Homework #11: Final Food Project 1

For the final food project part one, I decided to be a vegetarian from Wednesday night through Sunday – almost a full school week. I had tried being a vegetarian before, even a vegan, but the food that I cooked had never really appealed to me. On Wednesday night I was reading over the assignment and decided to give it another try. This time it would only be experimental, so I guess knowing that I soon was going to be allowed to eat meat again made it less intense. I was much more open to trying new things.

            Luckily Wednesday night my mother had already prepared a completely vegetarian meal of hummus, pita, spinach pie, and salad. But Thursday is when the struggle actually began. I had a yogurt for breakfast, but then went to internship where they order out everyday. They decided to have Subway sandwiches that afternoon, which I unfortunately could not take part in. I had to awkwardly state that I had become a vegetarian for school for a couple days, and that I would instead be going to Whole Foods around the corner. I arrived at Whole Foods confident that I could easily find something to eat. Instead I realized that over at the salads bars all I wanted was the chicken dosed in some delicious looking sauce. Sadly I had to pull myself away and after examining the odd looking rice, I settled for a mixture of different pasta salads. It tasted great when I ate it, but I could not help feeling like it was not the best choice, that if I was really going to keep this up I should not only be eating carbohydrates. I finished that night off with a tomato, mozzarella, pesto sandwich, which was delicious. The vegetarian thing did not seem all that bad.

            With Friday, it had already become sort of a routine. I had my yogurt again for breakfast, and then for lunch had avocado and cucumber sushi with a bag of salt and vinegar chips. That night I did not end up eating much, but instead munching on a little pita and hummus throughout the night. Saturday morning instead of my yogurt, I had an everything bagel with cream cheese. That afternoon after my soccer game my mother made me a vegetarian burrito with sour cream, guacamole, beans, corn, rice and salsa. Being a vegetarian still allowed me to eat a lot of the same foods just without meat. For dinner I had tofu that was lightly toasted with breadcrumbs and Sunday morning I started off again with a bagel. Overall, I honestly do not feel that different. But I guess that’s because I have probably gone four days without eating meat before, just without realizing it. I feel like if I continue this further, I might actually begin to feel healthier. But then if I were to do that, it would probably be best for me to set up guidelines for myself, so that I continue to have a balanced diet, not one solely based on one thing. Through this process, I began to understand the other side of things. I almost began to feel better about myself as a person, knowing that my diet no longer consisted of industrialized meat.

            Michael Pollan discusses vegetarianism in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. He makes a good point that even though the vegetarian is eating vegetables and corn, animals like squirrels are being killed around the crops as to decrease damages to them. Vegetarians are then technically supporting the killing of animals. Maybe this leads us to create a different basis for vegetarianism. Instead of focusing purely on the death of animals, we can choose to not eat meat as to not harm our bodies with the chemicals and disease that rest in the meat. This base seems to make a lot more sense, because no matter how you eat, animals’ lives are still at risk.  But are we fooling ourselves. Who is to say too, that the vegetables vegetarians eat are not covered in pesticides? That would obviously mean that they would then only eat organic vegetables. But as we have learned from Pollan, organic does not always mean healthy. Our society is so set on industrial farming and mass production that the organic farms also feel the need to become industrialized. This has led so far to lower standards and bending the rules. One farm that Pollan describes has a lawn outside of the chicken house that the chickens never actually use. It is solely there for the purpose of demonstrating that the animals still have access to outdoor areas. If the organic farmers strive to find loopholes in the organic farming industry with animals, who is to say it is not the same for the plants that vegetarians eat? It is ethically hard to be a vegetarian, when the system is so corrupt. Our food system has become such an industrial atrocity, that it makes it hard to eat healthy anymore, even with eliminating meat from our diets.

            Although Pollan has proved that being a vegetarian in this food system does not always result in eating as purely as one wants, vegetarianism is still important. It is a form of protest against the industrial meat system; the refusal to fill our bodies with harmful chemicals, and also the refusal to eat animals that have suffered. As a meat eater myself I do not find it hard to stand the idea of eating an animal, but I do agree with the idea that they should not suffer, which rotational grazing at Polyface Farms has provided. But the more vegetarians we have, it is possible that slowly the system will change; nothing is impossible. When we were hunters and gatherers, we had a much more refined system with integrity. With vegetarianism, we are pushing for that integrity again, but this time without meat. It is not to say that eating meat is a bad thing, I myself eat meat, but the ethics behind the meat in our country are completely skewed. It has come to the point where we no longer know what we are eating and who prepares the food we eat. Being a vegetarian is a step closer to understanding our food and having a direct connection with the earth through the food we eat. The sun energy is being directly transferred from plant to body, instead of through our meat system that takes all value away.

Homework #12: Final Food Project 2 - Outline

Introduction

Thesis: The dominant social practices in the current American society - which are to be believed a part of life’s normal routine - are in reality nightmarish industrial atrocities.

Body Paragraphs

Argument One

Major Claim: Our routine industrial food system, as normal as it seems, is damaging to both human and animal health through its opposition to the rules of evolution.

Supporting Claim One: Confined Animal Feeding Operations are unhealthy for the animals that live in them.

Evidence One: Animal byproducts in feed cause mad-cow disease. ¹

Evidence Two: Cows who eat grain can develop liver abscesses and sudden death syndrome. ¹

Evidence Three: Feeding corn to the animals goes against their nature, causing the over diagnosis of antibiotics.⁴

Evidence Four: The chemicals from the plants cause severe sickness in the animals.³

Evidence Five: The animals suffer mentally because they can’t react on their instincts.⁶

Supporting Claim Two:  Humans suffer through the chemicals in the animals, from the environment that CAFOs create, and through the subsidizing of corn.

Evidence One: Corn fed to animals is dosed in pesticides, which are transferred to the human. ¹

Evidence Two: Corn-fed beef is far less nutritional to the human.¹

Evidence Three:  The operations create air pollution, damaging our health.²

Evidence Four: Chemical runoff pollutes the water surrounding the CAFOs.⁵

Evidence Five: Subsidizing corn makes it cheaper, but makes unhealthier foods more available to low income families; giving them no choice.^8,9

Evidence Six: Obesity rates are higher than ever before.⁷

Works Cited

¹ http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/feed/

² http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/ra05/mlc3_05.html

³ http://www.public-health.uiowa.edu/ehsrc/cafostudy/cafo_6-2.pdf

⁴ “One of the most troubling things about factory farms is how cavalierly they flout these evolutionary rules, forcing animals to overcome deeply ingrained aversions. We make them trade their instincts for antibiotics,” (p. 76, The Omnivore’s Dilemma).

⁵ http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/home.cfm?program_id=7

⁶ “The proper measure of their suffering, in other words, is not their prior experiences but the unremitting daily frustration of their instincts,” (p. 310, The Omnivore’s Dilemma).

