Simple+Complexity

Ryan Saunders Simple complexity The recent organic food craze has many people asking why it really is a better way to produce food, as it is often more expensive to load supermarket shelves with Organic foods than industrially produced food. This is supposedly because it is harder to grow food without using chemical fertilizers on plants and steroids in animals. We know this probably isn’t the best way to raise our food, when faced with the choice between cheap food that is not very nutritious and expensive organic food with a good reputation, it seems like it makes economic sense to choose the cheaper food. However, "Society is not bearing the cost of water pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illnesses, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and water - all of the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap" (Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma). While it may seem like a more economical method of production, all of the hidden long-term effects of industrial agriculture are bound to come back around and bite us, as they already are. Health care is becoming more expensive, partly because the Average American diet is so bad that it leads to problems in the future. What really seems like the simpler option in food choices is really more complex. The seemingly complex process of producing organic food is really very simple. By consuming simple, wholesome, local food, there are no unknown factors. You know what you're eating. If you are what you eat, which would you prefer?

"As a society we Americans spend only a fraction of our disposable income feeding ourselves – about a tenth, down from a fifth in the 1950's.Americans today spend

"The simplest way to capture the sun's energy in a form food animals can use is by growing grass: 'These blades are our photovoltaic panels' Joel says" (307).

"Koestler felt English lacked a word to express the complex relationship of parts and wholes in a biological or social system. A holon (from the Greek holos, or whole, and the suffix on, as in proton suggesting a particle) is an entity that from one perspective appears a self-contained whole, and from another a dependant part" (Pollan, 215).

Many people assume it is more difficult and more expensive to produce and eat organic food. When faced with the choice between cheap food that is not very nutritious and expensive organic food with a good reputation, it seems like it makes economic sense to choose the cheaper food. However,