Food Inc. From A Farm Girls Perspective

I had heard so much about Food Inc. before we watched it in class. None of the comments were ever good. So I tried to prepare myself for what I was going to see, and you know what, I was not surprised at all. Yes, not many people think about where their food comes from and the entire process. When most Americans think about food, there first thought is the grocery store shelf.

Coming from a farming community I know better than to think that. Many farmers in my area have a few heads of cattle or hogs, but mostly we are a grain community. When my family started farming we worked around 1,000 acres of corn, wheat and soy beans. Due to the economy, in the past years we cut down to about 100 acres of seasonal summer produce such as sweet corn, green beans and a variety of other vegetables. Looking back on our years in the grain business, I never knew how much we were involved in the food industry. So many items of food are made from corn which more than likely was made from some of our labor.

This film was very interesting and opened my eyes a lot. I do not agree with how animals are a thought of quantity not quality and are treated horrible. I would like to think that not every company is like that, but I can't say that is true. There were some farmers in the film that raise their animals correctly, butcher then and sell their meat themselves. Living and understanding that life, these are the kinds of people I agree with. Yes, some viewers might not like seeing animals be killed, but guess what, that is the reality. If you want to eat meat, that is where it is coming from. And that is a better and friendlier way of doing it instead of coming from the mass producing food companies that do not care about the animals at all.

I enjoy eating seasonal vegetables and am spoiled that it is right in my back yard during the summer. But honestly, anyone can grow vegetables and it saves a lot of money. The best feeling is that you know where your fresh tomatoes or cucumbers came from and exactly what went into growing them. I also enjoy eating meat and no, I will not stop. I have decided that I will cut down on my consumption of the bad forms though. Staying the beginning of January I have not eaten fast food and plan to continue this throughout the rest of my year. It saves on money and keeps me healthier. The littlest things that I or anyone decides to change about their eating habits can impact the food industry. If you want to see a better change, start it now and spread the word.

Extra Credit - Living Downstream

When the extra credit opportunity came up I was really not sure if I wanted to do it. Most college students don't want to spend their Friday evening in a film and discussion about the environment, but I decided the extra credit was worth it. I honestly was not looking forward to it, but after seeing Steingraber's film I was very happy that I went. It was very moving and full of a lot of information that I will further look into.

Sandra Steingraber is an environmental biologist from Pekin, Illinois that as a junior in college was diagnosed with a form of bladder cancer. Many of her family members before her had been diagnosed with a form of cancer, but this was not so normal in Sandra's case since she was adopted into her family. It was also noticed that her community had a cancer cluster among them. This was thought to be caused from the many factories and farming chemicals that ran off into the water. After surviving her cancer she devoted her life to studying about cancers and the roll that chemicals such as atrazine play in the cause. She has spent her time speaking across the nation to government officials and anyone who will listen to try to get laws passed about the use of chemicals and getting them all tested. Steingraber stated that "when you have carcinogens in the waster supply... someone will get cancer." In the film, biologists studied frogs from rivers that were exposed to run off of atrazine. The frogs had physically changed making them male and female. Obviously if atrazine has that much of an affect on frogs, it could very easily cause cancer in humans from drinking, eating a breathing substances with atrazine. This story hits a lot deeper later when we find out that Sandra's cancer had come back after multiple years. Steingraber travels to make her story and research known so that we as a nation can stand up and get laws changed and start an environmental human rights movement to prevent this from further happening.

After the film, a panel of local supporters conducted a discussion.The panel consisted of members from the Ohio Environmental Council, Center for Health and Environmental Justice, Sunday Creek Watershed and Ohio University Environmental Studies Department. They first spoke about how they enjoyed the film and how much it hit home to them. One panelist in particular knew Sandra very well so her words were very moving. They then wanted us to think about why all of this was happening and more importantly, what we can do about it. There are many local issues like these around Southeastern Ohio that we can help prevent. By just looking at the land we see all its beauty and trees, but if we look further we then notice all the pollution that has been caused. They mentioned many meetings with companies and events that are being held that we can participate in to get the word known and help make a difference. The main idea of the whole discussion, as one of the panelists put it, was to "get involved, get involved, get involved" so that we can get a change we want to see.

