The final quarter of the book covers chapters 16-20 named: 16) The Omnivore's Dilemma, 17) The Ethics of Eating Animals, 18) Hunting: The Meat, 19) Gathering: The Fungi, and 20) The Perfect Meal. These chapters covered pages 287-411.
The first chapter I read in this section doubled as the title of the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, chapter 16. In this chapter, Pollan explains the problem that Americans have when it comes to food. When we have so much food to choose from, what do we pick? He also points out that America is so diverse, with people from so many different backgrounds, that we will have a very diverse selection of food. Our country has no singular tradition of food, which is why our cultural norms can change so easily. Just in the last decade, think of how we have strayed away from carbs. How many other countries can you think of that would change the focal points of their diets so often?
In chapter 17, The Ethics of Eating Animals, he decides he needs to spend some thought on the ethics of eating meat. He reads a copy of Peter Singer's book called Animal Liberation. Singer poses questions that can be summarized as: how come we as humans justify not eating less intelligent humans but use the same logic to eat animals? I thought that was kind of a dark question to ask but he also says that if you were to say "because we are human and they are animals", well then we would be a "speciesist". Pollan ends up exchanging emails with Singer, and Singer makes a point that the principle of eating animals isnt wrong, its the practice. Pollan states that slaughterhouses should have glass walls, to ensure humane efforts are taken in slaughterhouses.
In chapter 18, Hunting: The Meat, Pollan goes on two hunts for a wild pig. The first hunt ends up unsuccessful. But during the second, he is one of two men who shoot and kill a pig. He described his feelings of the kill first as happy and grateful to have slain an animal. But then his feeling changes, he now feels disgusted, both by what he has done, and for the fact that the pig had begun to be dressed. And after this is all over, he sees a photo of him after the kill when he is very happy and excited, then felt a great sense of shame. Through all of this, he says he would rather suffer with this level of disgust, than become a vegetarian and miss out on all the meat he loves.
In chapter 19, Foraging: The Fungi, Pollan goes mushroom gathering with a friend who is more experienced. When they end up finding some, they go home to cook them, but Pollan feels much more comfortable eating the ones that his friend, Angelo, had picked. After throwing his away he realizes that this is one of the signatures of omnivores, we would rather eat something that someone else has and lived to tell about it.
In chapter 20, The Perfect Meal, Pollan finally makes a meal that features the big he had killed in chapter 18. One part I found interesting, was him saying grace, he thought it would be too cheesy to thank the food that he was about to eat. He then realizes that that form of grace was already done in the way that he had found and prepared the meal with such care. He states that he knows most families wont be able to prepare meals this way, that it just isn't practical. He knows this type of meal is more of a ritual, and as such it still does have a place in our lives.
Summary:
This book was very interesting from beginning to end. It was something I really enjoyed overall. I loved how he dove head first in to finding out where our meals come from, and how much effort it takes. Some of the most interesting things I will take with me are things about the corn industry. The fact that corn is used to make almost everything we eat, about how it is fed to animals unnaturally, and about how it loses almost 90% of its food energy... I don't think I will ever forget these things. I also really enjoyed the farm chapter, about how the cows and chickens help form a circle of life with each other to contribute to a self-sufficient farm. I think this book will have an effect on me that I will start to put more thought in to what I am eating. I know I want to lean towards more organic foods when I can, and that there is a price that goes along with that. I am willing to pay for what I believe is a better product, produced in a better way. I think that these are important matters, farms and communities should be self sufficient, there would be a lot less potential for food shortages if all communities work to provide for themselves, independent of other parts of the world. Overall, I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone interested in the food they eat or looking for new perspective on the food industry or our own cultural norms. For those who don't care, there will still be McDonalds.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Eye Opener: Ecological Working Group
The cosmetic product I use everyday that I chose for this review is Old Spice Antiperspirant Deodorant. This review is done from cosmeticdatabase.com and is really helpful for finding out about your products or ones you may want to try.
The product that I chose to review, partially because I use it every day, is Old Spice Antiperspirant Deodorant Invisible Solid. I really like this product and have used it since it came out a couple years ago. (The Fresh Collection is newer, but I used their other scents before these were available)
The deodorant scored fairly well in all categories except one: neurotoxicity/allergies/immunotoxicity/miscellaneous irritation score of 8/10. This is due to the fragrance ingredient. And while I like the way it smells, it isn't something I need. So if it was possible to offer the product free or fragrance I would be okay with it. And as it is currently, it isn't a big enough concern for me to consider a switch, although I think it would be interesting to investigate new products.
