¶ … Pastorilism
The way humans eat affects the globe in many ways. The balanced ecosystem requires a homeostatic process that achieves cooperation and will allow the environment to thrive. It is possible that humanity may very well eat its way into extinction if certain practices are not curtailed. Smil (2013) wrote " this increased demand was met by a combination of expanded traditional meat production in mixed farming operations (above all in the EU and China), extensive conversion of tropical forests to new pastures (Brazil being the leader) and the rise of concentrated animal feeding facilities (for beef mostly in North America, for pork and chicken in all densely populated countries)."
The purpose of this essay is to address the finer aspects of pastorilism as a reasonable means to address the eating problems that appear dire. This paper will suggest that new approaches are necessary that address the elitist attitudes that often distort the more important aspects of this subject. A call to action will also be presented that suggests that this new idea must be cooperative in nature and transcends current ideas about economics, farming, agriculture and social interaction.
Harming the Environment
Human beings have created a unique situation where in their attempts to survive, they are actually killing themselves to live. Pollan (2006 ) wrote about this dilemma. He understood the problem to be more complicated than simple sustainability, and that the problems were rooted in the attitudes and behaviors of society. He wrote about the industrialization of the food supply and how it as harming the environment in costly ways
Big agribusiness has Washington in its pocket. The reason its titans want to keep corn cheap and plentiful, Pollan explained, is that they value it, above all, as a remarkably inexpensive industrial raw material. Not only does it fatten up a beef steer more quickly than pasture does This comes at a cost to ourselves and cattle, which haven't evolved to digest corn, and are therefore preemptively fed antibiotics to offset the stresses caused by their unnatural diet. Once milled, refined and decompounded, corn can become any number of things, from ethanol for the gas tank to dozens of edible, if not nutritious, products, like the thickener in a milkshake, the hydrogenated oil in margarine, the modified cornstarch that binds the pulverized meat in a McNugget and, most disastrously, the ubiquitous sweetener known as high-fructose corn syrup.
Food Is Being Wasted And Is Too Expensive
Another problem with our eating habits is that food is too expensive and is being wasted as well. There is plenty of food in the world, but getting it to the right people is the real culprit in this dilemma. Somehow food has become a very profitable commodity that can be used to control large groups of people for political and other nefarious means. Food has been weaponized in some sense by being used in this fashion. Large corporate food producers have bullied out the famer who cares about the land and its place within the ecosystem. Rather, fertile ground is treated with perversion and profits by those who wield this power.
Just forgiving meat will not help this problem. Niman agreed with this statement when she reported " It's true that food production is an important contributor to climate...
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