⁷ http://st4tic.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/corn-subsidies-how-congress-is-shortchanging-our-health-and-sweetening-things-for-the-food-industry/

⁸ “But as productive and protean as the corn plant is, finally it is a set of human choices that have made these molecules quite as cheap they have become...” (p. 108, The Omnivore’s Dilemma).
9 "When food is abundant and cheap, people will eat more of it and get fat,” (p. 102, The Omnivore’s Dilemma).

Homework #10: Food Inc. Response

            Our food system is generated out of industry and organic farming. The Industrial food industry is completely corn and chemical based. These chemicals that are fed to the cows and put on the corn eventually infect our bodies in the form of viruses such as E. Coli. Corn has become subsidized, making it possible to use it cheaply to extend many different products. This in turn supports an unhealthy diet, especially for impoverished people. The industrialized food production system makes it so that they only food they can actually afford is the unhealthy food. On the other hand we also have the organic food industry. There are farms such as Polyface farm that supply meat from grass fed animals. Joel Salatin sees his farm as natural: the animals do all of the work. This type of farming uses no chemicals and the slaughtering of at least the chickens is done directly on the farm performed by him and his workers. This type of farming introduces a healthy alternative to industrial farming. Through our industrial farming we have developed an “I to It” relationship to the world and its inhabitants. In other words, a pig for example, is only a mere object to us with no life quality. We need to start seeing everything as “I to You”.

            A movie is a visual adaptation of a book, but the two do not always demonstrate the significance of information equally. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma everything is thoroughly explained through narrative and facts. The reader is able to form their own visuals in their mind, leading them to their own degree of insightfulness. During the film, the visuals are already provided, which I guess you could say is hard fact. We are then able to interpret everything from seeing, but no longer have an in depth explanation by those whose creation we are watching. The viewer has full freedom to understand what they are seeing in a unique way. Food Inc. offers the ideas of two different authors and this physical view of what was being examined. But secretly, they do influence our interpretations through the music that plays in the background. Anything that they consider bad has a very dark and sinister beat, while the more natural farming presented is accompanied by happy, upbeat music. The book does not alter our thoughts in this way; it only provides what it thinks through words, which we analyze through the process of reading.

            The movie was a lot like the book, and the book in turn filled in many of the gaps in the movie, so I do not have too many questions left. I can say though that I agree with the ideas presented. Our food system is really out of control and is no longer humane. The government is promoting bad health habits in impoverished areas, and then says it is their own fault. Instead of placing the blame on the poor, we need to stop subsidizing junk food, which is causing all of these problems. This food system is at fault for so many of the things wrong with our country. These diseases that are breaking out just because of infected meat are ridiculous. Why do people seem to care so little about food? It is such a personal and accounted for object in our lives.  Not only that, we seem to have learned to ignore the value of life. The animals that we are killing live in such unhealthy states and are slaughtered without playing their actual role in nature. We could say that we do not value our own lives either, because we feed ourselves these infected foods and encourage people to buy unhealthy foods because of their low price. The entire system is corrupt, from the processing of the food, to those who should be evaluating the processing. We have the wrong people in charge; the people, who themselves worked in industrial farming and started this ongoing fad. The entire system needs to change, but it probably never will. 

           

            

Homework #7d: The Omnivore's Dilemma

Chapter Seventeen – The Ethics of Eating Animals

Précis

            People believe that we should treat animals as equals because we both have “not suffering” in our best interests. The slaughter of animals can only be justified when they live a happy life before the slaughtering.

Gems

“It may be that our moral enlightenment has advanced to the ponnit where the practice of eating animals – like our former practices of keeping slaves or treating women as inferior beings – can now be seen for the barbarity it is, a relic of an ignorant past that very soon will fill us with shame,” (p. 305).

“Half the dogs in America will receive Christmas presents this year, yet few of us ever pause to consider the life of the pig – an animal easily as intelligent as a dog – that becomes the Christmas ham,” (p. 307).

“If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans for the same purpose?” (p. 307).

“But where their interests are the same, the principle of equality demands they receive the same consideration. And the one all-important interest humans share with pigs, as with all sentient creatures, is an interest in avoiding pain,” (p. 308).

“The proper measure of their suffering, in other words, is not their prior experiences but the unremitting daily frustration of their instincts,” (p. 310).

Thoughts

            This idea makes sense: why should animals not be our equals? Obviously this does not mean inclusiveness in our political society, but that we should respect their social structure. Animals themselves have evolved to have their own set of rules and necessities that we need to respect. It is completely unfair of us to take away their habitats only for our benefit. I am not saying that vegetarianism is necessarily the way to go, but we need to give the animals their natural habitats in our industrialized farming. The cruelty really begins when nature becomes industry and the animals no longer are living beings but mere objects, which we consume.

            Is there really any such thing as a vegetarian or vegan? There was a part of the chapter that talked about how the vegetables that vegans eat need protection. This protection involves killing any predators in the area. They therefore may not be eating the meat, but are still supporting the slaughter of animals. It seems that in our society there is no way of getting around the death of animals. But at least we can begin to justify it by treating them as humanely as possible. 

Chapter Eighteen – Hunting: The Meat

Précis

            Hunting is a natural process that humans have developed through evolution. Genetically, we have a sense of pride in killing an animal, but from a distance we notice its immorality.

Gems

“But this is not a passive or aesthetic attention; it is a hungry attention, reaching out into its surroundings like fingers, like nerves,” (p. 334).

“Predator and prey alike move according to their own maps of this ground, their own forms of attention, and their own systems of instinct, systems that evolved expressly to hasten or avert precisely this encounter...” (p. 336).

“A brain chemical that sharpens the senses, narrows your mental focus, allows you to forget everything extraneous to the task at hand (including physical discomfort and the passage of time), and makes you hungry would see to be the perfect pharmacological tool for man the hunter,” (p. 342).

“Only the hunter, imitating the perpetual alertness of the wild animal, for whom everything is danger, sees everything and sees each thing functioning as facility or difficulty, as risk or protection,” (p. 343).

“And although Ortega says one does not hunt in order to kill, he also says that one must kill in order to have hunted,” (p. 349).

Thoughts

            I can perfectly understand Pollan’s mixed feelings about the death of the pig. Hunting used to dominate the human food chain hundreds of years ago; therefore it is only natural that we have developed a quality of pride. It is our society that creates the immoral views that now cause this ambiguity. I am not saying it is right to kill animals; it is only in our nature. At the end of the chapter he discusses how the sun feeds the tree, which provides the acorn, which the pig eats, and the humans in turn in the pigs. But then, the humans decompose back into the earth and nurture the soil, ultimately completing the cycle. Everything has served its purpose, then can we really call it inhumane to kill an animal?

