I was thinking last night

[Thelostchild]

I was thinking last night when I was riding my horse.

You know they saw that 90% of America is over weight, and I thought about it and came up ewith this. People her are over weight becuase the crapy fast food that we buy is cheap and fast. And I noticed that when I was trying to eat health, I would go and look at fish and all the other stuff thats health to eat, well its expensive and not to mention you have to take the time to cook the food. Allot of people don't like to cook and or if they do its the cheap boxed meals or the frozen stuff you get out of your grocery freezer. And Health and fitness centers are expensive too. Watching t.v. is much easyer to do then to just get up and go for an evening walk or so some 30 minute home exercise.. Do you think if things were cheeper and they tasted good people would take more time for them self's rather then just waste away?

 

[Peanut]

I wholeheartedy agree that America's fast food epidemic bears a tremdous amount of responsibility for the weight problem in society. It is disturbing to me also, that as you say, the healthy food is so much more expensive. It also drives me crazy that food from humane sources is so much more expensive. However, I think it is only looks expensive in comparison to the extremely cheap low quality food that is being sold. I cannot fathom how people can turn a blind eye to the content and source of their food to save a few dollars. The fact is that the bad food is cheap because they cut corners to make it cheaply. Most of it has tons of preservatives and taste-good-quick ingredients like salt and sugar instead of herbs and fresh foods.

Furthermore, these fastfood restaurants esentially have a training 'boot camp' for kids to start eating this garbage too. They lure them in with the magical advertising, clowns, cartoon characters, toys, the play structures, etc and because of this many kids make a lasting emotional connection to this food that plagues them for the rest of their lives.

I seriously detest fast food restaurants and I hope that society as a whole will stand up against them, stop supporting the destruction of society and the torture of animals, and decide to come together for to make a healthier, more sustainable world.

The cheap price of this type of food is only cheap at the moment you buy it. The price you pay in the long run is much, much more costly.

Just a side note that one place to get healthy food rather cheapy is at local farmers markets.

In closing, I think that each and every one of us has a responsiblity to act in an ethical way when we buy and eat our food. We are making ourselves sick, we are torturing animals, and we are engaging in unsustainable farming practices in order to save money...and money just isn't worth that much. I think it's time to make a stand and say that we want and deserve better--and so do our children, and our children's children, and also the animals-who are just unfortunate pawns in this industry of bells and whistles and barely edible food.

 

[Thelostchild]

wow that was very nicely written. I agree with you

 

[Peanut]

Thanks, I'm glad it didn't come off too extreme! I just feel extremely passionately about this topic, and particularly about the way animals are treated in the factory farms where all of the cheap meat comes from. It's a really sad situation and I just keep thinking that it can't go on forever, and eventually society will look back at our current farming practices and cringe. I like this quote too

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated--Mahatma Gandhi

And well, our animals are getting all kinds of diseases and suffering like crazy. What does that say about us as a society? I think it says that we need to do better than what we're doing right now.