The cover of the August 31st issue of Time Magazine really grabbed my attention. It’s a picture of a package of ground beef with this statement:

WARNING: This hamburger may be hazardous to your health. Why the American food system is bad for our bodies, our economy and our environment – and what some visionaries are trying to do about it.

Times are rough, and a lot of people aren’t worried about the environment. A lot of people aren’t thinking about the living conditions of animals that are raised for food, conditions so horribly nasty that they can’t turn around or lie down and they’re given antibiotics to fight and prevent infection. Animals are fed a diet their bodies aren’t designed to digest, which makes it easier for them to get sick. Why? Because it’s cheap. Guess what that means? More antibiotics, and mutant ninja bacteria that are resistant to medicine.  People aren’t even aware of how this affects the obesity epidemic, with animals being fed cheap grain and shot up with drugs and hormones to make them bigger and fatter. Let’s not even start on the pesticides that are causing dead zones (read: no aquatic life) in bodies of water around the world or the mercury content of fish. People aren’t really worried about these things.

What people are worried about is being able to afford food at all. If it’s organic and good for you, fine, but if it costs too much, then organic be damned. This article seems to be trying to get average consumers to look beyond the hype that is the green movement and see how much cheap, unhealthy food will harm us all in the long run. Ever seen the movie Wall-E? That’s what how it’ll be: a barren Earth abandoned by greedy humans who’ve become gelatinous orbs with feet and hands, hovering in chairs that do everything for them. I think it’s super important to help people realize how America’s food industry is all about money and not at all about the health and well being of America. That sounds familiar, right?

So what’s the solution? My personal contribution is this blog (if I can get people to actually read it) and sharing the information I find when I go on one of my research tangents. I also do what I can with our grocery budget, but it’s hard. My strategy is to shop at the farmers market, buy organic when possible, buy less meat and try not to throw any usable food away. I eventually want to compost and create an edible container garden to offset some of our grocery costs (just have to figure out how to turn my brown thumb green). I can’t do the vegetarian/vegan thing, I will admit. I love hamburgers and steak sauce too much.

What do you think? How can we help people be aware without resorting to tirades and scare tactics?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 6:01 pm and is filed under Eat Organic, When Cheap is Bad. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.