Subsistence

In reading “The Inuit Paradox” by Patricia Gadsby, I have learned that subsistence plays a vital role amongst human beings.  Although not all humans subsist, foragers, hunter-gatherers, agriculturists, and horticulturists subsist.  Subsistence is without a doubt adaptive.  Even though a majority of Americans do not subsist, subsistence provides for our way of life.  For instance, vegetation is harvested in farms either on local soil or foreign soil;  therefore, an agriculturists subsistence provides vegetation to be sold on the market.  Nonetheless, subsistence is maladaptive.  Patricia Gadsby writes, “Trans fats are polyunsaturated vegetable oils tricked up to make them more solid at room temperature.  Manufacturers do this by hydrogenating the oils-adding extra hydrogen atoms to their molecular structures-which “twists” their shapes.  Dewailly makes twisting sound less like a chemical transformation than a perversion, an act of public-health sabotage:  ‘These man-made fats are dangerous, even worse for the heart than saturated fats.’  They not only lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL, the “good” cholesterol) but they also raise low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL, the “bad” cholesterol) and triglycerides, he says.  In the process, trans fats set the stage for heart attacks because they lead to the increase of fatty buildup in artery walls.”  The need to subsist has lead to artificial enhancements in much our foods here in the US.  These enhancements increase the chances of suffereing from a myriad of possible health complications.  Furthermore, Patricia Gadsby’s example isn’t the sole enhancement occurring in farm-animals.  Farm-animals and even vegetation are being enhanced with growth hormones.  Growth hormones have been proven to assist in the development of salmonella within cows after they have grazed.  The growth hormone is usually infused into the food the cows eat on some farms.  The cow then eats that food, salmonella potentially develops within the cow and then the cow is lead to the slaughter;  from the slaughter, the cow’s flesh is cleansed and begins to undergo a process prior to becoming marketable.  Has it ever occurred to anyone that traces of salmonella can prove to be hazardous to some of us?  Without subsistence human survival would be impossible.  However, the need to subsist has lead to maladaptive means of subsisting such as the above mentioned examples.