HW 11 Final Project #1

Chosen Modality: Experiential

      In response to the information I learned during the Food Unit, Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and watching Food Inc, I decided to take a 72 hour break from eating meat. So basically, I became a vegetarian. In my family dinner time always has meat included and me and mom have agreed upon that. I couldn't even begin to come up with words to tell my mom I wasn't going to eat the meat she made for 3 days. It simply wasn't going to happen. So I had to get smart, and sneak and not eat meat, making my task twice as hard.  Since I don't eat with my mom and she had already cooked a week supply of food including steak, broccoli ,and corn I figured it shouldn't be that hard to avoid her noticing I was avoiding meat. Since I was trying to avoid the meat I just ate the broccoli, and the corn. For all my meals at home I would just avoid the steak and not eat it.
     I tried to warn my mom ahead of time, to not cook any meat. Meat is a big part of my family and we eat meat just about every night. Chicken is usually the main meat ingredient.  To avoid my mom noticing me not eating the meat off my plate for 3 days was quite a task. Even though I hate to admit it, I threw away all the meat from my plate for 3 days. I found it extremely hard to fill my stomach without meat being included in my diet. I felt as though I had to eat twice as much. Carrots, apples, grapes, strawberries, corn, and cherries just weren't cutting it. There was even a point in time, where I felt I needed to drink liquids to fill my stomach literally.
     To compensate for my lost of meat which is definently a food that really sticks to my ribs and fills me up, I had to eat just about every hour to stay full. Even though I knew there was meat in my fridge in fact I could go there right now and pull out a honey turkey piece of meat. That would completely defeat the point of this experience. I wanted to chomp into a big steak with bbq sauce I fought the urge. It was bizarre to make a conscience effort to avoid meat and led me to realize that having some form of meat on my dinner plate plays a major role in the enjoyment of my dinner. If I were to change one thing about my experiment, I would have just told my mom I wouldn't being eating meat for 3 days and just deal with what she had to say about that. I felt really bad about just wasting meat. Not because I wanted to eat it myself, but because there are many people out there in the world starving.
     While conducting this experiment upon myself I learned that eating meat every day matters a lot to me. It serves purpose to me not only as an enjoyment but, as a necessity. As Pollan stated in Omnivores Dilemma, we as Americans are very customed to the norm of what our society portrays. We try not to question the norm and try to follow it. If we were to deter from the norm path we would be considered weird or special among other people. Eating meat on a daily or weekly basis is an ongoing social practice in this society and for me to straw away from this made me feel weird.
     In  what seemed like a very long 3 days experience, I had really begun to understand my food values in a way I never realized. This experience has taught me that I will never become a vegetarian or a vegan. Meat is just something that really fills me up, and I enjoy and can't imagine living without. I was born an omnivore and I plan to live my life and die as an omnivore.

HW 12- Final Project 2 Outline

Thesis:  Many of the dominant social practices in our society practices that define a "normal" life - on further investigation turn out to involve nightmarish industrial atrocities. 


Major Claim: The U.S. food ways that are seen by the public as the normal food way practices, actually aren't what the average citizen seems to think and believe,they are very unimaginable and the big industrial companies have been deliberately keeping this a secret from us. 

Supporting Claim 1: The food ways that are taken for granted as normal, aren’t actually normal, if you take the time to deeply analyze them there nightmarish. 

#1 Evidence:  Eight years ago, federals struggled gravely to remove the deadly pathogen E. Coli from hamburgers,  eventually a company from South Dakota found a way to save the meat from getting banned injecting it with ammonia.  This method has found E. Coli in 0.06% of the meat is found in samples a year.


#2 Evidence:  Proliferation of certain labeling practices that food companies and retailers use to promote the nutritional aspects of food products


#3 Evidence:  Despite recent studies by surgeons and researchers, cheap corn is continued to be an ingredient in foods especially processed foods( the unhealthier types generally). 


Supporting Claim 2:  The food way practices of America that the big industrial companies have been deliberately hiding from us because they are so nightmarish.


#4 Evidence:  Mad Cow Disease has been a serious problem for over 30 years, however the public has been largely kept in the dark about the topic.


#5 Evidence:  Factory Farming is dangerous for workers, consumers, and livestock despite their popularity in America.


#6: Genetic modification of foods and ingredients found in foods can pose serious risks to humans, domesticated animals, and the environment.