Working Hand In Hand

Throughout all of the readings that we have done in class, there has been one idea or another connecting each of them. Whether it’s been wilderness, ecosystems or nature in general, all of the essays relate in messages to their audience. I particularly noticed this between Louis Owens’ The American Indian Wilderness and Thinking Like a Mountain by Aldo Leopold. In their writings, both these authors talk about our idea as humans of what should be in nature. We have in our minds that since we live on the land we should decide what should be here without even thinking of how it affects nature. We do not think about what has taken place in the past to get us here now, or about the future and what impact our actions have. These similarities can be found in the essays among other differences.

The American Indian Wilderness tells about a Forest Service ranger that pulls the duty of burning down a shelter in the Cascade Mountains after its roof had collapsed from the snow. They wanted to take away all “human-made objects” in order to return “White Pass meadow to its ‘original’ state” (Owens, 69). After burning the shelter and transplanting in the area, the ranger meets two elderly native women from the area. He soon finds that the shelter he had taken down was one that their father had built a century ago to store berries. It was meaningful to them, for they had come to visit it yearly. The ranger felt horrible for demolishing their family’s shelter, but the women did not seem to mind as much as he had thought. Owens says, “They forgave me without saying it – my ignorance and my part in the pattern of loss which they knew so well” (Owens, 70). The women were not hurt by the ranger’s actions because they understood that they were once using the land and it was time for the mountain to replenish itself from their use. In Owens’ mind, his thought of “wilderness” was never represented in White Pass. There have always been people using the land for themselves; “there was only the fertile continent where people lived in a hard-learned balance with the natural world” (Owens, 70). “Wilderness” is just an idea that cannot be reached when humans are around.

Leopold suggests his ideas a little differently. In his essay Thinking Like a Mountain, a man hunts for deer but comes across a wolf instead. His instinct tells him to shoot the wolf so that there are more deer around the mountain for him to hunt. After killing the wolf he starts to see the real picture of why the wolf is there; to help keep the deer population down for the vegetation on the mountain to survive. Leopold believes that wilderness is what is protecting the world from harm, not people. He states, “In wilderness is the salvation of the world” (Leopold, 89). The wolves control the deer so if the humans kill the wolves the mountain will not survive. Leopold realized that “just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer” (Leopold, 89). We as humans believe that we are the ones that have the power to control everything in the world. Owens on the other hand shares his idea that we help control the world to bring nature back. By tearing down the shelter in The American Indian Wilderness, the ranger felt that he was restoring the land and cutting down on the foot traffic in order to repair White Pass. Owens and Leopold both agree about restoring nature, but how to go about doing so is where they differ.

In both essays, the authors share the message that anything you do has an effect on another event. By building the shelters on the mountain, the native people created a lot of travel, compacting the land. Even though the building was meaningful to the two elderly women, they understood the purpose of its destruction as they knew it was harming the earth. The Native Americans see this, but Owens does not believe many people do. He states “the global environment crisis that sends species into extinctions daily and threatens to destroy all like surely has its roots in the Western pattern of thought that sees humanity and “wilderness” as mutually exclusive” (Owens, 70). We often do not relate people with wilderness, but this story has proved that they are affected by each other.

Thinking Like a Mountain agrees with this perfectly. Leopold sees that the mountain is its own ecosystem with every part of if working together. The wolves are there to keep the deer from over populating. The deer feed off the foliage on the mountain but if the wolves were not around, the deer would over populate and eat everything. In return, the deer would die because there would not be enough food for them all. We think that we are doing the deer and ourselves a favor by killing the wolves, but Leopold helps us see otherwise. “I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunter’s paradise” (Leopold, 89). Obviously everything is here for a reason and the mountain’s own ecosystem shows that.

Both authors make you think about what we as humans are doing to the environment. We have the idea that we are at the top of the world and can use that to our advantage. What we need to remember is that nature was here first and doing fine without us. We come and take over, but tend to hurt the world with our thoughtless actions. Working hand in hand with wilderness is the only way everything will survive. Owens says it best, that

“unless Americans, and all human beings, can learn to imagine themselves as intimately and inextricably related to every aspect of the world they inhabit, with the extraordinary responsibilities such relationship entails… the earth simply will not survive” (Owens, 71).

Each essay sheds light to working “with” nature by their stories. By conveying their messages in the form of a story, you can better visualize what each of the authors is trying to relay. It is much easier to understand than an essay that lectures you or just gives you information.

