HW 7b

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan - Chapter 6:

                    

                  Précis: Parellels can be drawn between the early nineteenth century and present day in that the corn was cheap and plentiful; thus, Americans consumed much of it in the form value-added commodity. We consumed alcohol (in the nineteenth century) and a variety of processed, high-calorie foods. In both time periods, this corn consumption (which is necessary to maintain the economy and be rid of corn's excess biomass) has indirectly led to drunkenness, violence, family abandonment, alcohol related disease, an obesity epidemic, Type 2 diabetes, overnutrition, malnutrition, and various other health and environmental complications. More specific causes of these such issues (which are ultimately the effect of corn) are Americans' greed, more sedentary lifestyles, affluence, poverty, high cost of healthy food, technology, and superior advertising; evolution has also inclined humans to seek out sweet and fatty foods.
                  Gems: "Much as today, the astounding productivity of American farmers proved to be their own worst enemy, as well as a threat to public health...Sooner or later, clever marketers will figure out a way to induce the human omnivore to consume the surfeit of cheap calories" (page 101).
                              "Deep cultural taboos against gluttony - one of the seven deadly sins, after all - had been holding us back. Wallerstein...had discovered the secret to expanding the (supposedly) fixed human stomach" (page 106).
                              "While the surgeon general is raising alamrs over the epidemic of obesity, the president is signing farm bills designed to keep the river of cheap corn flowing, guaranteeing that the cheapest calories inthe supermarket will continue to be the unhealthiest" (page 108).
                  Thoughts and Questions: David Wallerstein is decidely loyal to the success of movie theaters and McDonald's, and disgustingly cruel for turning healthy decisions into even more of a struggle and myth for Americans. It is hard to consider that he may have contributed to America's collective expanding waistline for noble reasons. 
Evolution used to favor those who had a sweet tooth and an eye for fatty foods. It is going to reverse now? Currently, people who don't esteem such comestibles are enjoying better health than those who do. This is one in many examples of how our society is backwards.  

Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan - Chapter 7:

                   

                     Précis: Fast food, a huge part of America's diet, is a tasty sort of comfort food, well liked by children, and inexpensive. Unfortunately, these are the only redeeming qualities of the fast food industry. Although meals at restaurants like McDonald's seem dynamic, they are far from it. The majority of the products there has something in common: A dependence on, or many ingredients containing corn and synthetic ingredients (some of which are toxic) like sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, calcium lactate, dimethylpolysiloxene, tertiary butylhydroquinone, and pesticides. Thus, fast food not only unhealthy, but requires significant amounts of fossil fuel and corn which could serve much more productive purposes.

                     Gems: "The marketers have a term for what a salad or veggie burger does for a fast food chain: 'denying the denier'. These menu items hand the child who wants to eat fast food a sharp tool with which to chip away at his parents' objections" (page 110).

                                "When I asked Isaac if the new nuggets tasted more like chicken than the old ones, he seemd baffled by the question. 'No, they taste like what they are, which is nuggets...duh.'" (page 112).

                                "But then, this is what the industrial eater has become: corn's koala" (page 117).

                     Thoughts and Questions: I've heard it said that people now serve their technology rather than vice versa, but I think that this is even more true of corn. Humans, specifically those in our country, serve corn and make sacrifices to it in so many ways. Why? Even though it's a plant that presents many uses and serves many purposes, it is nonetheless boggling that we can see signs of its success so thoroughly incoporated into our environment, animals, bodies, grocery stores, research, and economy. I am going to try harder to "eat low on the food chain" as Michael Pollan says. Hopefully when my body encounters corn in the future, it will mostly be directly from the cob. Although this seems simple, it is certainly dreaming big considering America's infatuatino with corn.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan - Chapter 8

                    

                    Précis: Classic pastoral beauty, an picture that we are currently enamored of (due to the effects of evolution), cannot be found in most farms in America. Joel Salatin still holds true to that picture by having a truly organic farm; it is a little community in which each organism - grass, animals, hummus, worms - has a purpose and serves the productivity of the farm. This is very unusual relative to most farms in America, even those that are considered organic. Because of the politics and controversy concerning farming, the term "organic" is very loosely defined, and thus farms can claim to be organic without changing their industrial methods.

                     Gems: "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" (page 126).

                                  "The way I produce chicken is an extension of my worldview. You can learn more about that by seeing what's sitting on my bookshelf than having me fill out a whole bunch of forms" (page 132).

