The human diet has dramatically changed due to global capitalism. First, I will discuss how sugar and beef has negatively affected the environment. Then, I will illustrate how the beef and sugar industries have harmfully affected human health. The American Consumption in particular contributes greatly to our ecological crisis and also causes many health and labor complications for humans. Without being totally conscious of it, humans harm the environment with typical diet, through the agricultural defect of the mass production of beef and sugar. The sugar complex goes back to the sixteenth century, when it let Spain and Portugal to extend production to other areas like the Atlantic Islands, Brazil, and the Caribbean Islands (Robbins, 189).
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With the invention of beef to our diet we had to create a complex that would support the amount of people that needed to be fed. Mass cattle grazing is destructive, there is not really a way to raise cattle that is not environmentally harmful. In Mexico, where most of the United States beef is produced, rain forests are destroyed by grazing, by harmful agricultural technology being used, and the destruction of certain areas due to concentrated farming are some of the environmental problems beef is concerning us with (Robbins, 201). All of these are crucial to raise cattle; there must be a place to graze them, and they must be fed. The amount of grain cattle use to grow is enough grain to feed a good portion of the world. We would be living in a world less ransacked with hunger if the American diet did not focus on …show more content…
Slavery was used in the production of sugar when it was first introduced and mass produced. In fact it was largely responsible for the Atlantic slave trade (Robbins, 189). Sugar was known as being a luxury, only the wealth used it to sweeten their bitter drinks. This reinforced a social class order that had been in place for centuries. The middle and lower class was not introduced to the product until the Industrial Revolution was well under way. Sugar today has adjusted to our lifestyle, to our budget and all our basic consumer needs. Converting itself from a luxurious want to a necessity. Beef on the other hand converted our grain and wheat centered diet to one revolving purely on meat. This was converted around the time of the Industrial Revolution. The army and navy in fact consumed more than three fourths of a pound of meat daily per solider. This was a turning point in our diet. The higher protein diet was proving to be a better suitable diet for man-kind. The United States today consumes about forty percent of the beef in the world, though we only produced about ten percent of it. That means we are getting the majority of our beef from third world countries that are struggling with hunger. The native people are starving while they raise cattle that are eating their food. If we were to use the grain fed to cattle we could knock out a portion of the world’s hunger. Feeding the cattle grain started in
With the invention of beef to our diet we had to create a complex that would support the amount of people that needed to be fed. Mass cattle grazing is destructive, there is not really a way to raise cattle that is not environmentally harmful. In Mexico, where most of the United States beef is produced, rain forests are destroyed by grazing, by harmful agricultural technology being used, and the destruction of certain areas due to concentrated farming are some of the environmental problems beef is concerning us with (Robbins, 201). All of these are crucial to raise cattle; there must be a place to graze them, and they must be fed. The amount of grain cattle use to grow is enough grain to feed a good portion of the world. We would be living in a world less ransacked with hunger if the American diet did not focus on …show more content…
Slavery was used in the production of sugar when it was first introduced and mass produced. In fact it was largely responsible for the Atlantic slave trade (Robbins, 189). Sugar was known as being a luxury, only the wealth used it to sweeten their bitter drinks. This reinforced a social class order that had been in place for centuries. The middle and lower class was not introduced to the product until the Industrial Revolution was well under way. Sugar today has adjusted to our lifestyle, to our budget and all our basic consumer needs. Converting itself from a luxurious want to a necessity. Beef on the other hand converted our grain and wheat centered diet to one revolving purely on meat. This was converted around the time of the Industrial Revolution. The army and navy in fact consumed more than three fourths of a pound of meat daily per solider. This was a turning point in our diet. The higher protein diet was proving to be a better suitable diet for man-kind. The United States today consumes about forty percent of the beef in the world, though we only produced about ten percent of it. That means we are getting the majority of our beef from third world countries that are struggling with hunger. The native people are starving while they raise cattle that are eating their food. If we were to use the grain fed to cattle we could knock out a portion of the world’s hunger. Feeding the cattle grain started in