English

ENG070 Student# 5

Kingsolver in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle criticizes many things about the American way. For example, the use of oil for transportation of food, Mechanized agribusiness and food habits and culture. The author thinks oil and culture are worse and worse following developed agribusiness. She makes many criticisms of oil, agribusiness and food habits and culture in this book, explaining how America becomes better.

The use of oil is serious problem. The book says if all Americans eat just one meal from local a week, we would reduce consumption of oil by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. Also, using the farmers’ market helps to decrease amount of using oil. It is not difficult if you have good mind. Today, we are consuming about 400 gallons of oil for agriculture a year per citizen. Most of used are for transportation of food. Food in grocery have usually traveled farther than most families go on their annual vacations. Therefore, trying to reduce the use of oil is important.

Although developed agribusiness gives us comfortable lives, it causes some problem. Genetic Modification (GM) is a typical example of agribusiness. It is growing more and more, most of foods are produced by taking GM technology to mass production, so many heirlooms have been disappearing. According to an Indian crop ecologist, mankind has eaten some 80,000 plant species in our history, but today we eat three quarters of all human food now comes from just 8 species. Some farmers still plant heirloom. Thus, seeking out the place where heirloom vegetables are sold, and tasting them with family are useful to keep farming heirloom.

American food habits and culture have become poor because of developed food industry. Many plant species and culture finding food on season have disappeared by people. Americans usually eat too much, but their diet is malnutrition. Mechanized food industry...