Obesity
and climate change. They may seem worlds apart, just two separate issues we
happen to be dealing with at the same time. But, maybe they are not separate
issues. Can a case be made that obesity and climate change are intertwined,
each feeding off the other? Let’s find out.
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The cycle
starts with hungry people living in our modern, hectic world. These people,
like all hungry people, want to feed themselves and their families with the
best food possible, but they are busy and preparing a meal takes time. Time they
can’t afford to spend in the store and over the stove. The fast food place
around the corner is more convenient - it takes thirty minutes or less to buy
and eat dinner and leaves no kitchen mess to clean up. Perfect for busy days
when a home-cooked meal is not an option. Weeks full of busy days pass, and
fast food becomes a habit.
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Meanwhile,
the fast food companies prosper, providing their customers cheap food served in
a minute or two. All that matters is speed, who cares about production that
wastes resources and energy? Disposable plates and plastic cups, bowls and
utensils make clean up easy. How convenient!
What is
the cost of that the convenience? How often do we question where this plastic
comes from or wonder where it goes? Raising livestock in green pastures takes
too long, so instead, the animals are crammed in small lots and pumped full of
grain and drugs until they’re fat enough to be slaughtered for food. The food
is prepped in factories, chemists manufacture its aroma and flavor, and the
product of this manipulation, the “food,” is pumped full of preservatives to
keep it fresh for the long journey from factory to restaurant.
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The low
cost of fast food, the speed at which it is produced - these benefits aren’t
free. The food quality is lowered, resulting in food that is bad for us, the
consumers. We’ve heard about the many ways fast food harms our bodies, but we
tend to forget is that fast food is equally bad for the earth.
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Let’s
start at the essence of fast food, cheap meat. Producing this meat contributes
to global warming. Livestock are big polluters, their flatulence releases greenhouse
gases into the atmosphere. All animals have flatulence and the atmosphere can
handle it, but the quantities of livestock needed to sustain our fast-food
habit is the problem. In addition, raising this multitude of cattle requires
room. A huge amount of room on land. That land often comes from cleared forest,
including the Amazon rainforest.
Once the
meat, and other fast food ingredients, are produced they need to be shipped to a
factory that will transform them into fast food. After the fast food is
restaurant ready, it needs to be shipped from the factory to a fast food
restaurant. All this shipping uses up fossil fuels. Use of fossil fuels
releases carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming,
into the environment, as well as sulfur dioxide, a major pollutant.
Despite
the harm they are doing, fast food companies have not significantly reduced their
impact on the environment.
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This is
just the food’s side of the story, what about all the disposable plastic fast
food is packaged in and served on? All that has to come from somewhere and it
has to go somewhere too. Plastic is made from fossil fuels in a process that
releases countless pollutants into the environment. Once plastic is made, it
never biodegrades. Some plastic can be recycled, but plastic wrap, bottle caps,
and straws can’t. Styrofoam, another packaging option used in fast food, can’t
be recycled. In addition, all plastic used in mass food production has to be
absolutely new. Recycled plastic is poor in quality and doesn’t meet the
qualifications of food grade plastic. We have to produce new plastic just so we
can use it once and throw it away.
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Plastic
can only be reused if it’s put in a recycling bin, and often it is not. Just on
a short walk around my neighborhood I saw large amounts of fast food waste
littering street corners and a vacant lot. Maybe this plastic will end up in
the river, and from there get swept out to sea to become part of the great
Pacific garbage patch. Maybe it will be eaten by an animal, and then the
plastic could get stuck in its digestive system. Plastic eaten by animals often
prevents them from digesting and absorbing actual food and they die from
malnutrition. If someone does pick up the litter, it will be put in a plastic
bag and shipped off to a landfill, which isn’t much better since it won’t biodegrade
there any more than it will in the ocean or in an animal. Plastic in landfills
can leech chemicals into the soil resulting in soil and groundwater pollution.
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While all
this pollution is going on, the hungry people have gotten even busier. Most
people have to drive everywhere, using oil and releasing greenhouse gases as
they go. It’s hard to find time for exercise anymore. Most cities and towns are
designed around cars, and people who do want to walk to work can’t because
highways are in the way. Fast food and sedentary lifestyle is messing with our
systems. As people gain weight, physical movement becomes harder and driving
becomes even more of a necessity.
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It seems
easy to stop eating fast food, just head to the grocery store, pick up some
food and cook. But there’s a problem. Fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and
dairy products often are expensive when compared to fast food. Far more
expensive than anyone expected. Why is this? What happened?
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Now, the
supply of good food is low and pricey. The hungry people buy what they can, but
they can’t spend all their money on food. Gas is expensive, rent costs money,
taxes need to be done, winter clothes are a must. Back in the car, back to
Burger King.
Some of
the hungry people have enough money to budget and buy produce, grains, dairy
and meat. They can afford to spend time cooking. Not everyone has this option.
In some areas grocery stores are disappearing, and fast food chains spring up
in their place. People who have spent their whole lives eating ready-cooked
meals, may not know how to cook their own, and they may not have a store nearby
where they can buy healthy groceries. This sort of situation is known as food
insecurity and is becoming common.
The world’s
population is increasing year after year which means we’ll be producing more
fast food. All the environmental havoc produced by fast food will just become
more catastrophic if we keep producing food in the same way we do now.
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The cycle
doesn’t seem to end.
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What is
the answer? How do we end the cycle? Maybe it’s as simple as starting to be aware
of how our actions effect the earth and ourselves.
Making a
decision to be aware can make a big difference in itself. Once you’re aware,
questions will pop up and hopefully, so will solutions.
It may
seem like eating an apple instead of a burger from a fast food chain, or
avoiding plastic utensils doesn’t change much. But these little steps are the
important because they will start to change our minds and attitudes.
