Eye Opener: CSPI

For this Eye Opener I choose to Tour the Food Supply. It was really interesting to look at the topics and learn more about each one. The various topics included: The Fertilizer Factory, Factory Farm, Supermarket, Hospital, Animal Feed, Irrigation, Pesticides, Feed Lot, Restaurant, Manure Lagoon, and Slaughter House. I wanted to visit this website because I was interested in it and thought I could learn some cool facts!

Here are some interesting facts that I learned on the Tour of the Food Supply:

Fertilizer Factory:

~The Energy to Manufacture that 22 billion pounds of fertilizer could provide one year's worth of power for about 100,000, ooo Americans.

Thats crazy....think about how much energy they must use?

Factory Farm:

~New born calves are prematurely separated from their mothers and often exhibit abnormal behaviors as adults, such as stampeding and other violent behaviors.

This reminds me of the movie we are currently watching in class how the calves spend the first night with their mothers and if they are male then the next day they are sent somewhere else.

Supermarket:

~Livestock manure is often the source of disease-causing bacteria on fruits and vegetables.
This makes me think twice about washing my fruits and veggies before I eat them!!

Hospital:

~The annual medical and related costs of food bourne illnesses and deaths from pathogens in animal products in the United States are over $7 billion.

I think that in order to prevent this we just have to be more careful about preparation, washing the food and the way we cook our food. Think of how much money we can save if we just do those little things.

Animal Feed:
~Factory farms use animals as garbage disposals because garbage is cheap. Somethings they are fed include: industrial sludge, expired bake goods, discarded oils from restaurants and ground up newspaper.

This is kinda disturbing to me considering eventually eat the meat from the animal, so in some way we are getting fed what they eat.

Irrigation:

~It takes about 18,000 gallons of rain and irrigation water to produce one pound of beef.

Thats a lot of water!!!

Pesticides:

~Pesticides that kill weeds may also kill beneficial insects and plants.

Its sad to think that we may be killing things that help and keep the environment safe.

Feed Lot:

~Huge cattle feedlots foul the air with smelly and harmful gases and pollute water with run-off from manure.

This also reminds me of the video we are currently watching in class. It is similar to the family that lives near a farm and her children were born with birth defects and a possible reason for those defects was the water.

Restaurant:

~Hamburgers, cheese, whole milk, egg yolks, and other fatty meat and dairy products promote heart disease and some types of cancer. The saturated fat and cholesterol in those foods cause about 50,000 to 75,000 fatal heart attacks annually.

That makes me think about how many of those kinds of foods I eat and what type of risks I might be exposed to.

Manure Lagoon:

~The methane released from livestock and their manure is equilvalent in environmental distruction to annual release of carbon dioxide from about 33 million automobiles.

Slaughter House:

~In 2002, about 140 million cattle, pigs and sheep were slaughtered in the US. About a half an animal for every man, woman and child. Another 9 billion chickens and turkeys -30 birds for every American.

Thats a lot of Meat!! You can see how the primary source of protein for Americans is meat and not rice or other foods such as in China.

Im glad that I got to visit this site, it was really interesting and I learned a lot of new facts. Im going to start and reconsider what I eat and how I prepare and cook my food.