Monday, January 30, 2012

Food Inc. Response

As a person who is interested in health and nutrition i found this documentary fascinating. I believe that it makes a strong case for the necessity of a more localized economy. When a person buys food locally they are able to get a product that does not require all of the chemical preservatives which can be found in most if not all of the large national and global brands. This also obviously improves the local economy in multiple ways, along with eliminating transportation costs and the effects of transportation on the eco system and gas prices, among other things. One thing that bothered me however was that the movie claims that it is expensive to eat healthy. What they should have said is that it is not as pleasurable to eat healthy for cheap. Personally I buy loaves of whole wheat bread from Kroger where they are always on sale for between $2.50 and $3.00 along with natural peanut butter which you can get for around $3.50. I just leave it all in my car and eat at least three peanut butter sandwiches a day. When I want some animal protein I eat a $.60 can of tuna. Do i really like peanut butter sandwiches and tuna? Honestly not at all, but these are two very cheap ways to eat healthy, and provide 90% of my necessary daily nutrition. Also to get the FDA recommended daily number of servings of fruits and veggies (10-12 now i believe) people can now turn to supplementation. On the side i market for a brand called Nutrilite. They produce vitamins and supplements made from organic ingredients produced on their own organic farms (and in America). I pay under 15 bucks for a 90 day supply of multivitamins that contain things like dried acerola cherries, spinach and carrots. You can go to http://www.amway.com/Shop/Product/Product.aspx/NUTRILITE-Daily-Multivitamin-Multimineral-90-Count?itemno=104174 If people want to eat more healthy to see the ingredients list. In short it is very easy to eat healthy for cheap but most Americans are simply too lazy to consistently follow through with the effort of planning ahead along with making sacrifices out of their daily diet for a more boring, yet healthy one. For a list of cheap health foods, go to http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/cheap-healthy-15-nutritious-foods-about-2-dollars

6 comments:

  1. Seriously I would have never thought of any of those things to eat but those are very good points and ideas. I also agree with the local economy thing. I think it is just a better thing for the people.

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  2. I agree that the local economy needs help and a way to help is by getting food locally. The movie was interesting as well because I am already picky about what I eat at times so it just helped me get a better understanding of food. But youre absolutely right about improving the local economy

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  3. I agree that buying local food benefits the consumer and the local economy. Local food is just a a healthier choice but also local food can be more expensive depending on what it is.

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    1. Eating locally is a good idea and also helps the environment by reducing the toxic gases produced by moving food long distance. But why is it cheaper to get unhealthy food than healthy food. I would think that it would have been the other way around because the food would not have to be frozen and stored for long periods of time and need tones of fuel to move about. all of that takes a lot of money, how does that cost less than a farmer driving a truck down the road to the farmers market?

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    2. I kind of agree that eating healthy is cheap if you know how to do it. I also eat cans of tuna all the time which is surprisingly filling. To many people in this country have become complacent with eating unhealthy and the excuse that eating healthy is expensive. Just the other day i went to Wendys and purchased a baked potato for $1.29, and I dare say it was a good size potato.

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  4. I agree with you about local economy but I think when they talk about its more expensive to eat healthy I think they are comparing buying carrots to potato chips. the carrots cost more compared to the amount of carrots you can get.

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