            He seems to be quite scared of actually shooting the pig. I would be too; to take another’s life seems intense. I believe his fear came from his desire to not kill the pig. He felt uncomfortable in the situation he was in and deep down did not really want to follow through with it. But once he shot the pig, this whoosh of adrenaline came in. Are these chemicals in our brain really adapted from the hunting days? It seems that the views of our society counteract these chemicals and deem hunting an “unworthy act”. But maybe that is again just going against the evolutionary path. 

Chapter Nineteen – Gathering: The Fungi

Précis

            Gathering is another activity that the human has adapted super senses for. It can, though, represent a greater dilemma for the omnivore because of the risks of false identification.

Gem

“The gardener is a confirmed dualist, dividing his world into crisp categories: cultivated land and wilderness, domestic and wild species, mine and theirs, home and away,” (p. 365).

“Wild mushrooms in general throw that dilemma into particularly sharp relief, since they confront us simultaneously with some of the world’s greatest rewards and gravest risks,” (p. 371).

“For the individual human, his community and culture successfully mediate the omnivore’s dilemma, telling him what other people have safely eaten in the past as well as how they ate it,” (p. 372).

“We don’t really know. All of which makes mushrooms seem autochthonous, arising seemingly from nowhere seemingly without cause,” (p. 374)>

“If the soil is the earth’s stomach, fungi supply its digestive enzymes – literally,” (p. 375/6).

Thoughts

            I do not really like mushrooms that much, and cannot identify with his feelings of the hunt. I have never been gathering myself, but I guess it is something that I might attempt, to experience it. As fulfilling as he describes it, gathering does not seem very efficient. Our society could definitely not be based on a hunting/gathering food system anymore, but it does seem like a very natural process.

            I never realized that mushrooms were so complicated. I find it interesting that they might have this “lunar energy”. Could this new type of energy actually be more beneficial? Is there any other organism that possibly takes in lunar energy? Mushrooms always seemed so simple; I thought they were just fungi that grew in forests. Apparently though there is so much that scientists have yet to find out about them. I wonder, if there will ever be a way in which we can study mushrooms to a greater extent. Maybe a machine will be invented and we will be able to extract their roots without damaging them. Mushrooms pose a difficult task not only in the omnivore’s dilemma, but also to scientists who want to further their research. 

Chapter Twenty – The Perfect Meal

Précis

            Creating all of the food for a meal first hand – through hunting and gathering – gives people a direct connection to the earth and their environment. The meal becomes a thanks and dedication to the nature that provided it.

Gems

“Reserving the historical trajectory of human eating, for this meal the forest would be feeding us again,” (p. 399).

“This one had done that, restoring my appetite for this meat after the disgust I’d felt cleaning the animal. I was reminded of what Paul Rozin had written about a traditional cuisine’s power to obviate the omnivore’s dilemma by clothing the exotic in familiar flavors,” (p. 401).

“Another thing cooking is, or can be, is a way to honor the things we’re eating, the animals and plants and fungi that have been sacrificed to gratify our needs and desires, as well as the places and the people that produced them,” (p. 404).

“...to preserve their life and form living things necessarily destroy life and form,” (405).

“I realized that in this particular case words of grace were unnecessary. Why? Because that’s what the meal itself had become, for me certainly, but I suspect for some of the others, too: a wordless way of saying grace,” (p. 407).

Thoughts

            The meal he made sounded actually really delicious. He made so much but it cost so little. I guess you cannot really say that eating healthy is expensive; it really depends on your environment. He had the chance to go hunting, gather mushrooms, and pick cherries, but not every environment provides such a natural landscape. Maybe a solution could be to make natural environments more accessible to people, so that they too can experience such a meal.

            No matter how we eat, something must die in order to provide life for another organism. A vegetarian is still taking a life of a plant, just as the carnivore that of the animal’s. It is only nature that organisms give up their life for that of another. We have just brought it to the extremities, creating these taboos around food. Once we learn to accept that to survive, other organisms must in some way give something up, we may be able to eat in peace. But before that happens, we must also learn that this process is an offering from the other organism, and that we should not exploit it as we do in slaughterhouses and industrial farming. Humans need to learn to coexist with nature and evolution. 

Homework #9: Freakonomics Response

            Our world seems quite simple from the outside; you are successful because you work hard, and you fail because you are lazy. The protagonists in Freakonomics go about trying to find the hidden truths in this simplicity. They look at what drives people to act the way they do, get the jobs they have, and do as well as they do in school. In the discussion of their experimentation and statistics, they talk the about the effects of correlation and causation, if the two actually relate.

            In order to understand the correlation and causation that is discussed in the film, we must first identify the sources of evidence that they protagonists rely on. In the first segment, names are discussed. Two experts contemplate if a name can really determine someone’s future. The one scholar says that no it is actually based on where you grow up. He does not use any specific evidence, but only his observations. He finds that African Americans tend to not be as successful because of the lack of education in their parents and the instability in their households with single parents. You could say that this is an “innovative” way of providing evidence, but the man really only gives us his word for it. On the other hand, the other man says yes, your name does affect your future. He sent out the same amount of resumes for both a man named Tyrone, and a man named Jake. In his experiment, Jake ended up getting many more calls back, probably because of discrimination on Tyrone’s name. Tyrone would have needed five more weeks in order to get a job. This then proves that indeed your name affects your future. If you have a more unique name, people tend to associate it with a lower income family. This experiment presented a very interesting way of considering the effects of the name, since it was a real world experiment and people responded the way they did subconsciously.

            Another experiment conducted was the one with incentives. When people have incentives, maybe they do indeed work harder to succeed. They went into a school and gave each kid who got grades C or above by the end of each month 50 dollars. The two protagonists of the documentary were an African American kid and a Caucasian kid. The Caucasian kid never ended up stepping up his grades; at first he seemed intrigued but let them slip away. Unlike the Caucasian boy, the African American boy’s interest was sparked. He believed that with that money, he could achieve happiness. Therefore he tried harder, did his work, and received 50 dollars by the end of the month. In addition to the findings that yes, sometimes incentives can help, they focused a lot on the parents’ involvement. With the support and encouragement of the parents, the kids also seemed to strive a little more. This experimental was quite innovative; who would have thought children could produce such results. It may have not given a direct result, as one kid did succeed and the other did not, but it showed how the person’s environment affected them too.

            Statistics were also highly touched upon as evidence in Freakonomics. In the segment about sumo wrestling, they looked at the art of corruption. They took the statistics of the sumo wrestlers and examined who won and who did not in each match. In order to come to the top ranks of sumo wrestling, you need to win eight games. They found that in games when it was someone who had gone 7:3 against someone 8:2, the 8:2 person would let the 7:3 person win, because the first person was already insured the spot in the higher ranks of the championship. This is a radical idea because the art of sumo wrestling is looked upon as completely pure. Instead of using trust as evidence of purity in the sport, the Freakonomics experts looked at statistics and concluded their results. In addition, they also interviewed a couple of the wrestlers, but they did not want to appear in the movie for fear of being banned.

