Is organic really the best choice?
Humanities
Grace Lu 7-7
Food is an important part in our daily life and it is indispensable, it is
important to be careful with them. Many people think organic equals the
best food out there, but is it true? And the most important question, is
it sustainable? Buy more of your daily food from local farms because
organic and industrial foods are not always sustainable.
Organic is vegetables and meat that don’t contain chemical fertilizer and
pesticide, but why the organic vegetables don’t have those small holes on
the leaves that insects bite? Industrial organic farm always only plant one
kind of vegetables in their farm, but it will drain the soil, then they need
to use fertilizer, that is not sustainable.
Have you seen how they raise the chickens that are labeled organic? They
often squeeze them in to a small shed, they cannot move around and at
the end of their lives their legs can’t support their weight. They grow
bigger then normal chicken so there will be more meat came out from
them, live painful and be eaten, that is what their life is about. But in
most of the local farms, chickens have big living area; growing slower and
they are smaller. Seem like it is less productive but it is healthy. I really
feel bad for those life, because of the population now, we must raise
chickens like this. But if more people buy from a small local farm down
town, you can save part of them. Same with other livestock, it is a little
expensive then industrial organic food from supermarket, think about it,
they taste better, safe and they live like animals.
With the vegetables, now the big farms always plants one kind of
vegetable, might for few years. Machines pick hem up, shipped to other
countries. When they came to your lunch table, they aren’t fresh anymore.
Can you really trust a machine can do work as human? And as I said
before, how the industrial organic farms get rid of insect if they don’t use
pesticide? Back to the word sustainable, many organic foods are transport
from other countries, so you can have apples in winter. But you need to
use fossil fuel for the transportation, and energy to keep cool so they will
no rot on the way. Fossil fuels really isn’t a sustainable energy source,
they take millions of years to be replace, way slower than the speed we
are using it. Secondly, when fossil fuels burns, it release carbon dioxide,
which is the cause of global warming. If we don’t ship foods around the
world, it is really better for the earth.
How can I eat a more sustainable diet in Beijing? You should buy foods
from small farms down town. There is many farms around Changping in
Beijing, or you might want to plant vegetables in your garden, or even in
a flower pot on your windowsill. There is many ways to eat more
sustainable. So I am here to ask to try some.
Go to those local farms every month, it is not a hard thing to do, but it
is helping the earth, help those animal that aren’t treat as animal.