Works Cited Links
1.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=&st=nyt
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/health/nutrition/14label.html
3.  Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan( page 108)
4. http://centerforfoodsafety.org/mad_cow_di3.cfm
5. http://foodincmovie.com/about-the-issues.php
6. http://centerforfoodsafety.org/geneticall7.cfm

HW 10 Food Inc Response

#1

As the fast food industry grows food production will also grow.  Food production overall has seen more change since the 1950's then the past thousand years. There are many huge companies who simply want  mass production of food, subsidized cost, and profit. With these powerful ideas in the minds of the top companies they have a much greater control over the global food supply. The companies simply don't care enough about the consumers as long as they buy the food, the animals as long as they produce,  and the workers as long as they do as there told. They want to make cheap food and lots of it. As the years go on companies decide to add more and more chemicals/ hormones to animals to boost their production. 

#2

The movies were based on the two books Fast Food Nation, and The Omnivores Dilemma.  There was also a lot of information that you couldn't get without watching the movie, and reading the text.  The movie provides the actual visuals which helps people to remember things sometimes, and the text's goes into the specifics and details. The movie had a lot of generalization while the movie had a perspective of Michael Pollan and focused on his details since he's the author.

#3

The main thoughts that this book left me with was having to feel guilty about every meal. I can no longer just eat for fun I have to inspect and watch everything I eat or drink. It really does take the fun out of food to me but hey, I want to live long these are the sacrifices you have to make. This movie did not convince me of becoming a vegetarian or a vegan. It did do a good job of trying but, I was born an omnivore and I plan to stay that way for the rest of my life. Meat is an excellent source of protein even if it's badly processed. I will try and cut down on my meat eating even if my mom cooks meat just about every night. Hopefully my quest for health while eating meat succeeds and I don't get any diseases.

HW 7d

Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Chapter 17: The Ethics of Eating Animal 

Precis:

I began to notice that I am beginning to feel a dilemma because I'm  eating meat. This hadn't happened in a long time, but this was probably because I've been so directly involved in the processes of turning animals into food. The big steak dinner took place this evening right before my beloved steer number 534's slaughter, who I was not allowed to witness or learn anything about it's death date. To be honest I wasn't surprised the meat industry understands that the more people know about what happens in the factories, the less meat they're likely to eat.

Gems:

" That's not because slaughter is necessarily inhumane, but because most of us would simply rather not be reminded of exactly what meat is or what it takes to bring it to our plates." ( Pollan 304)

" Vegetarianism is more popular than it has ever been, and the animal rights, the fringiest of fringe movements until just a few years ago, is rapidly finding its way into the cultural mainstream." ( Pollan 305)

Thoughts:

What are my morals and values exactly? Do I consider food sacred? If so are the animals that are killed also sacred, which means all animals and life in general are sacred? Me and many people have to sit and ask themselves these questions? This new idea of speciesist is very interesting to me is a chimpanzee just as valuable as a human?

Chapter 18:  Hunting

Precis:

Hunting in nature believe it or not, is what a lot of kids dream of doing.  The smells, and the sounds along with being able to use all five senses in the nature is a dream come true.  When I went hunting I was accompanied by the experienced Angelo. In a way I didn't really want to go myself but I practiced shooting my gun and I feel as though I'm ready for the real deal. We drove around in the Sonoma County to a spot where we would hunt pigs. Although I didn't get to kill a pig this time around I will get one next time.  One month later Angelo and I would go hunting and I finally killed my first pig. and i was ecstatic. 

Gems:

"After hunting here for years Angelo has come to the conclusion there distinct groups sharing the oak forest and the grassy ridge above it like three overlapping nations, each with a slightly different map of good pig places," ( Pollan 335)

" I'm actually writing about the hunter's "instinct," suggesting that the hunt represents some sort of the primordial union between two kinds of animals, one of which is me? This seems a bit much. I recognize this kind of prose: hunter porn.

Thoughts:

I think that it's very good that Pollan is doing something hands on not that he hasn't before. It's good that he combines hands on things with things that aren't hands on. He has a variety of ways of gathering information and expressing  It's always good to have many ways to communicate to the reader

Chapter 19:  Gathering

Precis:

Out on my expedition for chanterelle, I began foraging for mushrooms. Foraging for mushrooms  has become quite the secretive skill since you don't want people to know your spots. As I came to learn with time foraging for mushrooms takes extreme focus to gather and be able to differentiate between beneficial mushrooms and toxic mushrooms.