The product that I chose to review, partially because I use it every day, is Old Spice Antiperspirant Deodorant Invisible Solid. I really like this product and have used it since it came out a couple years ago. (The Fresh Collection is newer, but I used their other scents before these were available)
The deodorant scored fairly well in all categories except one: neurotoxicity/allergies/immunotoxicity/miscellaneous irritation score of 8/10. This is due to the fragrance ingredient. And while I like the way it smells, it isn't something I need. So if it was possible to offer the product free or fragrance I would be okay with it. And as it is currently, it isn't a big enough concern for me to consider a switch, although I think it would be interesting to investigate new products.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Read 'n' Seed 4: The Omnivore's Dilemma
For the third quarter of this book I read chapters 11-15. They were called: 11) The Animals, 12) Slaughter, 13) The Market, 14) The Meal, and 15) The Forager.
In Chapter 11, Pollan spends a day learning how a farmer, Salatin, runs his farm. He sees how Salatin tries to imitate nature in the way that birds will follow livestock, feeding on the larvae and parasites while helping to fertilize the soil left behind. He does this by pulling a couple wagons that chickens live in behind a tractor, then letting them out where his cows had been the previous day. (For those of you where in Mrs. V's Environmental Health class, this was shown in the documentary "Fresh") It is this kind of efficiency that makes the author question the way the word efficiency is used to describe a farms processes.
In Chapter 12, Pollan goes with Salatin to the de-assembly line to learn how to prepare chickens for market. What was interesting about this is that while this is happening, customers can see their dinner being killed. This forces accountability on the farmer because if he wants to keep customers, he must keep it clean and humane. It's hard to imagine what we would see if we could look in to a large corporation's slaughterhouse.
In Chapter 13, there is much discussion about the price of food now. Salatin says that food as Wal-Mart is not cheap, but "irresponsibly priced", and that we must take into account all of the hidden costs of industrialized food. The author gives statistics that Americans only spend about 10% of their income on food. This number was closer to 20% nearly 50 years ago. He theorizes that we have found ways to pay for things that aren't necessity, like TVs and cell phones, and asks what should our priorities be?
In Chapter 14, very appropriately titled: The Meal, Pollan wanted to bring some of Salatin's meat back home to California to eat with his family. But he soon decided that it would go against the principles of a local farm. So he brings the food to a friends house to share a meal with them.
In Chapter 15, Pollan decides to create a meal that he has done all the gathering, growing, and hunting himself. He knows it is a different kind of journey to accomplish this. Because as he points out, the hunter-gatherer food chain no longer exists. He wants to follow this idea though because he wants to go as far into the food chain that we need to as he can.
These five chapters were very interesting because it deals with a lot of what I think of when I think of what I want to eat, where the food comes from, and how it gets there. The farm he was at was small scale, self sufficient and he really went through the whole process of farm > market > meal. I think this was discussed in a video I saw in class, but if communities can rely on themselves for food, then there will be less catastrophic food shortages. When there is a massive recall due to contamination, or if there is a shortage because of a natural disaster, what do we do then? I believe more people would be better served by having self sufficient communities.
In Chapter 11, Pollan spends a day learning how a farmer, Salatin, runs his farm. He sees how Salatin tries to imitate nature in the way that birds will follow livestock, feeding on the larvae and parasites while helping to fertilize the soil left behind. He does this by pulling a couple wagons that chickens live in behind a tractor, then letting them out where his cows had been the previous day. (For those of you where in Mrs. V's Environmental Health class, this was shown in the documentary "Fresh") It is this kind of efficiency that makes the author question the way the word efficiency is used to describe a farms processes.
In Chapter 12, Pollan goes with Salatin to the de-assembly line to learn how to prepare chickens for market. What was interesting about this is that while this is happening, customers can see their dinner being killed. This forces accountability on the farmer because if he wants to keep customers, he must keep it clean and humane. It's hard to imagine what we would see if we could look in to a large corporation's slaughterhouse.
In Chapter 13, there is much discussion about the price of food now. Salatin says that food as Wal-Mart is not cheap, but "irresponsibly priced", and that we must take into account all of the hidden costs of industrialized food. The author gives statistics that Americans only spend about 10% of their income on food. This number was closer to 20% nearly 50 years ago. He theorizes that we have found ways to pay for things that aren't necessity, like TVs and cell phones, and asks what should our priorities be?
In Chapter 14, very appropriately titled: The Meal, Pollan wanted to bring some of Salatin's meat back home to California to eat with his family. But he soon decided that it would go against the principles of a local farm. So he brings the food to a friends house to share a meal with them.
In Chapter 15, Pollan decides to create a meal that he has done all the gathering, growing, and hunting himself. He knows it is a different kind of journey to accomplish this. Because as he points out, the hunter-gatherer food chain no longer exists. He wants to follow this idea though because he wants to go as far into the food chain that we need to as he can.
These five chapters were very interesting because it deals with a lot of what I think of when I think of what I want to eat, where the food comes from, and how it gets there. The farm he was at was small scale, self sufficient and he really went through the whole process of farm > market > meal. I think this was discussed in a video I saw in class, but if communities can rely on themselves for food, then there will be less catastrophic food shortages. When there is a massive recall due to contamination, or if there is a shortage because of a natural disaster, what do we do then? I believe more people would be better served by having self sufficient communities.
