Food
How often are meatless options available to you throughout the week? What do these options have to do with our environment and water supplies? Plenty. The resources included in this section focus on animal agriculture, food choices, and creating a “Meatless Mondays” campaign to provide the option for eating plant-based foods one day a week at school, at home, and throughout the community.
Several partners have contributed to these materials, including the John Hopkins Center for Livable Future and Participant Media (which financed and owns the documentary film Food, Inc.). You will see several references to Food, Inc. throughout these resources, including a primer on how to discuss the film’s issues with your class.
To get started, DOWNLOAD the Action Guide: What’s on Your Fork? A Campaign for Meatless Choices.
So…what’s on YOUR fork?
Lesson Plans
- Connections Between Food, Water Pollution and Dead Zones
What is eutrophication? How might the food on my plate be connected to a Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico? Explore these questions and more in this lesson.
- A Food, Inc. Intro to Modern Food Production
The Academy Award nominated documentary Food, Inc. provides an outstanding overview of many of the issues associated with modern industrial food production. These materials help focus viewing of the film on potential environmental impacts, and include both short and long answer questions that can be used with specific short segments of the film, as well as excerpts from the film's official Discussion Guide.
Related Resources
Comments
- Irene
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There is indeed good, solid research that shows that humans are best adapted to a protein/vegetable/fruit/nut diet that avoids grains, sugar, legumes, and, for some populations, dairy. The modern human diet results in high prevalence of diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. At the same time, this same research is very clear that commercially "grown", grain-fed meat with its skewed balance of beneficial/harmful fats poses similar dangers to one's health. To make things more complicated, "good" meat (grass-fed beef, wild-caught seafood, etc) is very expensive, not widely available, and as pointed out in the action guide, takes unreasonable amount of time and space to raise and catch when considering the pressures of earth's growing population and poverty levels. I really like this campaign and will definitely participate in the "What's on your fork" webinar with my Biology and Earth Science students, but I think the issue has a much more complex socioeconomical/health solution than vegetarianism. Thank you so much for working on a solution and trying to make a difference!
- January 25, 2012, 8:20 AM
- Jason Slusarchuk (www.cleanlivingexperiment.com)
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I think what you're doing is excellent. We need more information and resources like this out there regarding the consequences to our health and environment of an animal-centered diet. Disregard criticism based on personal bias. Evidence based science supports what you are advocating. Limiting/eliminating animal product consumption is an appropriate step towards protecting our natural resources and reducing the burden on the health care system.
Keep it up!
- November 22, 2011, 12:14 PM
- Wendy
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As a science/vocatioanl agriculture teacher, some of your information is good but at over 7 billion people on this earth and less land to produce food for the growing numbers of people you will have to come up with helpful solutions, not just complain about how agriculture production is causing so many problems. At least most of the food produced in the US is safe. Just think of other countries that dont have fertilizer produced from petroleum products and use human feces as fertilizer!
No thanks, I will keep producing meat and plants the best way we know how and at greater quantities to feed our populations!
- November 18, 2011, 3:48 PM
- David
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Though this sounded cool, then i came to this area and started reading just to find out this is just a Vegan propaganda site, nice try but i'll keep enjoying my meat and stay in the top 5 healthiest people in my marine unit thanks to my Vegetables and MEAT.
- November 17, 2011, 1:03 PM
- Kathleen Braun
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This was very informative and I am interested in learning more and sharing this.
- November 16, 2011, 11:07 AM
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