Food Rules

On Oprah today, the way our nation eats was hi-lighted. They talked about agriculture, and how it has been revolutionized over the pat 50 years. The mass production of produce and animals at the expense of health. Convenient? Yes. Cheaper? Yes. Healthy for you? No. Humane? No.

This topic strikes a chord with me. In my agriculture classes we constantly talked about family farms vs Large farms. Grass fed vs corn fed. Antibiotics vs no antibiotics. There is MUCH controversy in this topic, and the bottom line is we all need to be more aware of what we are putting into our bodies and how it was produced. To save you the gory details, mass production is NOT humane, no matter what companies tell you. But it is indeed, cheaper, and in these economic times we are all trying to stretch our money as far as it will go. I'm completely guilty of this. But coming back to this topic makes me rethink my shopping experience.

The big question is this: Are you willing to pay less now and more later? In other words, if we pay less for the processed and mass produced food now, we will be paying the doctor MORE later in life to take care of us. There was a percentage quoted on Oprah, I can't remember the EXACT number but here is the approximate : In our grandmother's time, people spent 18% of their income on food, and 9% on health care. Today, we spend 9% of our income on food, and 18% on health care. Either way, we're paying. But paying to eat food instead of swallowing pills sounds much more appetizing!

I'm not trying to strike a debate here, or make anyone feel bad. I just wanted to shed some light on the topic and help all of us stay healthier. Like I said, I'm guilty of buying processed foods, look in our freezer, tons of Hot Pockets. Crackers, pretzels and such in our cupboards. It's cheaper and we're trying to save every penny we have right now. But I know there has to be a healthier way of choosing our food.

Anyway, the man/author that Oprah interviewed was Michael Pollan. He has many books about food and how to eat better. In this show, he talked about his new book "Food Rules", which you can buy here. He explains how you don't really have to take anything out of your diet, you can just change it and add better ingredients to what you already consume. And they showed a snippet of Food Inc., which you can watch the trailer for by clicking on the video below. If the whole video does not show up, click here and then click on "Watch the Trailer"



Again, just wanting to share something I still am passionate about. And I am an agriculture major, I support the agricultural community and the industry. However, there are practices that go on that I am not in support of, but in a round about way, I end up supporting them because I buy their products. For myself, I need to be more aware and re-think this. For my family's health, and for a change in the agriculture industry for the better.

Here is the link to the Oprah website with some informational pages and quizzes!! Click HERE.

So thanks for listening to my soapbox! I hope I did not offend anyone. I just wanted to share this information I'm passionate about!