Know your food

Do you know where the meat in your
supermarket comes from? Or where
the tomatoes in the produce aisle of
that same supermarket are from? We trust
that your food is safe when we don’t even
know where our food is coming from half
of the time.

It may be more expensive, but in the long
run I am willing to spend a little more to ensure
that my food comes from a safe place.

While walking through the supermarket,
an ordinary shopper is oblivious to
what is going on beyond the shelves. Do you
know why your chicken is so inexpensive?
How they make the products last so long?
Or the fact that the beef you are buying is
most likely from a few different countries?
A recent film called "Food Inc." changed the
way I have thought about my food.

"Food Inc." explains to the everyday consumer
where your food comes from. Large
meat companies are allowed to keep animals
in dark environments with little space
to walk, meanwhile feeding them strong
chemicals to plump them up before taking
them to be slaughtered. If you have not seen
this movie, it may change the way you buy
(or eat) meat.

I am not a vegetarian nor do I believe
that everyone should be vegetarian, but
since "Food Inc.", my eyes have been opened
to the idea of eating a more organic diet.
Perhaps we need to get back to basics, back
to the original ways when we knew who
grew our food, and exactly where it came
from. Yes you can eat meat, but make sure
that you know that the meat is processed
in a way that is safe, with little chance for
contamination. You cannot possibly know
where your food is coming from if you don’t
ask.

The sad part of the matter is that it is
very hard to know and trust that you know
where everything you buy comes from. It
is scary to think that we put so much trust
into the FDA to continue giving us safe
food…but honestly, I’m just not sure anymore.

According to the movie, the average food
product travels over 1,500 miles to get to
your grocery store; produce is being picked
while still unripe, and the ground beef we
buy usually contains meat from over 600
different cows. Chickens are unable to
move around in their windowless homes,
and have almost lost the ability to walk at
all due to all of the hormones and antibiotics
they are pumped full of so that they can
be bigger and grow faster.

What is more shocking is that the industry
doesn’t want us to know the truth; they
are worried that if we know the truth we
might not want to eat the food.

If you visit a restaurant, order your favorite
dish, and find a toenail in your food,
chances are you might not want to eat there
again; in retrospect, you may have found no
toenail and left happy, eager to return. If
you found out that something was happening
to your food before it came out to you,
that your food had been dropped on the
floor, only to be picked up and put on the
plate, it would change your thinking. Essentially
what you don’t know won’t hurt you,
and this is the same for meat and produce
companies throughout the nation. If you
don’t know that some of the animals that
we eat are injected with chemicals, or that
the pesticides that are being used on many
crops are hurting people, we will go on eating
these items without any hesitation, no
questions asked.

We are supporting eco-friendly characteristics
but we support chemicals and
animal cruelty every day at our local supermarket,
and this is because it is convenient.

Every time you buy an item, you make a
choice. If you begin to choose to buy items
that are grown locally, then our local growers
will have more income and will be able
to produce more. If local growers are able to
produce more, perhaps our produce won’t
have to be shipped from over 1,500 miles
away, and it will eventually become more
convenient to buy locally.

In the end it’s about what you choose to
do. You can choose to do nothing, and ignore
everything you just read and pretend
this doesn’t happen, or you can demand
to know where your food is coming from
and know exactly what you are eating. So
next time you bite into that burger, or walk
through the grocery store, ask yourself one
question before you buy: do I know where
that comes from?