Drewen Human Geography: October 2010

Food Paper

I am not sure if it is really safe in the food market anymore. You constantly hear about another outbreak of some virus that could potentially harm us in some way. If there is this many problems reoccurring in the food market why is there no one fixing it permanently. I realize that it is almost imposable to control all of the food production in America but if people take the inspections piece by piece then eventually it will be done and it is not like only one person works for the government on this subject. I am sure that there are hundreds of people who could do inspections on the factories where the food is processed. In my many cases it starts at the meat factories. The runoff of the fecal matter is being washed into fields next to these big factories. Now this by itself it not necessarily a bad thing, people have been using manure as fertilizer for century’s. The problem is coming from the cows producing the manure. These cattle are sometimes infected with different viruses that are harmful to humans. Once these cattle produce the manure the manure has the harmful virus and once that manure runs off or is spread into fields with vegetables near these factories the vegetables absorb the manure and then they contain the virus. Back to the cattle, once the infected cattle are slaughtered and begin to be processed they already contain the virus and any meat that touches tainted meat is then tainted itself. This is a major flaw in the factories and why large scale infections of tainted meat related viruses happen. If we could watch these factories more closely than it is quite possible to stop infections of this size happening. This is why organic farming is getting very popular.

The organic market has become popular over recent years. That is because if it is organic there is a much lower chance on any kind of contamination. They also don’t use any kind any of pesticides or chemicals that could be proven to cause harm to the person eating them. Now this will not change my diet in any way. I will probably continue to not eat organic food but that is just me. I am sure that after researching this topic many people would reconsider whether or not they will start to eat organic food. There are plenty are upsides to eating organic products. For one, the animals raised on an organic farm are raised like normal cattle would. They are raised to eat grass in fields unlike the cattle in the feed lots. Those cattle are raise on feed corn. This is not what they naturally eat they have evolved to eat grass. The corn does not digest properly in the cow’s stomach and that is what causes the previously mentioned viruses to be produced. This is why it is a low chance of infection in organic food. If it is truly certified organic that means that the farm has passed an excruciatingly difficult list of requirements. This also means that because the cattle do not become infected then there is no chance of the vegetables grown on the same organic farm becoming infected. That is a major upside to having organic food but it is not up to me entirely to eat organic food because it is truly up to my parents. I would have to get my parents to buy the organic food but it is not so important that I will get them to buy it.

What actually really surprised me was that the government doesn’t have the power to shut down factories with repeated reports of infection. The people need to give the power back to the government or these diseases in factories will continue to occur and as long as these diseases occur then outbreaks will happen and more people will get ill and possibly die. What really surprises me is that it is not easier to pass a law that seems to be common thinking. It has taken a long time and it is still not able to pass. This law would put power back in the hands of the government and give them the power to shut down a factory that has repeat instances of tainted meat. This is a law that many people could get behind and support. Another thing that really surprised me was the amount of control that some companies have. The one that really kind of angered me was that one kind of seed that was not able to be replanted. Yes, that makes sense since he patented the seed and that way the farmers who bought the seed would not replant he seed but what I don’t like is that the person who patented the seed would sue people when he had no proof that they replanted seed. It angers me that he was spying on people that had never bought his seed just so that he could find something to sue them for. People who have that much money only want one thing, more money so he decided that he would get a lot more money by suing every person he could. It angers me that the farmers know this about his companies but they can’t do anything about it. One of the farmers from the movie “Food Inc.” said that it was better to just roll over and give him the money then to fight the person who patented the seed because it would end up costing you more in legal fees in the end then to just pay him the settlement. This once again angers me because these people are just trying to make a living and then they are blindsided by a law suit. Like the boy who had only been a farmer for matter of weeks and all of a sudden he is being sued for replanting seed. Stories like these are why I wish that there was something I could do about the amount of power these large companies have.

Drewen Human Geography

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Map Score

Monday, October 18, 2010

Food Paper

Friday, October 15, 2010

Food Map

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Breakfast Lunch Dinner Journal