            Crime has gone down in past years and the Freakonomics experts conclude that it is because of the legalization of abortion. Again statistics were used in this analysis. They found that in the 1980s, crime rates were at an all high. But then, once abortion was legalized, they began to drop rapidly; first in those states where abortion was initially legalized. They figured that all of the unwanted children would then not be born, and the children were not longer brought into society. Unwanted children tend to be those raised the least effectively, causing them to act out and cause crimes. But without this, crime began to decrease according to the statistical findings of the experts. Nobody would have found this relationship, it is a completely original idea found through statistics.

            After looking at their evidence tactics, we can now discuss their interpretations of correlation and causation. In the beginning of the movie, they give an example from the 1900s when polio was at an all time high. Scientists noticed that in the summer was when people tended to catch polio most. They then saw that in the summer ice cream was also sold and consumed at the highest rates. Therefore they believed that ice cream was the cause of polio. Obviously as later found out, it was not, proving that correlation does not mean causation. After making this point, they do indeed in the first experiment show that correlation is causation. The name experiment, which was already mentioned before with the resumes, proves the relationship between someone’s name and their success. The more “white” name got many more job offers than the typical “black” name. Therefore the experts contradict themselves: first they show an example where correlation and causation do not relate, but then in their next example apparently they do. The name someone has causes them to succeed or not. Then they do the test with the incentives. They admit that the parents probably have a lot to do with a child’s success in school, not only what they will receive (incentives). The African American boy’s mom was tough on her child, but the Caucasian boy’s mom talked the talk, but we did not actually see her crack down on her son. Therefore they again change their minds and say well, incentives may cause someone to do better, but it is not the only factor. Instead of focusing on either correlation is causation or it is not, they show that sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. This does not seem like a very strong conclusion.

            Freakonomics posed some interesting ideas, but it was not quite as effective in exposing the “hidden in plain sight” truths. The truths that they discussed were not necessarily in plain sight, they were things that you had to dig a lot deeper for. And these truths are also their own opinions, yes they do have numerical evidence, but who is to say there is not another cause too? They believe that they have found the one right answer, but for things like success, is it really possible for there to only be one answer? The world’s simplicity is actually quite complex for each individual. Their past, their family their surroundings, everything is different for each person. It is impossible that one rule applies to all of them. The movie does indeed suggest new innovative ideas, such as the impact of abortion laws on crimes rates, but these hidden truths are not necessarily universal. Theirs ideas though are not worthless, they ask interesting questions, but they experimenters themselves are too limited.

            The movie does indeed relate to our food unit. Again the argument that your name does not determine your future made by the first scholar can be applied here. He believes that it is not your name, but your family and background that cause your success. With a broken household it is much harder to succeed according to him. He also associates a broken household with less income. In our food unit we have seen that those with a lower income tend to eat an unhealthier diet. Without the right nutrition, people become weak, overweight: simply unhealthy. This then too can affect somebody’s success. Nobody wants to hire an unfit person for hard labor; they are too unreliable. It would make much more sense for the employer to hire someone fit and able. Therefore your health can also affect your success; people want a healthy worker. When health is directly related to the consumption of food, we see that families eat differently based on their income, just as the man suggests the person’s name differs because of their background. Therefore income can affect food, which affects health, which can in turn also affect success. 

Homework #8: Growing Our Own Food

It was pretty satisfying growing my own food, especially when it finally grew. I watered my sprouts regularly, but they did not seem to grow at all in the beginning, which was quite frustrating. I can now understand as a farmer using nothing but nature can be hard, especially when the crop does not seem too reliable. But eventually the sprouts took their course and began to blossom. Seeing this created a feeling of pride; I felt that I had actually accomplished something. The process though did seem a little forced, because I wanted my sprouts to grow so that I would be able to do the assignment. I reluctantly watered them and ate them, but by the end it was actually a fulfilling experience. I am sure that it can be tempting to use pesticides and other chemicals, but I believe knowing that you did everything on your own and organically is be so much more gratifying. The sprouts did not taste too bad either, they were nice and crunchy; they tasted fresh. I cannot say that for a lot of processed, big manufacturer foods that I have tasted before. Growing food in this way just seems so much more natural; it is the natural evolution of our food, not the one we have enforced.

Homework #7c: The Omnivore's Dilemma

Chapter Eleven – The Animals: Practicing Complexity

Précis

            In rotational grazing, the animals do all of the work; each animal benefits the other, whether it be sanitizing, fertilizing, feeding, or another process that creates a healthy farm.

Gems

“But Polyface is proof that people can sometimes do more for the health of a place cultivating it rather than by leaving it alone,” (p. 209).

“In nature you’ll always find birds following herbivores...The egret perched on the rhino’s nose, the pheasants and turkeys trailing after the bison – that’s a symbiotic relationship we’re trying to imitate,” (p. 211).

“In an ecological system like this everything’s connected to everything else, so you can’t change one thing without changing ten other things,” (p. 213).

“Farming is not adapted to large-scale operations because of the following reasons: Farming is concerned with plants and animals that live, grow, and die,” (p. 214).

“By contrast, the efficiencies of natural systems flow from complexity and interdependence – by definition the very opposite of simplification,” (p. 214).

“Sometimes the large-scale organic farmer looks like someone trying to practice industrial agriculture with one hand tied behind his back,” (p. 221).

Thoughts

            Sustainability is highly present in rotational grazing. The animals all depend on each other to thrive, which I find really interesting. Nature obviously evolved with this codependency in mind; it seems silly to ever change it. What first sparked in Salatin’s father’s mind that made him think this was a good idea? It seems odd that it would occur to so few people. Nature is complex; therefore harvesting nature must also be complex too. By simplifying farming, we are taking away from the farm’s quality. We try to benefit ourselves with simplicity but end up damaging our bodies in return.

            Why does the government make it so hard for organic and rotational grazing farms? Should they not be encouraging them? Salatin has a pretty good production rate, and with more farms just like him all over the country, rotational grazing could really blossom. This type of farming may not be able to supply mass production, but with the way our society is right now, we should really be looking towards quality instead of quantity anyway. 

Chapter Twelve – Slaughter: In a Glass Abattoir

Précis

            Chicken slaughtering is vital but a messy process. Because the slaughter is not performed as often in rotational grazing farming, people are able to maintain their humanity.

Gems

“The problem with current food-safety regulations, in Joel’s view, is that they are one-size-fits-all rules designed to regulate giant slaughterhouses that are mindlessly applied to small farms...” (p. 229).

“Slaughter is dehumanizing work if you have to do it everyday,” (p. 233).

“...The pastoral idyll has always felt itself besieged by malign outside forces, and on this farm that role is played by the government and the big processing companies who interests they serve,” (p. 230).

“...However scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity,” (p. 226/7).

