My English Comp Argumentative Paper.

Feel free, and please do, read this entry. Punch holes in my statements. Tell me what I messed up. I'd really appreciate that. It's a rough draft. Tell me what you think. It's not like we all don't have an extra 20 minutes that needs wasting on the line, is it?


Why on Earth Would We Have A Food Shortage in America? (working title)

On November 16th, 2009, Jason DeParle with the New York Times reported that, “The number of Americans who lived in households that lacked consistent access to adequate food soared last year, to 49 million...”. That statistic is a record number since the Department of Agriculture began tracking food insecurity 14 years ago. Food insecurity is defined by the World Health Organization as “having access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life” (Teems 209). An important point to deduce from that is food insecurity is not necessary the same as hunger. A person can gorge themselves on frozen pizzas and hotpockets, wash it down with can after can of Coca Cola and still not eat anything nutritious, healthy, or reasonably satiating. A large part of the food security equation is nutrition based. Food production is not the issue at hand. Researchers for Oklahoma State University reported that, in 2009, we as a country, are projected to produce 2.17 billion bushels of wheat, 12.1 billion bushels of corn, and 2.88 billion bushels of soybeans (2009). That is a large amount, quite literally, tons, of food being produced right here in our own country. That's not even counting the fruits and vegetables we grow here, nor the massive amount food we import from other countries. With this much food production going on in America, why do 14 million American citizens million have trouble with getting enough of the right food to eat?

There are a lot of factors involved in the issue of food security in America. Most Americans have a a budget they can't, or at least shouldn't, go over every month; families only have so much money available every month to cover expenses. Utilities, healthcare costs, rising fuel prices, and a weakened economy all play a factor in the costs associated with living, and also the amount of money families are able to be spend on food. The large amounts of greatly processed and unhealthy food available at our local supermarkets are certainly not helping American families make better choices about what they eat. It doesn't take a scientist to notice that Americans aren't making healthy choices at the checkout counter. It does, however, take a little more investigation to uncover just how much of our national food supply we're feeding to animals in an attempt to feed the country with calories from animal sources, and why that's an issue. In 1997, David Pimental reported for Cornell University that each year an estimated 41 million tons of plant protein is fed to U.S. livestock to produce an estimated 7 million tons of animal protein for human consumption. That's an aggregate loss of 34 MILLION tons of food that could be fed to hungry Americans every year. About 26 million tons of livestock feed comes from grains and another 15 million tons from forage crops. Those numbers are sure to have gone up in the decade since Mr. Pimental reported them. That is a gross misallocation of edible food that could be better used to feed the American public. Simply put, as consumers, the down-turned economy is putting the crunch on our pocketbooks. Healthcare and utility costs are rising, and the food we have ready access to isn't doing it's job to keep American citizens healthy and well nourished. The food that we eat plays a big role in our lives, affecting everything from availability of food, to healthcare and fuel costs.

Current events notwithstanding, the healthcare issue is a big factor right now. Let's start there. It might seem strange to start a discussion of nationwide hunger on the topic of health insurance costs, but, as we'll find out, healthcare costs make up a huge chunk of our individual annual budgets. Insurance premiums are rising every year. As of 2009, healthcare costs have risen 5% since 2008, and a whopping 131% since 1999. The average family health insurance policy costs is $13,375 annually (Fritze 2009). That's like buying a new subcompact car every year. You wouldn't even be stuck with buying the same car every year. At that price, the consumer would have options! As of the writing of this paper, you could buy one of 6 new cars annually for the same price as the average family health insurance policy in America. In case you're curious, those options would be a Toyota Yaris, a Smart car, a Chevy Aveo, a Kia Rio, a Nissan Versa, OR a Hyundai Accent (Gold 2009). Granted, those cars are fairly basic, but when you consider the extravagance that would be necessary to buy a new car every year the point is hard to ignore.

Why exactly are our healthcare costs on the rise? That's a question that can't be answered in entirety in this paper, but we can touch on it. A large part of the reason is that Americans are eating more calories per day than ever in our history. In fact, between 1970 and 2000, the average number of calories eaten every day by Americans has risen 24.5% (USDA Factbook 2003). It's quite plain to see that more food plus an increasingly sedentary lifestyle are making American's fatter and more unhealthy than they've ever been. Reporters in America are writing new articles about the obesity epidemic every few months, at least.The diets and activity levels of Americans have a large role in shaping, pun intended, our nations health. It's no longer the case that people die of old age; Americans can't continue to believe the myth that people routinely die simply from getting too old. Rather, people die of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer and a whole slew of other medical conditions. According to the Washington Post, a study of more than 500,000 middle aged and elderly Americans discovered that eating approximately 4 ounces of red meat, about the size of a small hamburger, caused a 30% increase in likelihood of death during the next ten years, mostly from heart disease and cancer (Stein 2009). Furthermore, Rashmi Sinha of the National Cancer Institute said herself that, “The bottom line is we found an association between red meat and processed meat and an increased risk of mortality.” (2009). In that same article, Rob Stein reported that “After accounting for other variables that might confound the findings, such as smoking and physical activity, the researchers found that those who ate the most red meat -- about a quarter-pound a day -- were more likely to die of any reason, and from heart disease and cancer in particular, than those who ate the least -- the equivalent of a couple of slices of ham a day. Among women, those who ate the most red meat were 36 percent more likely to die for any reason, 20 percent more likely to die of cancer and 50 percent more likely to die of heart disease. Men who ate the most meat were 31 percent more likely to die for any reason, 22 percent more likely to die of cancer and 27 percent more likely to die of heart disease.”. Those aren't small numbers. Americans cannot ignore consumption of animals as a significant contributing factor in rising insurance costs. The evidence is there. Americans eat a lot of meat. Meat consumption is linked with higher rates of death and those that eat meat will have more medical problems than those that abstain from meat. Ilness, and the high percentage of unhealthy people in America is what is driving insurance costs up. A total lack of regard for the proper maintenance of the American body is the main cause of increase in insurance premiums. That rise in costs is directly related with how much money Americans get taken out of their checks to pay for healthcare costs and subsequently don't have available in their bank accounts for their grocery needs. The next large part of that is the misguided allocation of American resources.

