Organic Food in the Media

When I think about the food I consume on a daily basis, whether it be at the dining hall at Furman University or store-bought, it never occurs to me the question of whether or not it's safe to eat or not. For that, I realize I am incredibly privileged as people all over the world struggle to fight for their health because of the food that they eat, often times not even having a choice. Often times, the food that we consume contain GMO's, or genetically modified organisms, which can be harmful to the human body in the long run:

Examples of GMO's:

• Introducing allergens and toxins to food
• Accidental contamination between genetically modified and non-genetically modified foods
• Antibiotic resistance
• Adversely changing the nutrient content of a crop
• Creation of "super" weeds and other environmental risks

Source: http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/are-biotech-foods-safe-to-eat

Why do people use them, if they are potentially harmful? In the short "run", there are temporary benefits including longer shelf-life, pest resistance, and increase in food supply. 

This brings me to my next question  - what is our world doing about it? How are they promoting the importance of healthy eating/organic foods, and how is it being advertised in our media to the public? (Organic foods meaning no synthetic pesticides, chemical fertilizer usage, no antibiotics or growth hormones etc). Most likely, you have probably seen advertisements somewhere for the promotion of organic foods at Trader Joe's or Whole Food's in America, but recent news has lead us to believe that their promotion was false advertising. One ways they use advertise is through videos, which they have uploaded on Youtube.

In hindsight this is actually quite a smart technique, as their advertising strategy was most likely to reach the masses, which Youtube does very well. As Vivian states in Chapter 11: Advertising, a lot of companies use a strategy that appears convenient and easy for people to buy their products, in order to attract consumers - "Goods and services can be ordered directly from ads appearing on the internet, making the point of purchase only a few keystrokes away" (Vivian, 298). But it's also deceiving, as it has been discovered that Whole Food's also carries foods with chemicals in them.

This is not just a problem on a domestic scale in the United States, but all over the world in countries such as the Philippines. In this article that I found on Globalpost, it talks about the horrific introduction of the first GMO rice! Isn't that totally absurd? Yes, it may be beautiful to look at, may even taste better than regular rice, but in the long term, who wants to consume all those chemicals that could harm your health drastically?? It's not even that people weren't doing anything about it, because in this article it clearly states that activists destroyed these rice fields when they heard about it, but somehow the FDA approved of it anyway. If we should take anything away, is that we need to be extremely careful of what we eat, and sometimes it may be better for us to stay indoors and cook so that we know exactly what goes into the food that goes into our bodies.

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A Look at the Amazon

Trees. They're kind of a big deal here on Earth, but we don't always realize how important they are until they start to disappear.  In other words, deforestation happens. This is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is converted into non-forest use.

It occurs for many reasons: trees can be cut down and sold for fuel or timber, and the cleared land can be used as a pasture for livestock, plantations, and settlements.  However, the overwhelming direct cause of deforestation is agriculture.  One of the main places this problem is occurring is in the Amazon Rain Forest.

Understandably, the media covers this topic in a negative light because deforestation is bad. We portray it in a tragic way to show we need to do something about this issue. The environment is important to us and we need to keep it flourishing for generations to come.

Reuters shows that efforts to decrease deforestation are not working. I know that timber is needed for many every day uses such as firewood and paper, but we need to be replanting trees at a higher rate so deforestation doesn't become a dire situation. Here is a video to show the time lapse of deforestation in this area:

This issue has important media purposes and economic foundations as well. The point of covering deforestation in the media, is to give out information on what's happening in the environment around the world. When there are stories on this issue, organizations are looking for donations and support from corporations and the government as well.

Some international organizations involved with conserving rain forests and deforestation are:

International Conservation Union

Wildlife Conservation Society

The World Wildlife Fund for Nature

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Planned Obsolescence

(A cartoon depicting the issue of planned obsolescence; originally from here)

How many cell phones have you had in the last five years?  iPods or other type of MP3 player?  Computers?

I’ve personally had 2 computers, 2 iPods, and 3 cell phones in the last five years.  I got my first cell phone entering freshman year of high school (at age fourteen), and have had four since then, six and a half years later. And I honestly think that I’m on the lower end of that spectrum.

Planned obsolescence, also often known as  “built-to-break-down in industrial design” is a term defined on Golden Gate Express as the “policy of planning or designing a product with a limited life span”.

T-mobile’s newest plan is called “JUMP!”, and is a perfect example of planned obsolescence. It uses the slogan “Two years is too long to wait” with funny videos of a man who is struggling to wait the full two years before upgrading from his current dysfunctional phone. Watch one of the advertisements here:

Media has had a huge effect on this societal conception.  Advertising like T-mobile’s assures its consumers that it’s okay, even better, to replace their technology every two years or less. 

The companies benefit immensely from the carefully timed death of your cell phone because companies can essentially guarantee that you will be a returning customer at the end of two years, or five years, or however long they want the product to last.

But it’s not beneficial for everyone.  In fact, the thing most immensely hurt by this industrial “solution” is our planet.  For every time that we upgrade our cell phone or computer, there is a huge amount of waste that comes from that piece of technology. According to this article on The Guardian website, planned obsolescence has “led to such extraordinary mountains of waste is causing untold harm in an era of climate change and resource scarcity, so it's high time we changed it.”

The EPA tells us that excessive amounts of consumer electronics are sold every year, with only about twenty-five percent being recycled:

In 2009:

·       438 million new consumer electronics were sold;

·       5 million tons of electronics were in storage;

·       2.37 million tons of electronics were ready for end-of-life management; and

·       25% of these tons were collected for recycling

(A chart from the EPA demonstrating the problems of technology waste)

In my next post, I'll talk more about how media has created the concept of "perceived obsolescence" and how it affects our planet.

(Originally from Quiet Environmentalist)

Sources:

http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/ecycling/manage.htm 

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/changing-mindsets-prevent- environmental-disaster 

http://www.goldengatexpress.org/2013/02/24/shortens-longevity-of-electronics/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgRi5gMCGaI&list=PL6DDBAB794DC92FAD

http://quiet-environmentalist.com/is-the-earth-doomed-due-to-planned-obsolescence/ 

http://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/po/ 

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