Thoughts

            The ways of slaughtering in rotational grazing farming seems much more effective. The chickens are treated much better, and the people are able to keep their integrity. Having the “slaughterhouse” open so that costumers can see how it is done is also a really great idea. It shows the costumer that they have nothing to hide and creates a strong trustworthy relationship between the customer and farmer. Why do large manufacturers tend to hide so much? If they had an honest business, there probably would not be such a strong need for an alternative food system.

            The government creates far too many rules for the small farmer. I find it unfair of them to hinder these small businesses when they are actually following the rules of nature. I wonder if they intend to do this for a reason other than the fact that the farms are not so easily industrialized. Knowing America, I am sure somebody has come up with some conspiracy theory that entails the government’s alternative motives. It seems odd to me that they would try to limit something that would actually do some good in our country.

 Chapter Thirteen – The Market: “Greetings from the Non-Barcode People”

Précis

            Buying food directly from farms insures the integrity of the farm and offers a more communal environment as opposed to a supermarket.

Gems

“He believes the only meaningful guarantee of integrity is when buyers and sellers can look one another in the eye, something few of us ever take the trouble to do,” (p. 240).

“I tell them the choice is simple: You can buy honestly priced food or you can buy irresponsibly priced food,” (p. 243).

“Yet this artisanal model works only so long as it doesn’t attempt to imitate the industrial model in any respect,” (p. 249).

“We can still decide, every day, what we’re going to put into our bodies, what sort of food chain we want to participate in. We can, in other words, reject the industrial omelet on offer and decide to eat another,” (p. 257).

Thoughts

           Everyone who stated their opinions about the food seemed pretty content with the outcome. It seems that knowing the farmer makes a much stronger community and people feel more comfortable with their food. Rotational grazing farming also adapts itself to the community; they do not produce more than would fit in the landscape. Why do big producers feel the need to take over so much land? It creates a negative image of them in that community, forming two opposing sides.
           It is good that Salatin sends out a letter to make people aware of his farm. Without this small promotion, no one would really know about it, since the mass media revolves around larger producers. Why is more of America not aware of these types of farms? The media is so centered on organic now, you would think that they would advertise grass fed animals too, an even healthier option. But maybe it is because bottom line is they still favor industry because of its efficiency. Rotational grazing really falls apart when it becomes industrialized, possibly not making it as favorable among the media. 

Chapter Fourteen – The Meal: Grass Fed

Précis

            Grass fed foods have a higher nutritional and health value as they can help ward off disease, and taste more like themselves. These benefits naturally come from the fact that we have evolved to eat grass fed animals.

Gems

“The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss described the work of the civilization as the process of transforming the raw into the cooked – nature into culture,” (p. 264).

“Taking the long view of human nutrition, we evolved to eat the sort of foods available to hunter-gatherers, most of whose genes we’ve inherited and whose bodies we still (more or less) inhabit,” (p. 267).

“As long as one egg looks pretty much like another, all the chickens like chicken, and beef beef, the substitution of quantity for quality will go on unnoticed by most consumers, but it is becoming increasingly apparent to anyone with an electron microscope or a mass spectrometer that, truly, this is not the same food,” (p. 269).

“When chickens get to live like chickens, they’ll taste like chickens, too,” (p. 271).

“Every meal we share at a table recapitulates this evolution form nature to culture, as we pass from satisfying our animal appetites in semisilence to the lofting of conversational balloons,” (p. 272).

Thoughts

            I never realized that grass fed animals were this beneficial, but I guess it makes sense. When people switched over to eating so much corn, did they not get sick really often? I understand that there are a lot of health setbacks, but was there a subtle but effective change? It seems as if we did not realize what we were getting into before it was too late; now we are stuck with this industrial mindset.

            Hearing about the “real taste” of chickens makes me really curious. My mother buys her meat from the butcher, but does this mean I have never tasted really meat? Is everything I have been eating corn fed? If so, then this means that I do not know the actual taste of the food. It seems though that it would be really hard to find good quality meat, even in the city. If there was more opportunity to find good quality food, I would definitely make the effort to buy it, even if it was more expensive.

Chapter Fifteen – The Forager

Précis

            The hunter/gatherer method would not survive in our society because we would outnumber our game. It is vital though to prepare a meal with full consciousness of how it was created, which the hunter/gatherer method allows.

Gems

“So even if we wanted to go back to hunting and gathering wild species, it’s not an option: There are far too many of us and not nearly enough of them,” (p. 279).

“By contrast the hunter, at least as I imagined him, is alone in the woods with his conscience,” (p. 281).

“For most of us today hunting and gathering and growing our own food is by and large a form of play,” (p. 280).

“We don’t have to go back to the Pleistocene...because our bodies never left,” (p. 280).

Thoughts

            The hunter/gatherer method seems sustainable, but probably would not thrive in our world. First of all, there are not even enough animals for us to have a constant supply and that would create even more conflicts because of competition. The method probably died out because it could not supply enough food for everyone with such a growing community.

            It does seem though that we are made for this type of food collection. Why could we not have evolved then, to do it in larger quantities to support the society? We are changing the nature of our bodies when we eat a surplus of grain. Hunting also seems as though the individual could be confident in their food choices; they obviously know where their food came from because they made it themselves. In our society, who would not want this reassurance? We focus so much on our health but lack the ability to recognize that there are methods that could really benefit it, ones that our body is fit for.

Chapter Sixteen – The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Précis

            The omnivore’s dilemma is that as humans we can eat anything, but with that comes the stress of figuring out what exactly to eat. The American society has built a structure of guidelines to make the process easier, but it is prone to change.

Gems

“The blessing of the omnivore is that he can eat a great many different things in nature. The curse of the omnivore is that when it comes to figuring out which of those things are safe to eat, he’s pretty much on his own,” (p. 287).

“For the omnivore a tremendous amount of mental wiring must be devoted to sensory and cognitive tools for figuring out which of all these questionable nutrients it is safe to eat,” (p. 291).

“Cooking, one of the omnivore’s cleverest tools, opened up whole new vistas of edibility,” (p. 293).

“The same process of natural selection came up with both strategies; one just happens to rely on cognition, the other goes with the gut,” (p. 294).

“Thus a pigeon would die of hunger near a basin filled with the best meats, and a cat upon heaps of fruits and grains, although each could very well nourish itself on the food it disdains if it made up its mind to try some,” (p. 297).

Thoughts

            The omnivore’s dilemma is an interesting one; it is something I have never really thought about. In America it is even harder because we do not have a national food. If we did have a national eating custom, such as the Europeans, would we have less health problems? Even if we would not have as many, it is too late to change anything now. People have become too lazy and would most likely be skeptic. Our food system seems to work good enough though, in the ways that it makes our choices a little bit easier, but of course not any healthier.

