The Truth about today's food choices.

I came across this the other day and wanted to share it with you! Tim Bittman has some excellent points on what is wrong with "The Standard American Diet."

He hits on the many points from pollution, industrial livestock, the change in food over the last 100 years. 

• Pollution, global warming briefly: 1/5 of all greenhouse gasses stem from animal production.
• Dangers of Methane, gasses from manure.
• 1/2 the antibiotics in America are used for Animals.  
• diseases being more prevalent here due to Western Diet.  (meat, cheese, and carbs)
• That whole plants promote health.  "You eat more plants and less other stuff, you live longer"
• We are not born craving whoppers and skittles.
•  Fade diets.
• 10 billion animals are slaughtered for our over-consumption. (United States alone)
• Just in the 1900- Everyone was a Locavore (eating everything locally).  Everyone cooked their meals, marjoram did not exist yet.  When they did make majoram, they had it dyed pink so you knew you where eating something fake. 
• No snack and junk foods, frozen (1920), or canned foods.   
• No marketing, health claims, or vitamins.  You grew food and you ate it, everyone ate locally.
• 1930 started to move foods cross country.  Started to market canned and frozen foods to help the domesticated individual to cut down on housework. 
• cattle diets were changed for bulking them up.  
• Fast-foods started to increase. 
• Industrial animals makeup 18% of population
• 30% of land is given to production of slaughter animals.   

This is a very brief and rough cut of topics in this 20 minutes video.  I highly recommend taking the time to watch.  This is a wake-up call for the foods that we eat.  We head to the store buy what they have there already packaged and processed and ready for consumption.  We tend to eat 5 times the amount of animals products increasing disease and obesity.  It is recommend that we eat 1/2 lb of meat a WEEK.  How much does the regular person eat a day?  America over produces junk foods and animal products.  Not to mention that majority of agriculture does not go to our table but to feed the cattle, pigs, and chicken.  This was written in 2007 and I know that the situation had grown.  

"I’ll never stop eating animals, I’m sure, but I do think that for the benefit of everyone, the time has come to stop raising them industrially and stop eating them thoughtlessly.” (Mark Bittman)

Wonderful article from Eat Real Food on the difference between a happy cow and an industrial cow.   A Tail of Two Cows, Happy Cow vs Nexium Cow.

 "Happy Cow was at a healthy weight and had more omega 3, up to 400% more, 40% fewer calories and less cholesterol, saturated fat and about 90% less fat overall than Nexium Cow.  Since Happy Cow has been raised on pasture, has room to move, and doesn't have to stand in manure every day he is more likely to not need antibiotics and at least 60% less apt to have E.coli 0157 in his belly. Nexium Cow has a constant stream of antibiotics fed to him."

I would love to know your thoughts on this video.