Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Chapters 6-10

This book was great to read especially since our blog was about organic food. It provides useful information about food production in America that really demonstrate how eating organic is a good choice to make. Some facts about conventional food given in these chapters were:

• big companies are looking for the cheapest way to produce food and they do not care about the treatment of the animals, pollution caused by the methods they use to produce the food, and the health of the person who consumes the food.
• large companies produce 98% of the chicken in America. In these chapters she gets her own chicken to raise.
• prices of conventional food are not as low as they look. Organic food is more expensive in the store but people pay taxes to help produce conventional food. The hidden costs of conventional food add up to make organic food actually a more economic choice.
• organic food costs more to package but environmental issues should also be taken into consideration when buying conventional food.

The most important lesson presented in these chapters of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is nothing about the food industry will change unless the average American takes action. One example she gives is when you go to check out at a grocery store and they ask if you have found everything okay you should say no. Tell them you did not see any local produce. If people do this we may start to see action taken to improve the food industry, but people need to be heard in order to make a change.