Progress and the American Food System

Progress and the American Food System

The American Food System: We Are What We Eat
Imagine for a moment that you have been thrust decades into the future. Your surroundings are very different. No longer do beautiful trees and colorful flowers surround you. Instead, concrete skyscrapers overshadow you, and the air is cloudy and hazy from factories and car exhaust. People in this future world do not like to be outdoors. Going outside means putting on an oxygen mask to filter the air because it is so polluted. There are no animals to observe, or plants to enjoy. Food is not fresh, but chemically engineered. There are no farms to produce food. In fact, even grass is a rarity. Everything is concrete. Society has become dependent on technology, and farming and ranching are things of the past. Now consider for a moment how these changes occurred. Whose idea was it to make humans rely on technology, and where did these ideas stem from? It is likely that these ideas may have stemmed from the fact that someone, or everyone, thought technology would be able to bail us out of anything, but indeed it has only cast us into a polluted and unvaried abyss. When you return to the present, you question how comfortable you feel putting all of your reliance on that new cell phone and iPod you just bought. There is no doubt that the world is heading for this rather disconcerting future based on its need to continuously supply the world with innovations. But is all of it really necessary? I’m sure that many would agree that especially in terms of what we eat, no one wants to live in a synthetic world. Although the introduction of many technological advancements in the United States has created a system that is efficient at producing high yields of food, the system’s lack of quality food, and little consideration for the environment has led to a regression in terms of our physical and environmental health, and therefore does not demonstrate progress. In a more progressive system, the government should provide subsidies...