ODYR Reading Response Chapter 13, 14, 15, 16

Chapter 13 was about the difference of grass, and it’s effects on the environment. The differences of grass is that not all grass is the same, and how to a cow that can be important, because the same way human beings are omnivores and have a taste of variety cows are herbivores and have a taste in variety of grass, which is why having a field and variety of grass is important to growing healthy cows. The effects grass has on the environment is that it cleans the air, the same way trees remove carbon dioxide, but better. Which I found interesting because I didn’t know something as simple as grass can be so significant to cleaning up the environment. Chapter 14 showed the amount of labor a farm like Polyface has to put in to maintain a healthy sustainable farm, from early in the morning to late at night the farm family starts work from feeding, cleaning and maintain the land, unlike regular farms almost everything is done by human being cept for the part when they use a tractor. Which I found significant because like the saying you are what you eat, it’s almost as your food as what you put in it, so the amount of work and dedication you put into your food is what you’ll get when you eat it, it’s a cycle. Chapter 15 explained how Polyface slaughters the animals, but compared to regular slaughterhouses that slaughter thousands of animals a day, Polyface’s slaughter house is not that bad. When a farm like Polyface slaughters it’s chickens it uses it’s leftover body parts to mix with old woodchips to make fertilizer for it’s crops, and grass, to make natural nitrogen for it’s plants, which is much better than using bomb chemicals for nitrogen. Chapter 16 explained the difference of regular market food, organic food, and local farm market food travel. Regular food is travelled hundreds of miles into supermarkets ready to be bought and sold, and goes through huge processes to be packed and delivered to the consumer, and the same thing for organic food only difference is that it’s sold in a nicer market, and has a little logo and a story about the dedication the company puts to bringing its customers organic food, and locally grown farm food is shipped a couple of miles to a city, or local area, and is sold in a farmers market that takes place every few days or so, and is shipped by the actual farmers, and if that local farm is pretty well known with dedicated customers, the customers would travel to the farm and pick up their provisions. Chapter 16, also explained how in other places in the world such as in Europe that the food has regulations to say how, when and where it was grown.

Question/Response

How come in the United States our food isn’t regulated to give information as to how our food is cultivated and where it’s from?

The difference of the United States and Europe is that in Europe their food is taken cared of a little better than here, by better more sanitary. And if the united states kept on cultivating the it’s food the way it normally still does than having information on how it’s grown and where it’s grown wouldn’t be that appealing.