            Why did we evolve to be this way? I do not understand why rats’ and our eating habits cover such a broad area. Why us? Is it that humans were developing faster than other animals, or was it just by accident? I found myself wondering at one point in the text if something like grass or corn had evolved to take over society, and we were at their mercy. But I guess we are, as discussed in the first chapters of the book. We subconsciously promote their production by doing things such as mowing the lawn. Yes of course we do also do it consciously in the creation of farms, but maybe we really are just serving them.

            

Homework #7b: The Omnivore's Dilemma

Chapter Six – The Consumer: A Republic of Fat

Précis

            Like the Alcoholic Republic, the more of something that we have, the more we will consume it. With an abundance of corn, Americans are expanding their diet and become obese.

Gems

“When food is abundant and cheap, people will eat more of it and get fat,” (p. 102).

“Deep cultural taboos against gluttony – one of the seven deadly sins, after all – had been holding us back,” (p. 106).

“Our bodies are storing reserves of fat against a famine that never comes,” (p. 106).

“But as productive and protean as the corn plant is, finally it is a set of human choices that have made these molecules quite as cheap they have become...” (p. 108).

Thoughts

            Over processing needs to stop because it does not help the economy and it has a negative impact on our health. Why has no alternative solution been created? Corn itself may be easily accessible and adaptable to different environments, but it does not mean that we need to make that our main focus. Our society should grow seasonal foods, which will not create abundance and reduce the need for so many pesticides to keep things fresh. There will also be no need to import out of season foods, reducing the amount of fossil fuels used. But then again, our society has developed such a dependency on a wide range of foods, that it seems almost impossible to adopt this method.

            Everyone is now concerned with obesity, but it is our own fault. If we keep providing all of this excess food, we are going to consume lots of empty calories causing obesity. Why are more regulations not instilled in order to cut down on the amount of food processed? Why do people not want to accept the fact that industrial farming is taking a serious toll on our society? It seems that nobody is open to change; they only want to diagnose the problem, not solve it.

Chapter Seven – The Meal: Fast Food

Précis

            Fast food is all just corn processed into different forms. Corn has colonized the human and become accessible in any environment i.e. a car.

Gems

“These healthier menu items hand the child who wants to eat fast food a sharp tool with which to chip away at his parents’ objections,” (p. 110).

“Whatever it is...for countless millions of people living now, this generic fast-food flavor is one of the unerasable smells and tastes of childhood – which makes it a kind of comfort food,” (p. 111).

“In truth, my cheeseburger’s relationship to beef seemed nearly as metaphorical as the nugget’s relationship to a chicken,” (p. 114).

“But then, this is what the industrial eater has become: corn’s koala,” (p. 117).

“Corn’s triumph is the direct result of its overproduction, and that has been a disaster for the people who grow it,” (p. 118).

Thoughts

            Fast food while convenient is just corn represented differently. If the main basis of fast food is that it is easily prepared and cheap, why can we not find another way to provide the same benefits, but in a healthier way? It seems that fast food really has no value at all. There is nothing nutritious about it, and it only seems to hurt us.

            Corn really does seem to have taken over any system of food in our nation. With its overproduction, it is obvious that this would happen. If we are to have this abundance, we could at least make something good out of it. The food that we create barely resembles foods. In terms of meat, it does not even seem that we are eating meat anymore, but instead corn in meat form. Is it really that much of an effort to have grass fed animals? If we continue to only think about quantity and not quality, our children will adapt these ways and the cycle will never be broken.

 Chapter Eight: All Flesh is Grass

Précis

            Pastoral farming is a sustainable alternative to industrial farming. It is all about a coexistence with grass; it feeds animals, and the animals nurture it.

Gems

“But as I would understand by the end of my week on Salatin’s farm, the old pastoral idea is alive and, if not well exactly, still useful, perhaps even necessary,” (p. 125).

“Salatin is the choreographer and the grasses are his verdurous stage; the dance has made Polyface one of the most productive and influential alternative farms in America,” (p. 126).

“A great many animals, too, are drawn to grass, which partly accounts for our own deep attraction to it: We come here to eat the animals that ate the grass that we (lacking rumens) can’t eat ourselves,” (p. 127).

“Salatin was suggesting that the organic food chain couldn’t expand into America’s supermarkets and fast-food outlets without sacrificing its ideals,” (p. 133).

Thoughts

            It seems just to run a farm based on the relationship between the human and the earth. But in a society like today, I doubt it would be very likely for this type of farming to dominate. Pollan does state that it may even be necessary, which I find completely true. There will come a time when industrial farming can bring us no further; we will come to an abrupt halt. Before this happens, because it could bring great chaos, we should start a slow transition into a lifestyle that coexists with nature.

            Without rumens we depend on the animals that can eat grass to eat it. If they are not eating grass, than we are disturbing the natural process. We too need the nutrients that it in turn supplies the animals. Therefore without this relationship between grass and the being, we are hurting ourselves. Why is pastoral farming not the main farming type in America? Does it thrive in any part of the world? While we like to think of ourselves as a superpower, I believe that in terms of agriculture, we could learn a lot from other countries.

 Chapter Nine – Big Organic

Précis

            The leading organic farms in our society are industrial organic; they are large suppliers. After investigating them, it can be seen that organic farms might not always be completely truthful or necessarily more beneficial.

Gems

“And so, today, the organic food industry finds itself in a most unexpected, uncomfortable, and, yes, unsustainable position: floating on a sinking sea of petroleum,” (184).

“The inspiration for organic was to find a way to feed ourselves more in keeping with the logic of nature, to build a food system that looked more like an ecosystem that would draw its fertility and energy from the sun,” (p. 183).

“Cuddled by us and our chemicals, the plants see no reason to invest their resources in mounting a strong defense,” (p. 180).

“Seldom if ever stepped upon, the chicken-house lawn is scrupulously maintained nevertheless, to honor an ideal nobody wants to admit has by now become something of a joke, an empty pastoral conceit,” (p.173).

“Artificial manures lead to artificial nutrition, artificial food, artificial animals and finally to artificial men and women,” (p. 148).

Thoughts

            As I have said before, our society does not seem ready to take on the idea of organic. It is apparent through the examination of these organic farms that nothing stays purely organic; something must become industrial. These farms are forced to change their ways, and end up substituting the pesticides with other habits that are not necessarily any better. The regulations for organic farming are so laid-back that the entire system is almost a joke. Why do people not see the significance of organic farming?

            Food suppliers should be ready to take on a couple different farms as long as they grow their food organically; quantity should not be their main focus. Because food suppliers have large demands, small farms are required to produce a lot more. Without this high demand, small farms could thrive better; therefore a food supplier needs to branch out and take from many smaller farms. This will help decrease overproduction and also lessen the need for the industrialization of organic farming. 

Chapter Ten – Grass: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pasture

Précis

            Rotational grazing is focused on a more direct consumption of sun energy; first the grass takes it in, which is eaten by the cows, and in turn we eat the cows. It has a hard time in our society because of its inability to be industrialized efficiently.