As mentioned earlier, America produces an extremely large amount of grain every year. There is no reason we shouldn't be able to feed the hungry in our country, and quite possibly other countries, if we were just to rearrange how those grains are allocated. I will start this section off with two statistics from Jonathan Safron Foer's new book, Eating Animals. One, on average, Americans will each eat 21,000 complete animals over the course of their lifetime. And two, Americans are known to choose to eat less than 0.25% of the edible food grown on the planet. (2009). In addition to that, it takes, on average, 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of edible animal flesh (PETA 2004). What those to statistics mean, taken together, is that the majority of Americans are eating in a manner that is inherently wasteful and inefficient. As of the year 2000, Americans were eating almost 200 pounds (199.99) of grain per capita, 195.2 pounds of meat and a whopping 593 pounds of dairy products (USDA 2003). If we take the statistic given early, 16 pounds of grains for one pound edible animal flesh, that means we feed 3,123.2 pounds of grain fed to animals PER PERSON to satisfy the American demand for meat. Another way to put this, as David Pimental did in 1997, is that "More than half the U.S. grain and nearly 40 percent of world grain is being fed to livestock rather than being consumed directly by humans.". He believes, that we would feed humans directly, instead of redirecting those calories to animals, we would be able to feed nearly 800 million people annually (1997).

Given that meat is so wasteful, and that eating meat is being increasingly proven to cause a great number of medical issues, we could conclude rather simply that raising animals for eating meat is a large cause for the food shortage issues in America. This paper could stop there and I'd say that I have made valid points and the negatives outweigh the positive, but, as always, there's more to the story. David Pimental, mentioned early with Cornell University, also reported that animal protein production requires more than eight times as much fossil-fuel energy than production of plant protein. Pimentel also found broiler chickens to be the most efficient use of fossil energy, and beef, the least. Chicken meat production consumes energy in a 4:1 ratio to protein output; beef cattle production requires an energy input to protein output ratio of 54:1. Lamb meat production is nearly as inefficient at 50:1. Other ratios range from 13:1 for turkey meat and 14:1 for milk protein to 17:1 for pork and 26:1 for eggs (1997). So, when we also take into account the large amount of fossil fuels required to produce and transport animal flesh, we can also see that a large portion of the oil produced is allocated to that industry, thus removing it from the supply for our daily use in other industry or personal transportation, further raising prices at the pump, and on our heating bills. This is yet another knock to the pocketbook, leaving Americans with less money to spend on their nutrition and food.

We can even take that one further, with more help from Pimental, grain-fed beef production requires 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram of food. Raising broiler chickens takes 3,500 liters of water to make a kilogram of meat. In comparison, soybean production uses 2,000 liters for kilogram of food produced; rice, 1,912; wheat, 900; and potatoes, 500 liters (1997). That means, that the animal agriculture industry in America is very deserving of a large portion of blame for the water shortages in the southern and western states in America. If the Americans that live in that area of the country are bothered with water usage restrictions, they are able to voice that concern with their pocketbooks.

Writing checks to the companies that raise, feed and water these animals is a fantastic way to ensure that these abuses never stop. All of the citizens in this country have a voice in all of these matters. If Americans are concerned with the food shortages, water shortages, and rising fuel costs, they need to focus their energies and expenditures on the solution. Not being part of the problem is to be part of the solution. Americans can't continue to endorse the practices outlined in this paper if they are to live healthy and sustainable lives. While Americans may not emotionally or mentally endorse these practices, consumers are able to vote every time they make a purchase. Change doesn't need to happen only in the poll booths. One person can't change the world, but collectively, humans and societies have the power to do great things. Gandi had it right when he suggested that people “Be the change you want to see in the world”. Change starts on a personal level first. It's never to soon to change, but can often be too late.





DeParle, Jason. "Hunger in U.S. at a 14-Year High". NY Times. 11/16/09 .

Foer, Jonathan Safran. Eating Animals. NY, NY: Little, Brown and Co, 2009.

Fritze, John. "Average Family Health Insurance premiums". Washington Post. 11/21/09 .

Gold, Aaron. "Cheapest Cars of 2009". About.com. 11/21/09 .

"World Wheat Report". OK State University. 11/20/09 .

"Meat Means Misery for the Worlds Hungry". PETA. 11/20/09 .

Pimental, David. "Eight Meaty Facts about Animal Food". Cornell University. 11/21/09 .

Stein, Rob. "Daily Red Meat Raises Chances of Dying Early". Washington Post. 11/21/09 .

Teems, Jennifer. "Hunger and Food Insecurity in America". The Faster Times. 11/20/09 .

USDA Factbook. U.S. Department of Agriculture. 2003