In the early 1900s, more than half of the population in the United States were either farmers or resided in rural communities. The food they ate came from the ground to their plate, without any additives, preservatives, or chemical processing. Most U.S. farms produced a variety of crops and raised a variety of animals at the same time on the same farm, such practices were complementary to each other. So even the meat that they ate and put out on the market was free of hormones or any other drugs to fatten up the animals, and thus causing harm to those who ate the meat as it is today. Farmers were skilled in a wide range of trades and were independent and self-sufficient over how to operate their crops and manage their animals. The animals were typically free range with total freedom to the outdoors. Most of the work on the farm was accomplished by human or animal labor. The food they ate then, while it had the same name as today’s foods, e.g. Meat, chicken, potatoes, lettuce, etc. they were not the same foods as today.
While there are still those self-sufficient and self-operating farms, the industrialization of agriculture drastically transformed how the great majority of food is produced in the U.S. and many other parts of the world. During the 20th century, agriculture underwent a greater change in the mode of operation than when it was first adopted some 13,000 years ago. Modern U.S. agriculture has often been labeled as “the most efficient in the world” when it came to maximizing profits through lower production costs. But is it the healthiest? Not by far.
Industrialization of agriculture specialized in animal genetics, a series of selective tests produced animals designed for a single outcome—larger breast meat in chickens and turkeys, or increased milk production, or extreme weight gain for bulls as an example. Today’s chickens bred for meat (“broilers”) grow to almost twice the weight, in less than half the time, using less than half as much feed as they did in the mid 1900’s. This type of genetic alteration to accomplish these exaggerated traits came at the expense of the animals’ health, including increased risks for heart failure in broilers and udder infections in dairy cows bred for higher milk production.
And such became the risks to those consuming the food today. The increase of major illnesses such as heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, etc. has today’s population being the sickest population into history of the US, needing the aid of a lifetime of a tremendous number of drugs just to keep alive and live longer…this genetic alteration of animals and a tremendous amount of chemical processing in foods has destroyed the quality of life of the American people.
©Copyright – Hector Sectzer
