Should we be cutting calories out? Is it the sugar that is making us fat? Are carbs bad for me? As Americans we face these questions daily because our eating habits are defined by current health trends and health specialist recommendations. We usually succumb to these ideas that change every few years, but how are we to really know what is the best for us? I have had to take a step back and really look at the importance of what I eat after learning that even local supermarkets care more about their profit than the community, and all we see is today is "mass production" rather than "quality production", and the fact that food really does have long term affects on our bodies.

     I remember going to the grocery store as a little girl and getting a sticker from the cashier at Raley's in my small town, Windsor, CA, but know I understand these grocery stores for what they are -a large corporation that wants be to buy more so they can earn more. While a few of the cashiers at my town's Raley's know who my mom is, it is not the people that work there, but the people who run it. I recently learned that the grocery store layout has a whole lot more to do with their profit than you would think. For example, they place dairy and produce at the back, so you have to walk through multiple isles to get there, which would make you more likely to buy more. Additionally, they put their floral section at the front, right as you walk in, to seem ore appealing. Since we do not think about what we eat, or where it comes from, we find ourselves falling under the pressure of purchase that these grocery stores have mastered.

     After interviewing local growers who sell to their community at the Farmer's Market every week, I got some insight to what it means to grow and sell local, as well as mass production versus quality production. All these growers have small farms in which they grow a small amount of crops and animals. This is compared to large, industrialized farms like General mills who have hundreds of cows inside a small barn where they are force to eat corn, which their system is not used to. This tends to make cows sick, and it spreads easily inside their small living quarters. In order to combat this, the cows are fed hormones for the few weeks they are alive, which is as long as it takes them to reach a certain weight. I know that I do not wan to eat animals that were treated cruelly and who's on;y purpose was to be fattened as quickly as possible. We owe it to local farmers to purchase and use their products that are grown more like they are supposed to, that is to say, like in nature.

The fact that what we eat helps our body remain healthy makes the idea of certain foods, amusing. Some families live off of fast food, because it is a fast, cheap option, however, it is incredibly harmful for our bodies. In order for our bodies to function properly, we need all sorts of foods; carbs, glucose, protein, ect, but with all the processing of food nowadays, we are taking out all the nutritional value of foods, and they simply pass through our body without leaving a trace. We do not benefit from this, therefore it should not be a form of eating. Just as the picture below shows, our bodies produce waste products after taking nutrients out of the food we eat, but the fact that in the processing, or pulling apart of food, we are taking out essential components in our diet. We should be returning to the idea of eating whole, foods.

     What should we be eating? We may never know the true answer, however, we can do our part to continue to help our local economy by buying from local farmers, improve our own health by eating more nutrient rich foods, and focusing on quality food rather than quick food