Gems:

"Without fungi to break things down, the earth would long ago have suffocated beneath a blanket of organic matter created by plants;  the dead would pile up without end, the carbon cycle would cease to function,  and living things would run out of things to eat." (376)

" The talent of fungi for decomposing and recycling organic matter is what makes them indispensable, not only to trees but to all life on earth.

Thoughts:

Although I hate mushrooms for the smell and taste this chapter like many others makes me want to bear with the taste or give it another chance.  I thought the phrase mushrooms give something for nothing was interesting.

Chapter 20:

Precis:

On Saturday, June 18th I basically spent all day preparing a meal that either I personally grew, captured, hunted, or foraged or received help from someone else. The meal was specifically made for Angelo,Issac, Judith, Richard, Anthony,Sue, and myself. The meal contained Fave bean toast, Sonoma Boar Pate, Egg Fetuccine, Power Fire Morels, braised leg and grilled loin of Wild Sonoma Pig, and Wild East Bay Yeast Levain, Very Local Garden Salad, Fulton Street Bing Cherry Galette, Claremont Canon Chamomile Tisane, and 2003 Angelo Garro Petite Syrah Wine. That's quite alot of ingredients for a meal so I was prepared for a very interesting taste. I was a bit disappointed that the meal wasn't exactly amazing but that's probably due to my high standard for food.  But the satisfaction of gathering the ingredients and the fact that it wasn't fast or industrial food was worth it.

Gems:

" For we would no longer need any reminding that however we choose to feed ourselves, we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we're eating is never any-thing more or less than the body of the world." (Pollan 411)

Thoughts:

This chapter really made me figure out Michael Pollan's main goal is to educate us and let us know what we consider to be normal food ways are actually very complicated and weird. He showed me what I was really eating even though the companies may try and lie and say otherwise. Me reading this book kind of re-wired my brain in a way. I can no longer eat a meal without being extremely suspicious of how it was made, and what's in it. It is kind of disappointing because food is no longer as enjoyable, and a tedious process now. I suppose it will be worth it in the end and later in life. Hopefully this book has provided me with enough knowledge that I will be able to warn others of the dangers of eating food in America. 

HW#9

One of the techniques that the people in Freakonomics used was bribery. The students/professors at the University of Chicago wouldn't have had a study at all if they hadn't bribed the high schoolers with money. Money served as a good motive to succeed they thought. The bribery with cash didn't go as nearly successful as I or even they thought,  one kid was even to lazy to push himself to do good with the money bribe. Even though things didn't exactly go as according to plan bribery was still a tool they used to gather data.

The simplest intellectual move that I noticed from the movie was simply to go on the streets of New York and ask New Yorkers questions. I think they should have noted where they asked people for example the neighborhood of Chelsea, oppose to the neighborhood of Stuyvesant Town. Regardless, it was a intellectual move, and it primarily took place in the names section of the movie.I felt that this was probably the best possible way to go about this problem as long as they kept varying the races of people they asked, so it would't become biased.  While analyzing the data we figured out there are some patterns in names considered normal,  or unusual. But if you take it a step further the stories behind these names were pretty odd to me.

The last intellectual tool I observed was statistics. I found that statistics were in all parts of the movie but mainly the sumo wrestling section. Until lately, sumo wrestling was a respectable honorable sport especially in Asian society.However, when researchers looked at the stats 75% of the time when a wrestler needed just one more victory to get to the next round, fought a fighter who needed none and had nothing to lose the fighter who needed it more would win. Coincidence maybe but very unlikely.

As far as the sources of evidence relied on my the researches go I would say would be stats. Though stats can be skewed there can be injuries especially in sports, and age even. Also there is such a thing as coincidence. Never rule that out.  For instance with the sumo wrestling section the researchers were trying to point out a possible conspiracy between fighters. As Ben Harker said in his post it is completely possible that the fighter with enough wins was being generous and didn't fight as hard. Especially while knowing that there is money at stake with every win. Also as Ben Harker stated the fighter that needed the win had more at stake if he lost he would be eliminated.