Overall, both Owens and Leopold’s writings were the most clear and relatable to each other. All of the essays we have read definitely make you think a little more about what impact you actually have on the environment. The American Indian Wilderness and Thinking Like a Mountain are the two readings that I can relate to better. After really looking into what both authors had to say, I can say that I will look at nature and the world in a new way. Not just that it provides for us, but that we help it provide also. We are an interlocking system with wilderness that works together to keep one another going.

Works Cited

Leopold, Aldo. “’Thinking Like a Mountain’ From A Sand County Almanac.” Saving Place. Ed.

Sidney Dorbin. New York: McGraw Hill, 2005. 87-89. Print.

Owens, Louis. “The American Indian Wilderness.” Saving Place. Ed. Sidney Dorbin. New York:

McGraw Hill, 2005. 68-71. Print.

How much do I really need that?

I like to think of myself as a frugal person when it comes to purchasing items. Being a "poor college student," I try to buy food when I run down to nearly nothing, limit my shopping to when I need an item of clothing for a specific reason, and limit my impulse buying. It has helped a lot to not spend as much money, but even doing those simple tasks do not cut my consumption down a significant amount.

After reading Durning's essay, It made me think a lot more about how much I actually consume. It' not just the items I buy and use, but it goes even farther back in the process. Just thinking about everything that goes into making a cup of coffee I would buy at the Front Room makes me want to cringe a little. The coffee starts off as a bean which must be sorted through a machine that uses a lot of energy. From there it is packaged (using more energy). Packages are shipped to its destination (using lots of fuel and creating air pollution). The coffee beans are processed into the coffee purchased (using more energy from its machines). The coffee is purchased in disposable containers that most toss in the trash (creating waste). The trash is transported to the landfills (using more fuel and creating more air pollution).... and the process continues even further.

So I guess what I am thinking, is everything that is purchased or used has a lot more impact on the environment than we realize at first. We are a consuming population that will continue its consuming no matter what. We like our new products and like multiple forms of them. There is no way to eliminate consumption in our society, but we can try to cut back on it. Purchasing local products can help cut down on transportation and energy use. Keeping clothes longer and not having to buy the newest best technology is another idea, which also saves you money. What you really need to ask yourself before purchasing what you want is "how much do I really need that?"

OU's Sustainability Efforts

Everyday we are bombarded with messages about being more environmentally friendly. When I see this, I stop and think about how much work that takes to do that. But in reality the littlest changes in your day to day tasks can help.

After doing the research for this sustainability essay, I soon realized that helping the environment is quite simple. You don't have to go to the extent of planting 1000 trees, or trading your car in for a bike, just pay attention to which trash can to throw your waste into. In Baker, Grover cafe, the library, and about any other building on campus, there are different bins for disposals. You chose to toss it in the trash, compost or plastic bins. Don't know which one to chose? Just look at the pretty pictures about that inform you of the correct receptacle.

These separations help by keeping the environment and campus more sustainable. The plastic gets recycled and the compost gets sent to the compost machine which is turned into reusable soil. With both of these items being deducted, it reduces the amount of trash sent to the land fill. If all that is being done just by choosing which bin to toss my trash into, then I don't think it's a hard choice for me to make to help keep our campus sustainable.

The Trouble with Wilderness

To be completely honest, this reading confused me a whole lot. Well, maybe not confused, but made me think. Cronan started off talking about how early years wilderness was viewed as a wasteland and a "sublime" place. I didn't understand why the wilderness was a place you didn't want to go. Reading through the rest of the section by my self did not make me think one way or another. Discussing the reading in class, and hearing others' points of view, helped me see where Cronan's ideas came from.

I always viewed the wilderness as most of the class members did. A secluded foresty area with bears and other fuzzy animals. Maybe that idea was set in all of our heads from the exposures to movies and media when we were younger. It reminds me of the movie Bambi with all the creatures in the forest. A type of mystical and natural location away from big cities. This was not exactly reflected in Cronan's words of wilderness history.

I do agree at the end when he ties everything together, that nature is all one thing. A tree in the wilderness is natural, just like a tree in a city park is natural. They are both living plants sprouted from the ground, but in our minds we see them as separate objects. To me, the city, forests, oceans and every other part of this world is just that, a part. These parts all make up the single entity of nature.

I may not understand Cronan's thoughts on early people and their idea of wilderness, but that does not change mine. It is interesting to see how people back then viewed it as compared to our thoughts now. It was like being afraid, but we are all so interested and wanting to preserve the land.

And so it begins...

Well, the blog is up. Lets see where this adventure takes us.