Exploration 4 by Elizabeth

     The biggest idea that I took out of Fresh is that things need to change. The industrialization of farming has so many negative aspects to it, and it's completely taking over. Local farms struggle staying operating because they are competing with the industrialized farms. These factory farms pollute the environment, are inhumane in how they treat their animals, and are not healthy. When someone eats organic food grown by local farmers, they get more nutrients and vitamins from it. While they pay more, it rewards them by making them healthy. You may save money when you buy industrialization-produced foods, but your body pays for it by becoming less healthy. We need to try to change where our food comes from so those smaller family owned local farms can succeed and produce more food that is actually good for the body.
     One thing that I was interested in learning more about was the health risks that factor farms pose for humans. In the film, they mentioned how eating food produced industrially can cause health issues for people, but they did not go very in depth. I wanted to know the specific effects eating that food can have. On farmsanctuary.org, they list some of the health effects factory farms have on humans. They can cause obesity and heart disease due to increased level of saturated fat,  increase risk of breast cancer, prostate, and colon cancer in beef consumers, create drug-resistant bacteria that can infect humans, contaminate food with bacteria like salmonella, and facilitate the passing of some diseases like Swine Flu. Overall, they are extremely unsanitary and can greatly harm human health.

http://www.farmsanctuary.org/learn/factory-farming/factory-farming-and-human-health/