I agree with the statement that Freakanomics served as a good example to our attempt to explore the "hidden in plain sight" weirdness of dominant social practices. The film was much more interesting than I thought it would be even though I had no idea what it would be about. Things we think are normal actually have some weird and complex things going on.  Freakonmics can even relate to our food ways unit. Many things we think are normal in food ways and in the movie weren't really normal. In the sumo wrestling section of the movie they said sumo wrestling has a lot of history behind it, and now Japanese religion has become apart of it. Its odd that our foods are processed and have chemicals/ hormones and many other things that I don't know about and yet we eat them.

HW# 7C

The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Chapter 11: The Animals

Precis:

I overslept at Joel Salantin's farm, to him oversleeping is 6am that just shows you how much work he gets done in a day. His whole farm is like a tiny ecosystem everyone contributes to the well being of the farm in their own unique way. Every one including Joel is just as important on the farm and no one is less important. A lot of the industrial farms use efficiency as their excuse for their methods, however, salantin's farm is efficient in it's on way and theres nothing wrong with that.

Gems:

" Left to their own devices, a confined flock of chickens will eventually destroy any patch of land, by pecking the grass down to its roots and poisoning the soil with its extremely "hot," or nitrogenous, manure."(Pollan 210)

" The chicken feed not only feeds the broilers but, transformed into chicken crap, feeds the grass that feeds the cows that, I was about to see, feed the pigs and the laying hens." (Pollan 210)

Thoughts:

I wonder just how Joel ended up where he is now in life. Where did he go to highschool? Did he finish highschool? If not why didn't he was it in preparation for his farmer life? Does he have a college education? Do you need a college education to become a farmer? One must really wonder these things?

Chapter 12: The Slaughter

Precis:

I thought I had seen about everything Salantin's farm had to offer, but I was wrong because I was yet to visit the slaughter shed. This was one of the few farms where the slaughter took place behind the farm instead of many miles away. The slaughtering process is not what one would initially expect, there are some techniques that are put into place, for example you don't just cut the head right off you cut the artery alongside the bird's windpipe. After that happens is the hard part to sit there and watch as the chicken begins to have spasms, watching the other birds wait there turn, wonder if the chickens suffer a lot, what were the other chickens awaiting their slaughter thinking. Lots of thoughts begin to run through your head. Killing is no easy task it can affect you in may ways.

Gems:

" I wasn't at it long enough for slaughtering chickens to become routine, but the work did begin to feel mechanical, and that feeling, perhaps more than any other, was disconcerting: how quickly you can get used to anything, especially when the people around you think nothing of it."(Pollan 233)

" In a way, the most morally troubling thing about killing chickens is that after a while it is no longer morally troubling."(Pollan 233)

Thoughts:

I wonder how slaughtering chickens day after day would take a tone on me? I guess after doing something like this one may be able to value life more, there certainly is something positive and negative to be learned from here.If I was a customer coming to this farm or any farm at that I would certainly want to see my food "slaughtered" in front of me, it sure would give me a good idea of what goes on behind those close doors.

Chapter 13:  The Market

Precis:

The Polyface Farm supplies strictly eggs, produce, chicken, pork, and beef to restaurants, markets, shops, and local customers. Their goal is to save Earth's resources and energy,preserve relationship marketing, and reform the global food system. Polyface food is about a dollar more per pound than the industrial market charges.  This is because of the governments rules on food processing and the prices of industrial foods which aren't that good. Joel's food was be even cheaper if it wasn't for the high cost of processing at least a dollar per pound. 

Gems:

" If we could just level the playing field take away the regulations, the subsidies, and factor in the health care and environmental cleanup costs of cheap food we could compete on price with anyone." (Pollan 243)

It's true that cheap and industrial food is heavily subsidized in may ways such that its price in the supermarket does not reflect its real cost. But until the rules that govern our food system change, organic or sustainable food is going to cost more at the register, more than some people can afford." ( Pollan 243)

Thoughts:  

