Sunday, May 17, 2009

HOMEWORK 18/05/2009

How exactly do our choices of food purchases affect the food system?

5 comments:

  1. the type of food we eat determines what kind of food is to be shipped in and processed like mcdonalds shipps in a bunch of food every day and they wouldnt have to have food constantly coming in if we didnt like it so much.

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  2. Our choices of food affects the food system through supply and demand, demand of what we buy thus the demand of what the providers have to buy which gives the demand of what to grow, kill, or produce so they can supply the providers and the consumers.

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  3. We’re affecting the food system by every food purchase that we make.
    It doesn’t matter what we think is the best. Almost everybody would say that he prefers
    local food. And that’s a good thing because you know were the food is from and it’s
    available most of the time. Furthermore you can support local farmers.
    However, we do not only buy this local stuff. Especially the fruits and vegetables we
    consume are from all over the world. For example apples from South America or
    bananas from Africa or kiwi’s from New Zealand.
    And we do support the food system unconciensly. If we buy food that is not local,
    it’ll be shipped a long distance or even worse air-freighted. And that’s a real
    “climate-killer”.
    There is the hype about the organic food these days. It’s the total opposite of the
    non-organic food, which is conventionally produced and has plenty of pesticides
    in it. But not the “organic food”. It’s obviously healthier. And it has vitamines in
    it. And the animals don’t have to suffer that much. And overall it’s better for the
    environment, too.
    Well. You can see that the only thing that really goes together is organic and
    local food. Nevertheless there is plenty of non local and non organic food in our
    stores.
    And the reason for this is the behaviour of the consumer.

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  4. how exactly our choices of food purchases affect the food system:
    we have to choose between organic, non-organic, local and not local.
    buying organic means more healthy food with vitamines. its also better for the enviroment and the animals.they have less monoculture and they feed with better animal feed.
    on the contrary there is the non-organic food. this means more pesticides and smaller stables. the effect is more harm for the enviroment and the animals.
    local food includes supporting local farmer consequently local economy groth.
    this often means also better animalhusbandry like free-range hens or better quality of animal feed and therefore a better quality of our food.
    buying notlocally means long-distance shipping. the consequense is big air pollution.

    so if it is possible its better to buy local and organic food.
    but of course sometimes it doesnt work. you cant cultivate bananas in bavaria. so the question is: do we really need bananas?

    we should think more frequenzy of the food miles our meal took.

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  5. How exactly do our choises of food purchases affect the food system?
    I think the discussion around the conflict between organic, non-organic, local and not local is getting more important!
    Everyone of us should make a decision on his own...
    I agree with Laura that we should look on how many miles our food took!
    Yes its very important to support local farmers but i think we also can eat bananas from far away!
    We should buy product from our farmers like potatoes and not buy them from far away because of 20ct price differential....And the discussion on organic and non-organic...i think everybody should know HIS answer on that question!

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