Food Inc. 92-177

The main argument that the author makes in the first half of the reading deals with the use of corn to produce and ethanol fuel force. The author makes very good points with statistics that strongly support his argument. It is a definite shame that so much food that is going to produce fuel that could be used to feed the billion people around the world that are starving. I could not agree more. However, I am going to respond to this reading probably a little differently than many people will. The author states that there in no shortage if fuel. Which yes technically is true, we are forgetting the enormous demand for oil both domestically and around the world. Oil production is the highest it has been in the history of the world. The supply of this oil, however, is depleting. You would have to have been living under a rock for the past few decades to not hear about the oil crisis our world is facing. The processing of corn to ethanol based fuel is in reaction to the worldwide demand for alternative resources to petroleum based fuels. Here lies the problem of trying to solve a world problem: there is no easy, best solution that is going to make everyone happy. Manufactures chose to use corn to produce ethanol because it is one of the most abundant resources in which to produce fuel. Again I am not saying that the trouble being added to world hunger by ethanol produced fuel is not legitimate, I just wanted to make the point that we have this problem to fix another problem.

So what to do about the problem of the growing demand of fuel? The author, unlike many other people, actually provides and answer to how it is we can begin to use the fuel to feed the masses instead of making it to produce fuel. The answer it to eat locally. Eat foods that do not require it to be shipped half way around the world. If transportation of our food decreases, we can then focus on feeding ourselves, instead of fueling the trucks needed to transport the food needed to feed ourselves. It is simply skipping a step in the food consumption process. The author says that eating less and less meat is a very good way of solving this problem. And again, when trying to solve a world problem, if we started to consuming a significantly less amount of meat, we would see a book written on behalf of meat producers on how eating locally is ruining the lives of meat producers. And round and round we go.