“Food in our culture is one aspect of a larger nightmare”

“Food in our culture is one aspect of a larger nightmare”. I guess there are different meanings to this quote to different people. Someone can argue that the foods they are eating now are perfect and that they would not change one thing about it at all. However another might argue the fact that the food we are consuming now and producing is a living nightmare and we must change it as soon as possible. And then the devil’s advocate might say, hey, these are just your opinion; someone else is always going to have a different opinion then you. I guess all that matters, is what works for someone. Someone who is obese might say everything is great, the food is great, and life is great, when someone who is an anorexic might say he/she does not need food in their life. Their life is great and always will without food.
In my opinion I think that the food in our culture as of now is not a total nightmare just yet. Yes, we might have millions of fast food franchise all luring us in wanting us to spend our precious money to buy their unhealthy food but I feel that we have a choice on what it is we want to eat. Sure, some choose to eat fast food because well its fast food… but like I said, they chose to eat that. Surely they can take 15 minutes out of their busy life and just go somewhere else that won’t kill their liver and body but they don’t, they CHOOSE to eat at McDonalds and Wendy’s. Although the food in our culture has yet reached a total nightmare, I believe we are very close. Our way of living is solely based on industrial life, and machinery. We depend on machines to do our job too much that I am afraid that come a time we won’t be able to fend for ourselves because we depend on machines so much.
Not only do people rely on machines to do their job, we are also in the crisis of Peak Oil. Not only do we rely on machines to do our job, but we use a lot of oil in the process as well. What used to be, people walking or even taking their bikes to work, nowadays people rely on their cars way too much. Even if its taking a ride to a McDonalds 15 minutes away… people rather take the easy way out to fill their bodies with poison.
In a way though I do feel that the food in our culture is beginning to take form to become a total nightmare, based on all the facts that are around us. It is sad to hear and read that almost half the human population is obese, not just in America but countries around us as well. For example, France has one of the highest obese rates, and in some ways they eat healthier than us; however they do cook all their meals with lots of butter and margarines. It is also sad to hear about people wasting food when there are countries that can barely keep up with their food production let along feed their families.
The way people prepare and get their food these days is somewhat of a downfall. According to text and movies, such as “Fast Food Nation” and “Daily Bread” the way our food is being slaughtered are horrendous. In one skit of the movie in “Fast Food Nation” we see a big executive in large fast food cooperation go into one of his franchise and order a sandwich. It then that we see one of the workers, flat out spit into his sandwich as he is preparing it. Also in the movie “Daily Bread” we see that the workers, who are slaughtering the cows, show no sign of emotions as the cows are being sliced and diced right in their face. I guess the slaughter houses teach the workers to show no sign of emotions since all they care about is the money and not the animal’s feelings.
There was another film that I saw in class that explained how people dealt with their problems when oil was simply unavailable for them. The whole community put aside their problems and differences and just learned to work together to try and keep their small community afloat. Without oil and machines to help them, they learned to grow foods the old fashion way. And towards the end they were able to have a functional community without the dependency of oil and machinery to help them.
I feel that in order for our society today to be able to live longer when oil is no longer available for us, and machines can’t fulfill our jobs, we have to learn how to do things ourselves. People have to stop depending on industrial life, and start focusing on how to plant and grow things because the time when the industrial life falls will be upon us and until then people have to start having a change of heart and start taking this issue into mind!