                                "That's all the Indians ever wanted - to keep their tepees, to give their kids herbs instead of patent medicines and leeches....the Western mind can't bear an opt-out option. We're going to have to refight the Battle of the Little Bighorn to preserve the right to opt out, or your grandchildren and mine will have no choice but to eat amalgamated, irradiated, genetically prostituted, barcoded, adulterated fecal spam from the centralized processing conglomerate" (page 132).  

                     Thoughts and Questions: I thought it interesting when Joel Salatin referred to food as "fecal spam" that is "genetically prostituted". These terms seem overdramatic (it is only dinner, right?), but a part of me hugely respects him for going against the flow and living by his opinions and reasoning. I love that he believes that the way he lives is an extension of his worldview - if only industrial companies took the way in which they produce "fecal spam" as seriously. I wonder if Joel Salatin has another job, or if his wife or children help support him by working somewhere other than the farm?

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan - Chapter 9

                  

                    Précis: In our current society, we like to fall back on terms like "certified organic," "free range," "sustainably farmed," "humanely raised," "range-fed," "natural," "green pastures" and "authentic" to make ourselves feel better about the food we are putting in the grocery cart, feeding to our families, spending our money on, using fossil fuel with, and supporting. In reality, such terms used to embody a movement of growing uncontaminated food, and a philosophy that all aspects of growing food and diet decisions are connected to the world and to a bigger community then the immediate one around us. Now, the meaning of organic has been dramatically changed. Companies like Whole Foods Market use that word to cater to organic-hungry consumers, but obtain their goods from farms that operate not on a philosophy or world view, but on the basis that changing a tiny, ineffective aspect of the way they farm and advertising it as more healthful to humans and the earth will gain money. Although organic food has more potential to be healthy, environmentally friendly, tasty, risk-free, and kind to animals and farmers, it still (more often than not) corresponds to animal cruelty, petroleum use and chemical intake.

                   Gems: "The organic movement, as it was once called, has come a remarkably long way in the last thirty years, to the point where it now looks considerably less like a movement than a big business" (page 138).

                            "...organic milk comes from factory farms, where thousands of Holsteins that never encounter a blade of grass spend their days confined to a fenced 'dry lot', eating (certified organic) grain and tethered to milking machines three times a day" (page 140).

                           "Well, at least we didn't eat it in the car" (page 183).

                  Thoughts and Questions: It would seem that eating is no longer as simple as I thought it was. Organic once was an expensive alternative to the horrid complications of buying industrialized, "normal" food. Now, it's apparently better, but not best. The question is: What is best? Is it possible to eat food that benefits the world, or do we have to settle with just partially harmful, partially cruel or partially wasteful food?

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan - Chapter 10

                  Précis: I spent a week at Joel Salatin's home, learning about and helping him with his work as a grass farmer. I came to understand that grass farming entails a number of things: raising cattle and chickens, making hay, and growing vegetables without using any synthetic or toxic substances. Joel Salatin calls his way of living "beyond organic". The most energy efficient and productive way to obtain nutrients and energy for ourselves is by picking a plant and eating it, or eating an animal that feasted upon such a plant; Salatin's grass farm does this and adds to the world rather than diminishing the world like industrial farms do. The reason grass farms like Salatin's are a rarity in our society, is because industrial agriculture is more convenient and cheaper.   

                  Gems: "...Grass Productivity documented that simply by applying the right number of ruminants at the right time pastures could produce far more grass (and, in turn, meat and milk) than anyone had ever thought possible" (page 188).

                             "All other methods of harvest and transfer require higher capital and petroleum energy inputs and these necessarily lower the return to the farmer/rancher" (page 188).

                            "Grass farming doen well depends almost entirely on a wealth of nuanced local knowledge at a tiem when most of hte rest of agricultrue has come to rely on precisely the opposite...the grass farmer must continually juggle the various elements of his farm in space as well as time, relyingo n his powers of observation and organization to arrange the appointed daily meeting of animal and grass in such a way as to ensure maximum benefit from both" (page 191).
                   Thoughts and Questions: Salatin's farm reminded me of a farm I once visited in middle school. It had acres of green pasture, chickens, cows, puppies, full grown dogs, and a myriad of other organisms. The adults who owned the farm homeschooled their children and ate eggs and produce from their own land. I find it strange that I left the farm not with the knowledge that this type of farm was rare, but with memories of feeding calves and and cuddling big-eyed golden retriever puppies, and seeing comfortable and healthy cows being milked with machines. How odd that nearly everyone, even many "organic" farmers, avoid the subject of turmoil and controversy that different types of food-production cause. So many people would rather go along with the idea that their food did not come from a cruel, wasteful, petroleum-dependent way of farming. Why?