Kluger, Jeffery. "What's So Great About Organic Food?." Time Magazine 18 Aug 2010: Web. 26 Aug 2010.
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In the article "What's So Great About Organic Food," author Jeffery Kluger begins by explaining how much more organic food is than regular food, 13¢ to 36¢ per pound more than your ordinary produce in fact. He states that the idea is to go organic, but with the prices so high, and with budgets so tight, it is hard to do so. He agrees that American's diets are killing themselves, considering the recent study by the CDC in Atlanta stating that 27% of all Americans are considered obese, with some states topping 30%. Also, he thinks that it would take a lot of engineering to make organic food cheaper and more available considering fertilizer used to grow corn has raising the yield for the crop 23% since 1990. Because of the demand for beef in the U.S., the conditions for the cattle are horrendous. The cattle are packed in factory farms and live for an average of 14 months, compared to grass fed cows that live for two and a half years. Factory cattle also are more prone to spread E-coli from digested cow manure in tightly spaced stables. Farm-raised animals also have conjugated lineoleic acids and fatty acids that may reduce the risk of some cancers, which factory cows don’t have. The 100 to 1000 high staked chicken cages hold a half a dozen chickens in each cage no larger than an opened news paper. This helps the salmonella bacteria spread and thrive fast, which happening now with the half a billion eggs recalled recently. Even in farm raised chickens, the bacteria are present, but the conditions in factories make it far more dangerous.
Jeffery Kluger has a very open mind in this article. He takes both sides, and has proof for both. He believes that it would be tough to go organic because of the hard times in the economy and the scarcity of the crops and meat. He also realizes that the factory raised cattle and pesticide infested crops lead to the outrageous number of obese Americans. It would be almost impossible for the country to transition from all of factory food and pasteurized food we eat daily because American would rather have the bad food that taste better with more high fructose corn syrup and salt than the healthy foods that are farm grown. This is why the obesity level is so high in this country, because American first off don’t want to pay the extra money for organic foods, and second off because they like the unhealthy foods better. He also realizes how bad conditions are in animal factory houses. If Americans were to just space out animals and put them in better conditions, we would be better off because the animals would be less prone to get diseases like salmonella and E-coli. This would also make the food healthier for Americans as well. The only reason that Americans treat animals this was in factories is because it is cheaper, and money is what everything boils down to in the United States.
