EE2 Draft

Conor Hoolihan

WRIT 1133

Professor Leake

Extended Essay 2: An Eater’s Manifesto

When I think about food values, it is tough to think of a sole value that I pride myself on. However, after reading Michael Pollan’s Unhappy Meals, one point he makes really stuck with me. He states, “don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t consider to be food” (Unhappy Meals). This really made me separate from the biases I have formed in my nineteen years in this world because my grandparents, and great-grandparents, paved the way for my food values today. Living in northern Minnesota, as my grandparents do, presents an array of challenges not typically experienced by most and that is a survival element. That is why one of my biggest food values is where my food comes from. Living in a place where it is a necessity to hunt, fish, gather your food allows an interesting contrast between how getting food really should be, and how we can get food in our society. With a few large corporations running the majority of the food industry in America, it is easy for everyone (including consumers) to get caught up in the capitalistic market strategies and the inevitable unethical decisions that come along with this game. People are losing sight of just how much work should be put into raising a cow, hunting a deer, catching fish for dinner, or harvesting berries to survive. My food values are, naturally, influenced by these two large sources as a result of growing up in both of these conditions. People need to pay more attention and have more appreciation for the food they eat; otherwise the affects will become an unstoppable epidemic.

In order to get some incite on the way of living in which I grew up, it is helpful to see other extremes that people must take in order to live a satisfactory life in regards to their diet. Things like vegetarianism, allergies, and other special dining requests are becoming more and more prevalent and available on restaurant menus. According to an article from Take Part, the number of vegetarians has grown from 1% of the US population to a little over 5% today. On top of that, Diets have grown to accommodate the unsustainable production of food and compensate for the resulting medical problems. Reports from the Center for Disease Control, obesity rates have doubled in children and tripled in adolescents over the past thirty years.  On top of that, allergies to peanuts, gluten, dairy, and other good allergies that were unheard of 30 years ago are now being accommodated by restaurants and seem to be a major growing concern for our society. It seems overwhelmingly clear to me that these problems can be contributed to one’s diet and overall food intake, however, some may attribute it to how we strive for perfect hygiene but this is linked to how we prepare food as a result of how often and what we eat during the day. An article from MSN found that the rise of food allergens can be attributed to how we as a society “fix” ourselves with makeup, medicine, etc that our body doesn’t know what is a natural process anymore. They say, "Then you throw in a food that your body doesn't recognize, and the body confuses it with other environmental toxins and reacts to it as an invader" (MSN). Diets have grown to accommodate the unsustainable production of food and compensate for the resulting medical problems, and this is a major part in why where your food comes from can provide answers to many unanswered patterns in our society related to food such as rising obesity and diabetes rates, rising food allergies, and even financial costs as a result of production health standards and regulations as well as increased medical attention to those who have allergies and issues with being over-weight.

With all these statistics in mind, it is easy to get bored and just give up on how we get our food because it seems out of our control. This is untrue. All my life I have had access to fresh deer, birds, fish, garden produce, and fresh berries. I’m not saying that you have to live like a person that has never seen a city, however, the evidence that having a sustainable way to get your food and knowing where it comes from can offer many health benefits. Think about it: if you were able to not rely on anybody else for food, would you be able to survive? This is a real question that needs to be addressed because it is basic human nature. I understand that food production and distributing has been available for a long time now, but it is the principle of how these things get to us that has been lost as generations move forward. Taking food for granted could be a downfall because we have to eat a couple times daily to be satisfied and live the productive and successful lives we most people strive for daily. If you don’t pay attention to where any of the things you eat come from, it makes you extremely vulnerable to the health affects that I talked about in the last paragraph. People chose to not eat meat because they don’t agree with how animals have been treated or how they get processed in large production plants. I would agree with that 100%, but the fact is people have hunting and eating animals for the entirety of existence because they have killed the animal itself and understand the effort it takes to do so. Not to say that some vegetarians haven’t done this, but the increase in the amount of vegetarians over the past 30 years makes it hard to believe everyone has a justified reason other than that is just how they chose to live, which is perfectly justified in itself. On top of this, it makes us appreciate where our food comes from therefore resulting in a decrease of unnecessary snacking, which gives way to lower obesity rates. Having had the opportunity to hunt and fish and gather food for my family during my life has given me an amazing perspective on where the food that we eat comes from.

(Unsustainable food production paragraph)

(Financial problems as a result paragraph)

I understand that the majority of people can’t make arrangements to go out and kill and elk to eat. It is also unreasonable to have people plant their own gardens and collect food from it to live off of. What is reasonable is utilizing the resources you have around to gain perspective on where the food that you eat comes from. For example, I live in northern Minnesota where it is reasonable to collect all of the necessary components to live by simply getting them from the land. However, if you live in downtown New York, it will be very hard to find a place to gather your own food, let alone dealing with the authorities for shooting a shotgun at a bird in Central Park. It is, however, reasonable to incorporate a lifestyle that accommodates similar perspective from someone who lives in the boonies. This can be done by eating less and paying more (Pollan). This is a guideline from Michael Pollan who suggests that if you choose to live a life where it is difficult to find fresh, healthy, and sustainable food, that doesn’t give you an excuse to eat McDonalds everyday. By allotting the money you spend on food, you can adjust that to buying fresher and organic food from a Whole Foods store in lower quantities. This offers the sacrifice similar to hunting your own food because you have to work for it, therefore gaining an appreciation of where your food comes from.

After living in a place where it is easy to eat food that comes naturally from the land you live by, it is interesting to see how different it is to eat Sodexo food everyday in a college setting. I notice that it is more difficult to stay full, harder to be satisfied with what you eat, and more frustrating because I know my body is not running as well as it could be with fresh food. This has been another turning point for me in regards to the appreciation I have for where my food comes from at home. The amount of satisfaction and success associated with getting your own food is second to none.

With the rise in food allergies, unsustainable food production, rising obesity and diabetes rates, among others, it is hard to say that the way we eat now is sustainable. Whether the way we eat or how we appreciate our food is linked to these problems or not (which the evidence strongly suggests), it is reasonable to say that it is not helping solve the problems at all because of how often we eat and first-hand experiences of the benefits of eating in a way that allows for appreciation. That is why I value where my food comes from.