Pollan on NPR
While I waited in the car the other evening for Jason to get a new cell phone and the kids fell asleep in their carseats, I was able to listen to NPR's Fresh Air radio program and they had a fascinating interview with Micheal Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, as well as In Defense of Food. Pollan recently wrote an Open Letter to the Next President on how to improve this countries food policies.
A few fun facts I thought worth sharing:
1. Wild Alaskan Salmon from Alaska (duh) is actually shipped all the way to China to be filleted and packaged, and then sent back to the states for us consumers. Yum!
2. The same is done for chicken raised in the US.
3. Big farms are actually paid to NOT grow food, and to only grow corn and soy beans to be processed into corn syrup and hydrogenated soybean oil.
4. The "bio-fuel" ethanol, which I naively thought to be a green idea is actually takes petroleum to grow and process (almost gallon for gallon). It's does not help us to get away from our dependence on oil.
5. My favorite, personally, is that enourmous feeding farms, where chicken and pigs are grown for meat, are posing major problems to our health. The first problem is that these vast cities of animals living so closely together need to be fed antibiotics to stay healthy or else they'd all be wiped out by disease. These antibiotics are the same that treat humans, thus, super germs are becoming immune to these, and then we eat the chicken with these same antibiotics, causing the same problems for ourselves. But that's not all. You know how cities have to treat their sewage? Well these feeding mills don't. Gross.
So, I think I'm going to start buying everything from Azure Standard now.
If you get a chance, listen to the show. It also has a link to the Open Letter which has so many great ideas, that could really improve the health and prosperity for this country's people.
A few fun facts I thought worth sharing:
1. Wild Alaskan Salmon from Alaska (duh) is actually shipped all the way to China to be filleted and packaged, and then sent back to the states for us consumers. Yum!
2. The same is done for chicken raised in the US.
3. Big farms are actually paid to NOT grow food, and to only grow corn and soy beans to be processed into corn syrup and hydrogenated soybean oil.
4. The "bio-fuel" ethanol, which I naively thought to be a green idea is actually takes petroleum to grow and process (almost gallon for gallon). It's does not help us to get away from our dependence on oil.
5. My favorite, personally, is that enourmous feeding farms, where chicken and pigs are grown for meat, are posing major problems to our health. The first problem is that these vast cities of animals living so closely together need to be fed antibiotics to stay healthy or else they'd all be wiped out by disease. These antibiotics are the same that treat humans, thus, super germs are becoming immune to these, and then we eat the chicken with these same antibiotics, causing the same problems for ourselves. But that's not all. You know how cities have to treat their sewage? Well these feeding mills don't. Gross.
So, I think I'm going to start buying everything from Azure Standard now.
If you get a chance, listen to the show. It also has a link to the Open Letter which has so many great ideas, that could really improve the health and prosperity for this country's people.
posted by Lauren S. at
9:16 AM
6 Comments:
It's all about backyard chickens, sister! You know first hand how the animals have been raised, what they've been fed etc. Not to mention it's the poor man's quickest path to "sanely raised" food. We have 5 chickens and they produce enough eggs (30-35) that we have more than enough to eat, we sell a dozen+ a week, which ends up paying for their organic feed. If you didn't follow that, we get free organic eggs in abundance!
That is just depressing. *sigh*
I just finished `The Omnivore`s Dilemma` and have started his other book "In Defense of Food - An Eater's Manifesto". His manifesto, in a phrase is - eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
ew.
just ew.
I've been getting all this same info from our subscriptions to Mother Earth News and Hobby Farms.... maybe Munkee's right about the chickens.
So...I'm a random blog-stalker, but first of all, I just wanted to say that I like your blog, second of all, the Omnivore's Dilemma is life-changing. I'm so happy he had an NPR segment. I'll have to go listen to it.
Great post!
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