Livable Cities and Food

Livable Cities and Food

The Value of Rankings and the Meaning of Livability. ... The Economist and Forbes base their rankings primarily on data from the Mercer consulting company, which annually measures "quality of living" standards, using data such as crime rates, health statistics, sanitation standards, and expenditures on city services.

A sustainable food system is a collaborative network that integrates several components in order to enhance a community's environmental, economic and social well-being. It is built on principles that further the ecological, social and economic values of a community and region.

Livable Cities

This weeks presentation on local foods and our presentation of livable cities were both very informative and important information in our everyday lives. Living and growing up in New York, I took local transit and buses to get to school in the city, which was most convenient and affordable at the time. If you are enrolled in a high school or middle school more than five miles from your home, you are granted a student Metro Card which gives access to up to three rides a day to and from school and to and from a school event as well. Being able to live in a city expanded my understanding of what life in the suburbs can be like. Being able to sustain a healthy city involved a lot of people but being able to recycle, have reusable bags for groceries and make time to go to the local farmers markets on weekends is a big plus when living in a city like New York.

Local Farmers Markets

I enjoyed listening and watching the PETA video about the meat industry and their large effects and impacts from it. Watching this weeks presentation, second to ours was very informative about food, local resources and what we can do to help prevent more consumers of meats. This can occur such as cutting down on meat weekly.

Life in the City

This week our classmate's presentation was all about food and agriculture. We learned about organic farming, industrialized farming, factory farming, and GMOs just to name a few. I learned that the USA's organic certification process was actually pretty stringent compared to other countries, and that a large majority (80% or so) of Cuba's food is organically grown. They also talked about community farms and a few different projects that have been successful (some more than others). This whole chapter made me realize that having the Food Forest on campus is actually a really cool concept.

Local Food

The presentation last week on food was very eye opening. I now know that not only is the

raising and slaughtering of livestock causing large amounts of harmful emissions of methane

and other gases, but it is also harming the human body. Livestock especially cows are being fed

cheap modified food for the sole purpose of producing the largest cows for the most meat

possible while doing it in a shorter time period than is natural. This is done by adding a number of chemicals to the cow and its food. By the time the meat has been sent to the local grocery store it is hard to even estimate how many chemicals are in the meat. Humans then proceed to put all those chemicals into their system. This chemical infusion is happening to a majority of the food people eat today especially Americans whose whole society is focused around money rather than health. Many people including myself do not believe the increase in sickness and disease has no correlation to the increased amount of unnatural food being consumed.