Activities, peoples, and ideas in ones life change over time. They either evolve, disintegrate, are distorted, or may just simple change as one becomes more aware of themselves, there place in the world, and how they effect the environment around them. Like all other things my relationship food has done these exact things. Although it may have not have happened in the order described above my relationship with food was one that began with being distorted, then it disintegrated, moving into the stage where it evolved, ending in final stage of constant change. These changes in my relationship with food are a direct result of my heightening awareness of myself and my body, how I fit into the world and how I want to fit into the world and finally how I impact my surroundings and the environment around me.
My ever-changing relationship with food began before I was even aware that we as humans have a relationship with food, when I was very young. It began in distorted manner of not understanding appropriate eating habits, and often eating not because I was hungry but because I was worried, nervous or simply bored. These habits all led to me becoming extremely unhealthy and obese. My relationship with food did not begin to change until I was junior in high school when the relationship started to disintegrate. When I say disintegrate I mean I gave food little to no thought and only viewed it as something I did once in awhile to fill a biological need. This attitude although maybe the other extreme to how I treated food before led me to look and be healthier with a large amount of weight loss. Then my relationship with food started to evolve; as I became a healthier person my views on food became healthier and less extreme from one spectrum to the other. Meaning I started to learn how to eat good portions of god food and not only fill a biological need but also appreciate and enjoy the different kinds of food that are not good for you but also delicious. This led to my relationship with food being a ever changing one as I see it playing a different role in my life, as my view of the world changes.
An understanding of myself, my impact on my environment, and how I want to fit into this environment has directly fueled my relationship with food and its changes over time. For example when I became aware of my body image I strived to change it through my eating habits. Then when I realized food was more then a tool to fulfill a need and something that should be enjoyed in appropriate amount, because it was a resource from the earth my relationship with food began to evolve. Finally when becoming more educated on the different types of foods and there affect on our environment, from sources like this class my relationship with food is one that constantly changes and forms new aspects.
Over all my relationship with food fits into the food discussion in a interesting way. I say this because I feel like the different stages of my relationship with food represent some commune views of food over all. For example like the first stage of my relationship with food, it takes on the viewpoint of the part of are society that eat in a obsessive unhealthy way. The second stage represents the part of society that still views food in a somewhat unhealthy way just on the opposite end of the spectrum. Finally there is a small portion of people in our society that have a well balanced habits between eating when it’s necessary and truly enjoying food.
Over all I don not believe my relationship with food is one that is done developing. I say this because my outlook of myself, my affects on my surroundings, and my over all view of the world will continue to change. As my relationship with food develops I believe societies relationship will food will continue to develop. Hopefully this will lead us to take on healthier habits as a whole and have a healthier earth and bodies’.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Sustainability
When I gaze into my crystal ball to uncover the future and what it holds for not only myself but my family, my school, and my country, I see a image of sustainability. I see restaurant that in the front serves healthy, nutritional, organic products and in the back has a station where you can fill your car up with there oil waste for cooking, because in are new sustainable future nothing can go to waste. Although this future seems to be pretty ideal and almost utopias to truly see a sustainable future I need to define what sustainability is and how it plays a role in my culture and how my own ideas behind it have changed and how will it continue change.
When defining sustainability I feel it is necessary to examine several things that are not all just environment related. The first thing that needs to be addressed though is environment related, and that is the effect on the earth. To be truly sustainable a product cannot cause damage to our environment and if it does it has to be counter balanced somewhere else in the same process. Another factor that needs to be examined when discussing the topic of sustainability is the use of resources, because if a product or process is abusing resources it cannot be sustainable, but instead it needs to focus on using minimal non-renewable resources and more on the use resources at hand that can keep the process going by itself. Finally when defining sustainability the social aspect needs to be addressed. A product or process is not sustainable innless it is economically able to maintain itself and treats the employees or people involved in the process in a manner that allows them to economically and socially maintain themselves and there families. The definition of sustainability has so many aspects it’s easy to see why it may be hard to notice its role in our own cultures, but nonetheless it is present.
In my own personal culture I see sustainability playing its largest role in my education. I hold this to be true because first of all the initiatives being taken on our own Ohio University to move the entire school in a sustainable direction. This is evident in our composting system that uses food waste and converts it into reusable material, along with things like the baker center and it’s constant advertisement of how all product used in the cafeteria are recyclable. Along with the initiatives being taken by the university to move in a sustainable direction there is also the effect that the topic of sustainability is having on my every day classes. For example in majority of my science classes in the past there has always been a chapter or two on global warming and its affects along with prevention of it. Also this class is a great example of the effect of sustainability on my education, after all it is a class that is teaching writing and rhetoric through the education and discussion of sustainable issues. It is very evident in the areas where sustainability plays a role in my education and I believe it will continue to be evident.
Final over time and the course of the quarter my ideas behind sustainability have changed greatly. Before this quarter my idea of sustainability would not have involved a societal aspect of it. I actual would not have considered the idea of employees being able to maintain life standards on the wages provided by the sustainable product or process to be a important part of the idea of sustainability. In this sense my ideas behind sustainability have grown. I believe the idea behind sustainability will continue to change as we as society encounter different obstacles with the environment and mankind. For instance as we run out of limited resources such as fossil fuels the idea on how a sustainable product or idea should begin may change or differentiate.