Gems

“We should call ourselves sun farmers. The grass is just the way we capture the solar energy,” (p. 188).

“Cows eating grasses that had themselves eaten the sun: The food chain at work in this pasture could not be any shorter or simpler,” (p. 195).

“The moment Budger shears the clump of grass, she sets into motion a sequence of events that will confer a measurable benefit on this square foot of pasture,” (p. 196).

“We seldom focus on farming’s role in global warming, but as much as a third of all the greenhouse gases that human activity has added to the atmosphere can be attributed to the saw and the plow,” (p. 198).

“Grain is the closest thing in nature to an industrial commodity: storable, portable, fungible, ever the same today as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow,” (p. 201).

Thoughts

            Rotational grazing seems to be the most affective way of farming discussed so far. It is not easily industrialized, as grass cannot be packaged and handled as easily as corn, but maybe that is a good thing. This aspect would lead to less corruption in the rotational grazing community, turning a healthier profit. Why is rotational grazing such a new idea? Is it not based off of prehistoric farming, or nature itself? The situation for the cows seems so natural; it is hard to find a downside to the argument.

            Global warming is such a big concern now, why is rotational grazing not being seen as a possible solution? This process eliminates mass amounts of carbon in the atmosphere, as opposed to industrial farming, which creates it. Would our society crumble if we made a transition out of industrial farming to something more sustainable? This must be the case because otherwise I do not see why the transition has not already been made. 

Homework #7: Reading Response Monday

The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Michael Pollan

Introduction

Précis

            Americans are constantly changing their ideas about food and within that altering their eating habits. Unlike many cultures, America does not have a tradition around food: a certain national food that everyone eats; this suggests that this is the root of our constant change in attitude. The “Omnivore’s Dilemma” is all about the difficult job of deciding which food to eat, as some of it can be harmful and some beneficial. In order to understand the dilemma, we have to consider where the food originally comes from.

Gems

“Yet I wonder if it doesn’t make more sense to speak in terms of an American paradox – that is, a notably unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily,” (p. 3).

“So violent a change in a culture’s eating habits is surely the sign of a national eating disorder. Certainly it would never have happened in a culture in possession of deeply rooted traditions surrounding food and eating,” (p. 2).

“Omnivory offers the pleasures of variety, too. But the surfeit of choice brings with it a lot of stress and leads to a kind of Manichaean view of food, a division of nature into The Good Things to Eat, and The Bad,” (p. 4).

“Some philosophers have argued that the very open-endedness of human appetite is responsible for our savagery and civility, since a creature that could conceive of eating anything (including, notably, other humans) stands in particular need of ethical rules, manners, and rituals,” (p. 6).

Thoughts

            So far the idea of the book is interesting, the idea that we have to trace food all the way back to its origin to fully comprehend it. It seems almost impossible that things such as the supermarket itself start out as a plant. I have questioned before what the “national food” is in America, and have ceased to find an answer. Now reading this, I understand that we do not generally have one, but because of that our eating habits are constantly transforming. Why is it though, that the human body developed in this omnivorous way, while other animals such as koalas have a set diet? This evolutionary happening is as argued both a setback and an advantage: “...responsible for our savagery and civility.”

            The idea of  “a division of nature into The Good Things to Eat, and The Bad” seems similar to the concept of the dominant discourse in food: food as medicine, or as poison. There are so many choices of food that we become perplexed and struggle with making an informative decision. The book also states that because of our lack of food traditions, we are much more susceptible to the influences of scientists and the media. We then adapt their ideas of what is good and bad. This in turn is a very macro makes micro situation; the institutions are shaping the individuals’ (the Americans’) perspectives on food.

            I do not exactly understand his metaphor of an “eating disorder” throughout an entire nation. An eating disorder is generally defined as “any range of psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits, “ (Apple Dictionary). The eating habits of the United States are not necessarily “disturbed”, but instead are undergoing constant change. Is it really an abnormality when change is applied to something? It seems almost natural that food habits would change as a result of new discoveries; change is a consistent aspect of life.

Chapter One – The Plant

Corn’s Conquest

Précis

           

            Most foods can be traced back to some plant that grew in soil, in particular corn; the meat we eat comes from animals who were fed corn, our sodas have corn syrup in them and so on. Mexicans call themselves “maize”, or say they are “corn walking”, because so much of their diet is in turn made up of corn. But Americans now eat on average more corn than Mexicans do. Corn was adapted into American society because of its ability to feed the masses in any environment. The Indians taught the Europeans how to grow it when they came to America, and with that, the Europeans adapted corn, eventually creating an atmosphere where corn was dependent on humans for reproduction.

Gems

“For an American like me, growing up linked to a very different food chain, yet one that is also rooted in a field of corn, not to think of himself as a corn person suggests either a failure of imagination or a triumph of capitalism,” (p.20)

“Corn is the hero of its own story, and though we humans played a crucial supporting role in its rise to world domination, it would be wrong to suggest we have been calling the shots, or acting always in our own best interests. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that corn has succeeded in domesticating us,” (p. 23).

“In the plant world at least, opportunism trumps gratitude. Yet in time, the plant of the vanquished would conquer even the conquerors,” (p. 24).

“Several human societies have seen fit to worship corn, but perhaps it should be the other way around: For corn, we humans are the contingent beings, “ (p. 27).

Thoughts

           Corn has formed our society in such a way that without it, it seems that we could not go on. It seems absurd that one crop could take over so dominantly, especially when it is so dependent on humans for survival. It is interesting that humans found such value in it as to continue its reproduction, especially as the humans tend to take the submissive role in the relationship. Corn has become this metropolis that rules in the farming world. Why is it though, that products made from corn are rendered as unhealthy? Corn syrup is supposedly terrible for the human body, even though it is produced from such an organic substance. What is the necessity in making the syrup unbeneficial; or more, how does this happen?

            The versatility of corn particularly appealed to the Europeans when they immigrated to America. We would think that when someone values versatility, they might also value variety. It seems though that the Europeans did not see much need for different types of crops, but instead selected one with the most efficiency. I believe this is where the ideology started of corn having a powerful presence. The “worship” of corn was simply passed through different generations, and because of its versatility, people did not consider other crops. With such narrow mindsets, we cut ourselves off from nutritional foods. But since our society has been developing in this pattern for such a long time, it will be difficult to fall out of this pattern. It is a sequence that we have made our society and therefore must live with it, the environmental and health impacts aside.

Chapter Two – The Farm

Précis

            As time has gone on, farms have become more specialized, only harvesting specific foods and in George Naylor’s case corn and soybeans. New hybrids of corn have therefore come out, which enable farmers to plant more of the stalks next to each other, creating a bigger surplus in the end. The biggest advancement in the corn industry was in 1947, with the switch to the production of chemical fertilizer by the munitions plant in Muscle Shoals, Alabama; corn became dependent on fossil fuels instead of sun energy. But there are times when corn prices drop, and farmers are left with a surfeit of corn. In order to make up the difference though, they must produce more and more corn.

