Organic Food And Junk Food Issue In America

The American fad of today’s generation is the consumption of a completely organic diet imposed by the pressure of the society that we live within just to make sure that our family remains healthier compared to other Americans. For the everyday American, the cost of food can be a great burden on the family finances just to keep up with the Joneses who are setting the social standard of eating organic. Thus resulting in a split of our society causing a two class system. One is the lower and middle class, better known as the ninety-five percent, and the other being the upper class, better known as the five percent. But eating like the five percent while being in the ninety-five percent class should be the goal of every family. Yet, for ninety-five percent of the population, organic food is too expensive and junk food is too affordable, but the solution for eating organic food for the price of junk food can be found easier than anyone can realize.

The average family makes a median income of forty thousand dollars a year but only brings home two and a half thousand dollars a month leaving the family with a mere three hundred and seventy five dollars or the equivalent of fifteen percent of their entire net income to spend on an average family size of four or five people. Given that a single dozen of large brown organic eggs at Harris Teeter Supermarkets, an American supermarket chain based in North Carolina, is six dollars and forty-nine cents compared to the price of a dozen large brown regular eggs which is two dollars and nineteen cents at the same Harris Teeter Supermarkets makes the active decision between organic and ordinary food a financial matter rather than a health matter. But if we take a closer look at the price between the organic and ordinary food we can see that the true cost of these same foods is a lot greater than the sticker price of an item thus truly turning the table on the matter.

As lifestyles have seemed to change from generation to the next generation the types of food we eat are typically the easiest to access after a long day of work making the real change no existent. Since the mid nineteen fifties, McDonald’s has been one of the leading fast-food businesses that have supplied both single and dual income households with the convenient meals in which they have to invest the least amount of effort. Because of this lack of effort going into our meal prepping Americans have become lazy even though some have put in more effort by subscribing to meal programs such as Blue Apron. Our society has become more dependent on services being provided to them than being a self-sufficient family or small network.

To offset some of the desired and undesired effects of the food we eat we can create a structured and systematic way of growing our own food with solutions such as a community garden or distributing work between individuals in a small network of people to achieve a lower shopping bill through efforts like couponing to supplement the production that can not be grown or produced within the small net. Although the seventies have already taught us so much, we can still learn how to create a functional commune on a more functional scale to provide the necessary tools that are able to result in these solutions. As an American society, we have a national duty to limit the aftermath in the event of a global collapse by starting to build a community-based neighborhood association that eventual includes an international scale of these same community-based societies. In the local town of Caracas, Venezuela lives a seventy-three-year-old man who is a semi-retired real estate agent who stands in a line of a hundred and forty other people who are there to collect their monthly pensions which trade on the black market for an average of about a dollar and eighty-one cents. Although this Venezuela man, who goes by Antonio Perez, tries to work he still could not sell a single home in the previous year. Just to survive Perez and his wife had to purchase their groceries that same day due to the major scare of hyperinflation. Even with the country’s minimum wage of an equivalent six dollars and three cents in united states dollars, a family still cannot buy enough food with that very same minimum wage. Not that long ago Venezuela was the world’s largest oil reserve and was once the wealthiest countries in South American yet hyperinflation has led to the crisis that can be presently seen today. This same problem can be traced back to Hugo Chavez, who was elected in 1998, who promised to share the country’s oil wealth with the poor. But after the death of Chavez in 2013 Nicolas Maduro took over the socialist government raising the minimum wage 21 times, the most recent increase is March first. The Venezuela Government has since ceased publications of their country’s inflation data and forecasts. Just the day to day prices of items could increase drastically sometimes change every three to four days.

Hearing stories like those of Venezuela, among other countries, can seem horrifying to the average American but taking steps that will limit the fall out as these effects could essentially save the quality of life all Americans have. Continuing on to taking a hard look at the way we and every other American live their lives and creating a simpler and more sustainable way of living that we then pass down to the next generation could be the key to preventing effects such as hyperinflation, being able to comfortably live within the average family income, or being able to live on one earner’s income.