How Much Do We Not Know?

In today’s society many of us really do not know what we are putting into our bodies. A meal to many of us in the United States is not the most important thing on our minds. We as a society are wrapped up in the next best thing and our busy lifestyles. We are always on the go and more often than not, forget that our meals are truly important. In the chapters our class read this week from Pollan’s the Omnivore’s Dilemma, I discovered that most of our foods are made from some type of corn. There is a big chance that at some point throughout the day we will consume corn in a processed form. Corn has been a fundamental ingredient in my life and I had no idea. The fact of the matter is, corn is cheap. Our society does not really care if the processed corn is bad for us, as long as we can go to supermarkets like Market Basket and pick up our food for a decent price. There is a lack of knowledge when it comes to what we put into our bodies and what happens behind the scenes to make our food affordable.

In another chapter of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, I learned that cattle were raised and then brought to places where they were prepared to be slaughtered by being fed corn. Cattle have always been animals that feed on grasses, but the corn they are fed makes them gain weight and become prepared to be slaughtered much faster. This makes the meat we buy from the supermarket much cheaper, but this also means immense suffering for the cow. By reading texts, such as Silent Spring and the Omnivore’s Dilemma, I am starting to realize how much I do not know and how much I should learn. Information on the large amounts of processed corn we consume and the ways the cattle suffer for our benefit make me think twice about where the meat I am eating is coming from and how good the food I eat is for me. I probably will not stop eating meat altogether or change my meal plan drastically, but I want to know more. If more people read texts like these, I think more people would need to know more too.