Now lets return to the idea of sustainability in the future with keeping in mind my definition of sustainability being a product or idea that does not harm the environment, uses a limited amount of now reusable resources, creates a cycle that it can maintain itself, and finally is produced in a economically feasible manner that does not take advantage of the people involved in the product or idea. The future still holds a this idea of sustainability, but this time the restaurant is still serving organic food but in a building that is ran off of solar panels and wind turbines with employees that are not only treated fairly, but are given livable wages to support there families. As for the station in the back used to fuel your car with left over oil from the restaurant, that is all manned by humans through a pump system similar to a well. This may not be what the future actually holds, but anymore it may be the only solution if we continue to use and abuse are resources in the now.
When defining sustainability I feel it is necessary to examine several things that are not all just environment related. The first thing that needs to be addressed though is environment related, and that is the effect on the earth. To be truly sustainable a product cannot cause damage to our environment and if it does it has to be counter balanced somewhere else in the same process. Another factor that needs to be examined when discussing the topic of sustainability is the use of resources, because if a product or process is abusing resources it cannot be sustainable, but instead it needs to focus on using minimal non-renewable resources and more on the use resources at hand that can keep the process going by itself. Finally when defining sustainability the social aspect needs to be addressed. A product or process is not sustainable innless it is economically able to maintain itself and treats the employees or people involved in the process in a manner that allows them to economically and socially maintain themselves and there families. The definition of sustainability has so many aspects it’s easy to see why it may be hard to notice its role in our own cultures, but nonetheless it is present.
In my own personal culture I see sustainability playing its largest role in my education. I hold this to be true because first of all the initiatives being taken on our own Ohio University to move the entire school in a sustainable direction. This is evident in our composting system that uses food waste and converts it into reusable material, along with things like the baker center and it’s constant advertisement of how all product used in the cafeteria are recyclable. Along with the initiatives being taken by the university to move in a sustainable direction there is also the effect that the topic of sustainability is having on my every day classes. For example in majority of my science classes in the past there has always been a chapter or two on global warming and its affects along with prevention of it. Also this class is a great example of the effect of sustainability on my education, after all it is a class that is teaching writing and rhetoric through the education and discussion of sustainable issues. It is very evident in the areas where sustainability plays a role in my education and I believe it will continue to be evident.
Final over time and the course of the quarter my ideas behind sustainability have changed greatly. Before this quarter my idea of sustainability would not have involved a societal aspect of it. I actual would not have considered the idea of employees being able to maintain life standards on the wages provided by the sustainable product or process to be a important part of the idea of sustainability. In this sense my ideas behind sustainability have grown. I believe the idea behind sustainability will continue to change as we as society encounter different obstacles with the environment and mankind. For instance as we run out of limited resources such as fossil fuels the idea on how a sustainable product or idea should begin may change or differentiate.
Now lets return to the idea of sustainability in the future with keeping in mind my definition of sustainability being a product or idea that does not harm the environment, uses a limited amount of now reusable resources, creates a cycle that it can maintain itself, and finally is produced in a economically feasible manner that does not take advantage of the people involved in the product or idea. The future still holds a this idea of sustainability, but this time the restaurant is still serving organic food but in a building that is ran off of solar panels and wind turbines with employees that are not only treated fairly, but are given livable wages to support there families. As for the station in the back used to fuel your car with left over oil from the restaurant, that is all manned by humans through a pump system similar to a well. This may not be what the future actually holds, but anymore it may be the only solution if we continue to use and abuse are resources in the now.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Opposition to Green Development
I recently found this article on the New York Times website and thought it was very interesting and deserved a closer observation. I found this to be true because rarely do i find in our media opposition by the general public of the installation of things that move a society in the direction of being more sustainable. Normally we find the opposition in the government and congress when debating taxes and what to pay for and not, but in these cases it has nothing to do with cost but everything to do with location, because the things being used are already paid for and installed.
Because of the different tone this article takes on, it raised some questions in my mind. Should we go green even if it is against the wishes of the people who have been living in the area first? Also it raises the question of who gets to decide what land can be used for? Is there really such a thing as owning land?
Environmental Housing to the Extreme
I recently came across this article on the internet that displayed a house built in whales that was built environmentally consciously. When i began to read the article and stopped because my attention was grabbed not by the words i was reading but the pictures of the actual house. Not until i viewed all the pictures did i begin to read the article again. The pictures are amazing and remind me of a hobbit hole from Tolkiens Lord of The Rings books. It made me really jealous of the house and thoughts of how i could build my own hobbit home!
While my reaction to this home was very positive I am somewhat pessimistic of it's practicality. For example while this house is environmentally friendly in the materials it's built with, but was it built in the most economically conscious way? Also will this home be able to endure mother nature?
Renewable Energy in Ohio
I came across this video while researching renewable energy sources in Ohio. When watching this i felt hopeful and excited. I believe these feeling were produce because that was the motivation behind the video. It wanted to intrigue people and get them interested on the possible solution to our ever growing energy crisis.
The only question raised by the video were does this video do enough by only being on youtube? Also this video raised the question of should there be more companies out there dedicated to the educating of renewable options?
Buying Green
Recently while surfing on the internet i came across this website that gives the viewer a review on a scale of 1 to 10 how environmentally green, healthy and safe a product is, with 10 being the most environmentally healthy and 1 being the least healthy for the environment. The rating system is broken down into three different categories. The first is labeled health and gives you a rating on if the product raises health concerns. The next category is environment and this category gauges the products risk it may cause to our surroundings. The last category of society reviews how the product is made, and if it is made in a manner where there employees are valued and respected.
This website i found to be very interesting and yet raised several questions in my mind. The first being is it our civic duty to our planet and each other to properly inform ourselves on what products are healthy and which are not? The other question this website raised was should we be demanding that all products meet this review system, or is it unrealistic?
Monday, March 7, 2011
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