New Blog Header!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Read 'n' Seed 3: Second quarter of The Omnivore's Dilemma
The second quarter of the Omnivore's Dilemma includes the chapters: 6) The Consumer: A Republic of Fat, 7) The Meal: Fast Food, 8) All Flesh is Grass, 9) Big Organic, 10) Grass: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pasture.
Pollan says American farmers are producing 500 extra calories per person, each day, than they were during the Nixon Administration. He also explains some of the ways we have been manipulated into eating more. Such as being given larger portions in fast food chains. An 8 oz. Coke used to be given with meals, now it is 22 oz. This is cheap for companies to do, but is much more harmful to our health. A baby born in 2000 has a one third chance of developing type two diabetes in their lifetime. Three out of five Americans are considered overweight. One of the main antagonists in all of this? High fructose corn syrup. All of this helps paint the picture that this is potentially the first generation of children whose life expectancy is shorter than their parents'.
In the chapter The Meal, Pollan eats an actual meal. He and his family eat at McDonalds, and when he thinks about where his chicken nuggets have come from, he realizes is is overwhelmingly from corn. He also talks about what it takes to process the corn into food, that corn loses up to 90% of its energy in the process.
He then visits a farm where the farm is nearly self sufficient. The cows eat the grass, whose manure feeds the chickens, whose manure fertilizes the grass. Pollan writes that if humans were to go back to a grass rooted farming cycle, it might be possible to create the agricultural equivalent of a free lunch.
In the Big Organic chapter, Pollan talks at length about how we want to imagine where our food comes from, and that we want to feel good about it. He learns that organic cows are fed organic corn to be considered organic, but are raised much in the same way another cow would be. This goes for many other types of animal.
Pollan also devotes a chapter to grass. He explains what it means to be a 'grass farmer'. To be a grass farmer means that the animals that provide product use grass as the main ingredient to their diets.
Cool new words!
zero-sum proposition: of or denoting a system in which the sum of the gains equals the sum of the loses.
I think that we need to be able to understand where our organic food is coming from, and whether it is truly organic. We need to be able to distance ourselves emotionally from food in order to make the right decisions for ourselves and what we want to eat. I would personally like to see the industry stick towards the grass farmer system described in this book.
Pollan says American farmers are producing 500 extra calories per person, each day, than they were during the Nixon Administration. He also explains some of the ways we have been manipulated into eating more. Such as being given larger portions in fast food chains. An 8 oz. Coke used to be given with meals, now it is 22 oz. This is cheap for companies to do, but is much more harmful to our health. A baby born in 2000 has a one third chance of developing type two diabetes in their lifetime. Three out of five Americans are considered overweight. One of the main antagonists in all of this? High fructose corn syrup. All of this helps paint the picture that this is potentially the first generation of children whose life expectancy is shorter than their parents'.
In the chapter The Meal, Pollan eats an actual meal. He and his family eat at McDonalds, and when he thinks about where his chicken nuggets have come from, he realizes is is overwhelmingly from corn. He also talks about what it takes to process the corn into food, that corn loses up to 90% of its energy in the process.
He then visits a farm where the farm is nearly self sufficient. The cows eat the grass, whose manure feeds the chickens, whose manure fertilizes the grass. Pollan writes that if humans were to go back to a grass rooted farming cycle, it might be possible to create the agricultural equivalent of a free lunch.
In the Big Organic chapter, Pollan talks at length about how we want to imagine where our food comes from, and that we want to feel good about it. He learns that organic cows are fed organic corn to be considered organic, but are raised much in the same way another cow would be. This goes for many other types of animal.
Pollan also devotes a chapter to grass. He explains what it means to be a 'grass farmer'. To be a grass farmer means that the animals that provide product use grass as the main ingredient to their diets.
Cool new words!
zero-sum proposition: of or denoting a system in which the sum of the gains equals the sum of the loses.
I think that we need to be able to understand where our organic food is coming from, and whether it is truly organic. We need to be able to distance ourselves emotionally from food in order to make the right decisions for ourselves and what we want to eat. I would personally like to see the industry stick towards the grass farmer system described in this book.
Read 'n' Seed 2: First quarter of The Omnivore's Dilemma
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.
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.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Read 'n' Seed 1: The Omnivore's Dilemma
The title of the book I have selected to read for the Read 'n' Seed section of this blog is called 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' by Michael Pollan. The book is about the decisions we make in regards to the foods we choose to eat. I chose this book because I have heard of it before, and am interested to see what helps influence what we want to eat. The book is 411 pages long across 20 chapters. I will report on this book after the chapter that finishes after each 100 page mark (100, 200, 300, 400) so that I do not end up reporting mid-chapter. Below are links to three websites that have information regarding the book. Enjoy!
Amazon (purchase/reviews)
Author Michael Pollan's Website
Wikipedia page for The Omnivore's Dilemma
Amazon (purchase/reviews)
Author Michael Pollan's Website
Wikipedia page for The Omnivore's Dilemma
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