Modern farming methods now intend to increase the production of food to increase crop yields and to produce food faster. After the First and Second World War, there wasn’t enough food to go around for everybody and so people were starving. Farmers needed to come up with an idea to produce more food at a faster rate. As a result, fertilisers were introduced.
Fertilisers and pesticides increase food production. Fertilisers are chemicals that increase crop yields by providing minerals such as nitrate, phosphate and potassium that plants need to grow. Fertilisers can be natural or artificial; artificial fertilisers are made by humans. Pesticides are artificial chemicals that increase crop yields by killing pests that feed on the crops. This means that fewer plants are damaged or destroyed. The pests that cause disruption are usually microorganisms, insects or mammals. Artificial foods if food that have been intervened with.
Selective breeding is another example of human interference with food production; it is used to increase crop yields. Selective breeding involves selecting plants or animals with good characteristics to reproduce together in order to increase productivity. The offspring produced are again breed together and this process is repeated for many generations to produce plants and animals with useful characteristics (high yields, disease resistance, pest resistance, high meat, egg, milk quality). I think selective breeding is artificial because humans interfere with nature.
However, not all food production is made artificially. Organic farming is an example of natural food production. Organic farming is a natural process which involves food being produced without the use of pesticides or artificial fertilisers. Fertilisers can be used but they are natural e.g. compost and manure. This type of farming is natural and the food produced is also natural, there is no human interference with the production of organic farming.
In conclusion, I believe our human diet is mainly artificial. The majority of food production is all processed and have been in contact with fertilisers and pesticides. There are not many food production processes that are completely natural. Organic food is usually expensive as they haven’t been in contact with fertilisers; many people look at the price of food and select the cheapest. Artificial food is cheap because fertilisers produce more food resulting in lower prices. Genetically modified foods are also artificial. Genetically modified foods (GMFs) are foods resulting from genetically modified organisms. GMFs are a result from selective breeding, an example: rice is genetically modified to contain high amounts of Vitamin A. Human interference with foods makes it artificial. Meat and vegetables are natural foods but the use of fertilisers to make them grow faster makes it artificial. Many foods are processed resulting in them being artificial, and not many people buy natural foods freshly grown, they buy processed food from the supermarket. Overall, the human diet is mainly made up of artificial foods, from the use of fertilisers and with human interference. The production of natural foods is not as big as artificial food due to the higher demand of food therefore the human diet is mainly artificial.