What I thought was interesting  was when Pollan noticed how Americans today spend less on food than any other industrialized nation, and probably less than any people in the history of the world. This means that there are many of us who could afford to spend more on food if we actually chose to. When I come from lunch sometimes my friend Rossi Cruz will sometimes ask me "where did I go" and I'll tell him Cosi's. He then responds " How much is food there because you go a lot." This signals me that price of food is important to him and it's not really about the quality of the food it's about the price. Which is perfectly fine. I then respond "well I usually get the chicken ceaser salad when I go there which is really good and an orange juice." The price is about $7.59 for a salad and $1.00 for the orange juice. You also get free bread with a choice of white  or whole grain.  This may seem really expensive and it is, but 1. I'm full and 2 I think it's healthy compared to most foods in New York City. Rossi responds " Wow your crazy I went to the Chinese restaurant and paid about 5.00 for chicken wings and french fries." Rossi Cruz could have paid more and ate at Cosi's with me which is a nice little restuarant with lots of seats, air conditioning, and you can see some of your food made in front of you depending on what you get. He simply chose not to go with me because he didn't want to pay more to eat healthier food. I could have paid less to eat fried chicken and fries and many more things could be included into the meal that I we don't know about. The point here is it's all about what you chose to eat the choice is yours.

Chapter 14: The Meal

Precis:

While at the Polyface farm I began gathering goods from the farm so that I can prepare dinner for a family I have been friends with for a long time. I prepared two roasted chicken, prepared a salad and corn, and made them a souffle( a half dozen eggs flavored by sugar and chocolate). This was an extremely nutritious and good quality meal.  No corn was fed to any animal in this meal, there was no genetic breeding that took place, the animals were allowed to live and eat naturally which most aren't really allowed to do and no chemicals/pesticides were used.

Gems:

"Taking the long view of human nutrition, we evolved to eat the sort of foods available to hunter-gathers, most of whose genes we've inherited and whose bodies we still( more or less) inhabit. (Pollan 267)

"Animals raised outdoors on grass have a diet much more like that of the wild animals humans have been eating at least since the Paleolithic era than that of the grain-fed animals we only recently began to eat." (Pollan 267)

Thoughts:

This was a chapter that really made me think about the animals I eat a lot. When I eat I usually never think about the animal that I am eating. When Pollan said that the animals are usually not allowed to live naturally and eat naturally, something clicked in my head. That's animal abuse, not allowing to let the animals live naturally or eat naturally. What makes people at industrial factories any different than Michael Vick. He abused dogs in a different way but nonetheless these are both still forms of abuse and that's terrible.

Chapter 15: The Forager

Precis:

I decided to try something new I decided to prepare a meal using the shortest food chain possible.  When I say shortest food chain I mean hunting my food, foraging my food, and even growing it on my own.  This could potentially be a very good experience for me.  While doing this I was hoping to be able to connect to nature more, and preparing a meal while fully aware of everything that is going into it.  I eventually called upon the help of my friend Angelo and began taking a hunter education course. 

Gems:

"Now, there are some people ( though not all that many of them anymore) for whom such a radically self-made meal exists firmly in the realm of possibility."(Pollan 277)

"Why go to all this trouble? It's not as though the forager food chain represents a viable way for us to eat at this point in history; it doesn't." (Pollan 279)

Thoughts:

I really was able to peer into who Pollan is and how he became who he is today. Not entirely of course but a bit.  I learned of his childhood which is a significant time in a person's life. Pollan is an extremely curious man and questions almost everything. If I recall right some guy named Albert Einstein was the same way.

Chapter 16: The Omnivore's Dilemma

Precis:

Humans like many other organisms are extremely interesting and go about things in the same or and entirely different manner. Humans have unique eating habits and a varied diet.  Humans are most prone to appeal to a type of food is the food is culturally "tasty" or just tasty to themselves. Many countries with the obvious exception of America of course are able to be healthy without eating less than us necessarily.

Gems:

" Like us, rats daily confront the bounty of nature and its mainfold perils-perils designed to protect plants, animals, and microbes from being eaten." ( Pollan 286)

"Also similarly, we humans manufacture toxins to keep rats from eating our food."( Pollan 288)

Thoughts:

Humans are able to adapt to many situations and environments.  Our tendency to favor sweetness which once helped us in the past now dooms us. 

HW :Growing Our Own Food

I planted my radish seeds a day after every one else started it, but unfortunately I was one of the more careless ones and forgot that my teacher wanted me to bring them home at some point due to foul stench in the classroom. Even though my radish seeds were thrown away I was still able to make observations based on my progress. When I first started out I thought to myself " I've been placed in a much lesser role of a farmer, I have to grow my own food." My reading of Omnivores Dilemma enlightened me that this isn't even the way crops are grown. Although I wasn't terribly eager to eat my sprouts I was curious on how they tasted. What I got the most out of this was that growing your own food isn't as easy as it seems, farmers are really hard workers and should be given much more credit.