Gems

“One of every four Americans lived on a farm when Naylor’s grandfather arrived here in Churdan; his land and labor supplied enough food to feed his family and twelve other Americans besides. Less than a century after, fewer than 2 million Americans still farm – and they grow enough food to feed the rest of us,” (p. 34).

“The 129 people who depend on George Naylor for their sustenance are all strangers, living at the far end of a food chain so long, intricate, and obscure that neither producer nor consumer has no reason to know the first thing about the other,” (p. 34).

“Basically, modern hybrids can tolerate the corn equivalent of city life, growing amid the multitudes without succumbing to urban stress,” (p. 37).

“A mere 2 percent of the state’s land remains what it used to be...every square foot of the rest having been completely remade by man. The only thing missing from this man-made landscape is...man,” (p. 38).

Thoughts

            The cycle of production that corn farmers follow seems ridiculous. They produce more, in order to sell more, to pay for the mass production, which in turn does not sell enough, meaning they have to harvest more corn in order to make up the difference. There must be a more effective way of producing corn so that it is more beneficial and constant. With the production of more corn, people are also pushed out of farm areas. What is the point of taking up livable space, when the corn that replaces it, is in turn not always sold?

            People should understand from where their food comes, otherwise they have no possible way of determining its effect on their bodies. Mass producers can easily use complicated wording to cover up hidden truths. George Naylor produces corn, but does not know any of the 129 people that he feeds. While it may be an indirect sale, he still is the one affecting their health. Our food system has become so complex in such an unnecessary way. In order to reach these 129 people, his corn must be processed in so many different ways, which also has a big impact on the environment. His farm also is harmed through the use of synthesized nitrogen. The runoff poisons his water and possibly the surrounding community. Is it really worth hurting the environment with this dependency on fossil fuels? When his grandfather farmed, it may have been slower, but the sun’s energy had a smaller carbon footprint. People need to wrap their heads around the idea of saving the environment and creating an effective source of food production; things should be efficient, but not so efficient that they begin to take away from other aspects of our world.

Chapter Three – The Elevator

Précis

            Corn is grown to a certain standard: acceptable insect damage, appropriate moisture and cleanliness. Corn then is not specialized and farmers instead compete with who can produce the biggest bulk of corn. The farmers then receive profit through their Farmers Cooperative and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Gems

“To be honest, I felt a revulsion. In Mexico, even today, you do not let corn lay on the ground; it is considered almost sacrilegious,” (p. 58).

“I should have known that trading any single bushel of commodity corn is as impossible as tracing a bucket of water after it’s been poured into a river,” (p. 63).

“But nature abhors a surplus, and the corn must be consumed. Enter the corn-fed American steer,” (p. 64).

Thoughts

            The idea of corn being filtered into one big “golden river” of corn seems a little odd to me. Farmers should be recognized for their work and should not be forced to meet simple standards. This entire idea of commodity corn stifles creativity in production. I do agree though that all the corn produced should at least be healthy and edible. Or why not just make the standards a little better, so all food products created by corn are of the highest quality?

            Corn is dominating our society, but it seems as though it is making it have less worth. First of all, with the way it is strewn across the dirt roads in Illinois, we find it no longer a sacred food, but take it for granted. But also with so much corn circulating in the economy, its price is going down, putting new pressures on the farmer to create more, to earn more. Why does our society not introduce a new crop that can substitute as corn? Maybe even a healthier one. 

Chapter Four – The Feedlot: Making Meat

Précis

            Cows live no long on farms but in feedlots where they eat a diet consisting of corn and added protein. This can sicken the cows, as they are naturally herbivores. We in turn eat this meat and can also therefore be exposed to diseases, such as E. Coli.

Gems

“Industrial meat takes an almost heroic act of not knowing or, now, forgetting,” (p. 84).

“He has, of course, another, quite different identity – as an animal, I mean, connected as all animals must be to certain other animals and plants and microbes, as well as to the earth and the sun,” (p. 81).

“Hell, if you gave them lots of grass and space, I wouldn’t have a job,” (p.79)

“One of the most troubling things about factory farms is how cavalierly they flout these evolutionary rules, forcing animals to overcome deeply ingrained aversions. We make them trade their instincts for antibiotics,” (p. 76).

“In any city it’s easy to lose track of nature – of the transactions between various species and the land on which everything ultimately depends,” (p. 73).

Thoughts 

            If it is so unhealthy for cows and for us, why does the agricultural industry continue to feed cows corn? I understand that it is cheap and fattens them up, but isn’t our health more important? It seems to me that cows are no longer considered animals, only food sources. We need to draw the line somewhere to keep our humanity. It’s fine to eat the cows, there is no way to stop an entire nation from doing it, but improvements in the care of them could be reached.

            I wonder if the people at slaughterhouses feel any remorse about the cows’ lives. At the feedlots they seem to care more about their jobs that anything else, as the one man states, “...I wouldn’t have a job.” But if he continues to feed his cows in this way, he may even contract some disease. The whole idea of going against nature seems odd; everything evolved this way for a reason. When we counteract the ways of evolution, it is impossible to have a positive outcome. 

Chapter Five – The Processing Plant: Making Complex Foods

Précis

            The corn that is not fed to animals at feedlots is sent to food processors, which break it down into various chemical compounds. This allows us to separate food from nature.  These chemicals are then used to replace the natural ingredients in food, making them artificial and cheaper.

Gems

“But the underlying reductionist premise – that a food is nothing more than the sum of its nutrients – remains undisturbed,” (p. 98).

“As Tyson understood, you want to be selling something more than a commodity, something more like a service: novelty, convenience, status, fortification, lately even medicine,” (p. 96).

“Like every other food chain, the industrial food chain is rooted at either end in a natural system: the farmer’s field at one end, and the human organism at the other,” (p. 94).

“Step back for a moment and behold this great, intricately piped stainless steel beast: This is the supremely adapted creature that has evolved to help eat the vast surplus biomass coming off America’s farms...” (p. 90).

Thoughts

            Why do people shy away from nature so often? The way nature has evolved has given us food options, without the need for artificiality. Preserving foods is understandable; people should be able to keep food for a while, and taste foods from other countries. But in the way that they load chemicals into the food in order to substitute so many natural tastes, it becomes too much.

            There is a lot of pressure now to come up with the next big food product. As demonstrated by General Mills, there is heavy competition because anyone can knock off the food that you create. While this competition may be good as it stimulates the economy with new products and more consumerism, the health of actual consumers is being hurt.

            The food is being processed to the point where it is indigestible. What is then the point of food when no nutrients are being absorbed? Because a special starch cannot be broken down into glucose, it is supposedly healthy for diabetics. This is unnecessary though, when they are so many more much healthier alternatives. Our corn could be put to much better use.