The chapters I covered for the first quarter of this book were 1-5. Chapters 1-5 covered pages 1-99 in this book. They are titled: 1) The Plant: Corn's Conquest, 2) The Farm, 3) The Elevator, 4) The Feedlot: Making Meat, and 5) The processing Plant: Making Complex Foods.
The first of the main topics covered was corn. It was discovered that corn, or some derivative of corn exists in one form or another, in nearly everything we eat. Even salmon and cows are being fed corn when they are being groomed for our consumption. Corn pops up in everything from soda, to beer, canned fruit, and hot sauce.
The Farm is the second chapter in the book. Pollan goes to a farm in Iowa to see how much corn makes it to our supermarkets. He discovers that the farmer is going broke, and that the corn and soybeans cant be eaten unless they have been processed or fed back to livestock. And yet, because corn is in almost everything we eat, this is where most of our food comes from. The corn only grows two kinds of food! Another problem: corn is taking up more and more farmland, but because of its abundance, its price is dropping, keeping farmers close to the red.
The Feedlot describes how the cheap corn in The Elevator is used to become our hamburgers. It talks about how corn is used as feed to help dispose of our nations corn surplus. It explains that as much as 60% of America's corn goes to livestock.
And lastly, the Processing Plant chapter discusses how one of the oddest things about the corn we produce, is how little we actually eat. The corn we consume as corn, off the cob, or in tortilla style foods, amounts to less than a bushel of corn per person, a year.
Cool new words!
That is didn't know before:
atavistic: of, pertaining to, or characterized by atavism; reverting to or suggesting the characteristics of a remote ancestor or primitive type.
Most of what I have read seems to make the point that we overproduce corn to the point that its worth drops so far that about half of the money farmers live on is stipends from the government. Farming has become a job that it is becoming nearly impossible to make your own living at it. What is confusing to me about this is that it is still so needed. We have found or created many new ways to use our surplus of corn that no matter how much we will have, we can always find use for it feeding livestock or creating new products.
Wow, I did not realize how much we use corn for a lot of things. It is really confusing to me too how farmers are not being able to make it yet we do need them still so much? I feel very bad for farmers because from what I hear many of them live paycheck to paycheck and still barely make it by. Also, the statistic about corn, corn-on-the-cob, and tortilla chips really surprised me because when I think of corn this is all I really think of so I thought the bushels would be much higher.
ReplyDeleteWow I guess I also didn't realize how much corn is used in our everyday foods and yet we don't consume nearly all that much when it comes down to it. It's sad that farmers struggle with finances especially since they produce much of what we eat as a society. I've heard that the ethanol used from corn can be used for a source of gas and then in turn be more environmentally friendly. Nice post.
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