Samantha and Kelsey Artist Statement

Senior Project Essay
Kelsey and Samantha

Organic food: produced according to certain production standards. Pesticides, insecticides and herbicides are greatly restricted in production.
The world organic market has been growing by 20% a year since the early 1990’s with future growth estimates ranging from 10%-50% annually depending on the country. According to Henry’s Farmers Market, "Certified Organic" means the item has been grown according to strict federal standards that are verified by independent state or private organizations. Certification includes inspections of farm fields and processing facilities, detailed record keeping, and periodic testing of soil and water to ensure that growers and handlers are meeting the standards that have been set. Organic food is certified and traced from the farm to our stores. Certification organizations are accredited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).”
Many people think that organic food is more expensive than your average grocery store, but according to an Australian study by Choice Magazine in 2004, they discovered that processed organic foods in super markets are to be 65% more expensive than organic farmers markets. After comparing prices at our local Vons and Trader Joe’s, and farmer’s markets and we found this to be true. This may be the reason why people are reluctant to buy organic foods along with the fact that a lot of people are unaware of the actual costs.
Since organic foods are limited to pesticides, insecticides and herbicides, you’re getting slim to none of these harmful chemicals. Trader Joe’s meat and poultry products prohibit the use of hormones by the USDA. Hormones are artificial steroids that make animals gain weight fast while reducing the amount of food they eat producing more meat or poultry. Today, more than 80% of the cattle are raised by using artificial hormones. Zeranol and Estradiol hormones can be harmful to humans causing cancer and other related illnesses. The Emory University's School of Public Health conducted a study of pesticides in everyday foods that monitored the diets of a group of local children. The study found that the “urine and saliva of children eating a variety of conventional foods from area groceries contained biological markers of organophosphates, the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II.” Within eight to 36 hours of the children switching to organic food, the pesticides were no longer detected in the testing.

Sources:
"Organic Trade Association." Organic Trade Association. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. .

"Henry's Farmers Market - Organic Commitment." Henry's Farmers Market Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. .

"Organic food - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. .

"Welcome to Trader Joe's - Your Neighborhood Grocery Store - Product FAQs." Welcome to Trader Joe's - Your Neighborhood Grocery Store - Aloha!. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. .

SCHNEIDER, ANDREW. "Harmful pesticides found in everyday food products." Seattle news, sports, entertainment | seattlepi.com - Seattle Post-Intelligencer. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. .

Final Layout Essay

Layout Essay Kelsey Murphy
10/12/09
Everyone knows that food is a necessity to survive. But what most people don’t know is what’s in the food they’re eating or where it comes from. For example, I don’t always pay attention to what I’m eating or what could be in it that could be causing some kind of disease from the pesticides. Although this is an intense issue in the cycle of food processing, I find myself more interested in where our food comes from and the process of its shipment. Because do we really know? The US is known for a supplying a good amount of food to Americans. After all we are the fattest nation. Even the video “Fed Up” mentioned how the US is over producing food and it’s not being distributed enough.
We always find ourselves hearing about starving children on the news while we sit in front of our TV eating Big Macs and drinking out Super Gulps. In my opinion I feel we’re being rather stingy and selfish about our food and that it should be evenly distributed throughout the world so starvation won’t exist. I honestly don’t believe that it would be that hard to ship some food over to another country. Yes it may be expensive to bring over, but there has to be a way to get around the cost. Maybe I’m wrong. But we’ll never know till we try.
My special assignment group in environmental science is Garden Layout. A part of garden layout is the different types of farming such as monocultures and polycultures.

Monoculture is where one crop is grown and produced over a large area of land from a different variety of farmers. While polyculture is multiple crops in the same space with much more diversity of natural farming. Some diversity of polyculture is having a better variety of food to grow and sell. Farmers involved in polyculture are also more likely to travel with their food to sell it at places such as the Farmers Market. From both the movie “Fed Up” and the reading we were assigned in class, it had mentioned how growing smaller community gardens would bring together more organic farming and healthier people, as well as saving money. Even though this is a good idea, there are places such as New York where people cannot and will not find a place to farm their vegetables and fruit. This is causing people to do what’s convenient for them, which is driving to the nearest grocery store and buying their more so unhealthy food.
Something that had also surprised me was how in the reading from class it said “The America people are paying more attention to food today than they have in decades, worrying not only about its price but about it’s safety, it’s provenance and its healthfulness.” Is this a fact? I want to know what resources they used. Because even if it is, I don’t see many people caring about what they eat or whether or not their food is good for them. So maybe the author should think twice because “paying attention” is obviously misleading in my opinion. According to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), “Before a company can sell or distribute any pesticide in the United States of America, EPA must review studies on the pesticide to determine that it will not pose unreasonable risks to human health or the environment.” I thought that this was interesting because we still hear about these different diseases that are caused by pesticides such as, brain cancer, Parkinson’s disease, leukemia, lymphoma, cancers of the stomach, prostate and more. If these are still occurring after the EPA has “reviewed” the health of our food, how can we trust them and the food we eat? Not only is it a health hazard to people, animals, and even soil, but most importantly the younger generation. As their bodies grow then need the right nutrients, but instead they are eating processed food that has chemicals and their hormone cycle can become destroyed leading to an unhealthy life as they get older.
Once pesticides are used in farming, it spreads through the soil and is there to remain for the future generations. Even after rainfall those chemicals from the fields can be washed into rivers. It’s also good to be thinking about what the water is not only doing to us but how it affects the air and further pollution finally leading us to running out of water. Since there are no pesticides in organic farming, not only is it keeping us healthier, but also it’s not polluting our water.

Although it may seem like organic farming is the best, there are some down sides to it like low productivity. Another well-known con against organic farming is the price. Most organic grocery stores prices can range from 50-100 percent more than a traditional grocery store, which not everyone can afford in this economy. This brings me to my senior project because my partner and I will be creating a broacher with information on where you can buy organic/healthy food at a decent price since it seems to be an issue for many people. We also plan on taking lots of high quality pictures of the organic food we make, and even having a map of where you can eat healthy in San Diego for a cheap decent or fair price. I feel there is no doubt that organic farming is the better way to go considering the pros overrule the cons, but people should always know there is alternatives to eating healthy if money becomes a huge issue.

Sources:
*http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/food/govt.htm
How the Government Regulates Pesticides | Pesticides | US EPA U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
* http://ask.metafilter.com/98669/Could-we-feed-the-current-world-population-using-purely-organic-farming-methods Could we feed the current world population using purely organic farming methods? | Ask Metafilter
Ask Metafilter | Community Weblog
* http://www.grinningplanet.com/2006/update-2005-05-24/pesticides-in-food.htm
Pesticides in Food Clean Funny Cartoons / Environmental Issues ... on Grinning Planet
*http://progressreport.cancer.gov/doc_detail.asp?pid=1&did=2007&chid=71&coid=713&mid
Cancer Trends Progress Report – Pesticides
*http://www.toxicsinfo.org/Lawn/Pesticides%20&%20Cancer.htm
Pesticides and Cancer
Toxics Information Project Front Page
Gwen Petreman