Final Research Paper: Eating Healthy to Curb Global Warming

Final Research Paper: Eating healthy to curb Global warming

ENGL135 Advanced Composition

DeVry University

Eating healthy to curb Global warming

Global warming is a phenomenon which is affecting our lives in more ways than one. Over the past few years, its effects have become more noticeable. Climatic changes have caused some major natural disasters in the past few years and humans have played a pivotal role in the accelerating the warming of the planet. Many animal species have become extinct in the past century due to climate change. Some of the major reasons are rapid industrialization throughout the world in the past century, rapid depletion of forests and the extensive use of fossil fuels which have increased the carbon content in the air. Healthy eating practices can curb global warming and reverse some of these changes. Proper farming, local distribution of food products and cutting down on meat and fish consumption can drastically reduce the carbon footprint of a community.

Today, farming has taken on a global scale. Food items produced in one corner of the world is sent for consumption to the other end in a matter of days using various forms of transportation. The demand for global cuisines and products which are not grown locally has increased considerably due to globalization and change in lifestyle and eating habits throughout the world. Food processing involves a massive amount of fuel usage, first for manufacture of fertilizers for cultivation and then for food processing. Added to that, long distance movement of food products means massive usage of fuel for transportation as well. This clearly is not a sustainable model. Petroleum is a finite resource and its usage adds to the already existing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. According to a report by Food Share in 2003 from Canada, it was found that the average distance travelled by locally produced food products was 62.7 miles and on the other hand, imported food items...