I love food. I think that food should be enjoyed and that everyone should have good food. Though when people think of food they enjoy or food in general it can be very unhealthy. From obesity to starvation there are many extremes in the area of food. But why?  What’s happening? And what are the factors and how can we help? Well we recently started health and career in class and right now we are looking at an aspect of health food. That leads into my next topic what’s the problem?

Well for one is animal products. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t eat animal products at all it has just gotten so extreme in the last decade even. Just look at the statistics if you need to see it in fact. Between 1950 and 2000 the world population doubled but meat consumption increased five fold. That means that we are going way past our means and we shouldn’t be. This was explained in a ted talk video by Mark Bittman. We had watched 4 ted talks in order to fully understand health and this was by far my favorite, the one I found the most interesting. The other videos were different though and still taught me a lot, for example there was a ted talks by AJ Jacobs that talked about how you shouldn’t go so extreme. He had said that for years he was trying to be as healthy as possible and it did have some benefits though that’s not to say that he could have been more balanced. That even though he had improved both physically and mentally it could have been improved. This is all said in his book drop dead healthy.

This made me realize that I am so lucky to live in an area of the world that has so many resources and yet we can take advantage of them. Meaning that now a days livestock is a problem from producing to much and people are getting more obese in certain areas while in other areas people are starving. I am now aware that I need to start thinking more about how what I eat not only effects me but as well as the whole world. Also that I should help the rest of the earth by helping people who are starving as well as decrease live stock. I think that’s possible for me because I already am a vegetarian which helps with one problem but I would like to help people. That might mean donating to organizations such as 30 project established by Ellen Gustafson who we watched a video on and is trying to change food problems. She said she loves food so I trust her. But she had this great point that when an area is hungry the country is insecure which makes sense.

So to draw what we each learned individually we made a portrait of ourselves out of food. We had gotten our inspiration from Giuseppe Arcimboldo a famous artist who is known for his pieces of art that were portraits of people made of fruit.

That was there’s and here is mine that I made out of food that I enjoy and eat:

Overall it was interesting to learn about how food is viewed all over the world. And that I am so lucky for what I have but I have to be careful because it could go south at any point. And next week you will be able to see another blog post on health & career.