Harvest For Hope By: Jane Goodall

Although many individuals claim one can survive without food, in the end we know better. As matter of fact (“ Manner’s Makyth Man”) it’s food that makes men. This is a knowledge shared not only true for humans, but animals too. Humans and animals have also started along the path of cultural evolution; a path that has led to fascinating variations in the food, eaten in different human cultures, plus the hundreds of ways humanity has discovered to prepare them for the table.

“One man’s meat is another man’s poison”, as the saying goes. This relates back to culture, our likes and dislikes is the foundation of foods eaten in childhood, which sometimes we had no choice, but to eat against our will. Then comes the mixation of cultures. Cultures, such as Native Asian immigrants mixing, or the traditional Native Americans reverence for seafood. Meaning, food is the foundation of bringing people from different cultures and traditions together.

          Sometimes, staying old tradition is better for everyone & everything involved. “In the old days farmers rotated their crops and their livestock, and often allowed fields to lie fallow for a year every so often.” Which allowed the land to remain fertile for hundreds of years. But, when industrial farming stepped in; it harmed the farmland itself. Furthermore, if one continues the cycle, one will realize that if the farmlands harmed, so is the food living and being produced by the farmland; therefore making the food unhealthy to eat. What effect will this have on humanity in the long term?

           Fortunately for now, we are being offered an alternative. This alternative is called  “organic food.” Avoiding genetically modified crops and non-organic animal products as much as possible is a beneficial action for both humans, and animals in many ways. This is because, not only do animals suffer, so do humans by eating GMO’s and non-organic animal products in a slow painful way in the long run for their health. This is our world, and if we humanity doesn’t look after it and it’s inhabitants, then who will?

          “Much of our poultry is raised in (battery farms), buildings in which hundreds of cages are stacked on top of the other.” Industrial model of factory farming doesn’t find it efficient or profitable to consider animals as sentient beings. Instead, beings treated as mere machines, as though they’ve no more feelings or rights than a machine. Pigs, Cows, Calves or Lamps are not treated any better, and there is only one way to prevent this; by making sure one is buying certified organic animal products.

          The pleasures of eating healthy food has been almost forgotten, ever, since industrial companies have replaced healthy meals with pre-prepared or fast food meals. Meals that are being cloned, rather than naturally produced. For example, imagine being in star bucks having coffee, pouring a packet of refined white sugar in it. However, would you have known that the sugar you were about to drink was first processed in a plant across the street? Can you imagine the damage to your health in the long run? To be honest, for the moment, nobody can. But, one should start preventing it; and this is where the organic products come in. Since it has done a great job of raising worldwide awareness with wonderful results, the next step is by informing anyone and everyone who will listen. By letting everyone know about it, not only does one help other people, one helps save the planet itself.  After all, is this not the reason Jane Goodall published “Harvest for hope” for us?

           One can change the world by one purchase, one meal, and one bite at a time by purchasing organic products, eating healthy food and doing it slowly, but successful results. Every food purchase is a vote; if one only buys organic products, one votes for healthy food. If one purchases industrial products, one is voting for unhealthy food. Our world can no longer afford the heedless consumption of the western world, since it’s spreading its greedy tentacles around the globe. The price, most of which is being paid by our planet and our race, is too great. It’s a choice to be made, a choice of “harvest for hope”, as Jane Goodall would like to say.