Reflection: Weeks 5-8

Weeks five through eight in Environmental Health have shown me many things in the world that I have been oblivious to. Some of the things we have discussed are:

• The Future of Food
• CSPI-Scoring Your Diet
• Read'N'Seeds-Last Child in the Woods
• Graphical Headers
• Movies-"Fresh", "Green", "Tapped"
• Environmental Working Group-Cosmetic Products
• Junking

The future of our food is at stake. Many farmers are having to make the choice of whether to raise their animals and crops naturally or use pesticides or hormones. Even though hormones can help your animals produce more they are not good for them. Animals should produce what they were born to make, not what we want them to produce. Pesticides are also not good. Many times they can damage crops or crops can become resistant to them after so long.

After doing our CSPI activity, Scoring Your Diet, I learned a lot about the choices of food I make. When buying food you should always check the labels. If possible you should always try to get organic or natural foods. For example, when looking at meats look for hormone free or grass-fed. These will be the best meats for you because they were raised the right way. I was actually really surprised by my results because my meat intake was low but my diary products were high. Many people are under the impression that eating animal products does not really affect the environment when it is the exact opposite.

For this class we had to choose a book to read. I read "Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv. This book was great. Its main point was to address the lost connection between children and nature. Before reading this book I never even thought about this because it never affected me. This is not true. It turns out my generation along with several others are part of the children that never really experienced nature. This saddens me because I see now how much nature has to offer and I missed out. To this day I am guilty of taking nature for granted. As the saying goes, "You never know what you have until it is gone". I want to change this by starting to play an active role in the environment.

A couple of other interesting activities we did were made a graphical header and searched a cosmetic product we used often. Making the graphical header was a lot of fun. We were able to choose a photo then upload it onto a site called Picnik. This site has many ways to edit pictures from adding borders and text to changing the color to reducing red eye or exposure. The other activity we did was eye opening. We got the chance to search a cosmetic product we use often. I chose hairspray. My results showed my hairspray was moderately hazardous and could cause cancer, allergies, reproductive toxicity, or etc. This was scary because you never seem to question the products you use daily because they "seem" safe.

The movies we have watched so far have also been very eye opening. From chemical plants on the Mississippi River to clean drinking water to fresh foods. I have learned a lot from these movies but the one that stuck out the most was "Tapped". When Dr. V asked the question, "Who owns the water?", I had no idea. The first thought that came to my head was the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). When it comes down to it though, big corporations end up owning a lot of our water. What blows my mind is if we are able to drink water out of a facet for free why buy a bottle of water? Yes, I am guilty of buying plastic water bottles but that is going to change. By reducing the use of plastic water bottles we could dramatically lower the amount of garbage produced.

The last topic I am going to discuss is junking. Junking to me is when you take something you or someone else no longer wants and make into something new. I think junking is a great way to save money, make a homemade decoration, and be creative. By making something yourself it shows your original and talented while also helping out the environment because it is one less item you have to buy. I am very excited to start junking my own projects for when I get my own place!