This was my last essay for this course. I really like it because it details some of the bits of my childhood that I think could be important for a sustainable future environment. Also, out of all my essays in this class, I’m happiest with how this one came out.
Food and Health Over the Ages
Diets can be a fickle thing. Between fads and the pressures of society and the base feeling of hunger, the thought of what exactly to eat next is at the forefront of most minds three times a day. In any case, looking at the life of different people can give more insight into how diets start and change. This essay will, incidentally, be looking at the agriculture and food practices that have been prevalent throughout my life, from childhood to the present to what I hope will happen in the future.
As far back into my childhood as I can remember, most of the eating habits present in my family had been roughly the same. My parents would get whatever they needed from the store, usually foods with the “organic” label. These provided quick breakfasts before school and work and leftovers from dinner for lunch. Dinners, unlike the other meals, were a social and familial ordeal. Most of the time, our family also tried to get a fair amount of meat through hunting and vegetables from our small garden. My brother and I were raised on store-bought beef as well as fresh deer and moose meat. We learned to grow and harvest and preserve our own produce. Even if all this wasn’t enough to keep us from the grocery store, it was a prime factor in learning how to have a steadier, healthier diet.
It was only in recent years when some ingredients started coming from different sources. There was the controversial decision to get egg-laying chickens. They were(and still are) smelly, gross, unpersonable animals. I never liked them, but reading the beginnings of chapters eleven and seventeen in Omnivore’s Dilemma forced me to look at the chickens from a different perspective. Maybe they’re only smelly and annoying because that’s what they’ve been forced to be. I’m sure I wouldn’t like any animal that only lived in our backyard laying eggs. The chickens are actually very useful, providing us with dozens of eggs in the warmer months, helping to fertilize our garden through grazing in the off-season, and picking harmful bugs out of the plants and grass to protect us.
Overall, the future of food is one that I particularly believe could have high hopes. Returning to small farming instead of over producing for the masses could do a load of good. However, that would only come with a, most likely, far off change. The amount and affordability of consumable vegetables and more humane meat production in both individual homes and corporations would be challenging to modify, but it has the potential to greatly benefit everybody.
