Food in our culture is one aspect of a larger nightmare." Write an essay that opposes, supports of qualifies this statement.
Every plant and animal on this planet coexists with each other and the plant we all live on. While large predators are on the top of the food chain and lions are kings of the jungle, no one animal is larger or more powerful than the system it lives in, the natural world. Birds build nests, beavers build dams and more recently humans have been building luxury condos, Hummers (the car) and shopping malls.
The nightmare we are all living in can be summed up as the human world where humans work to exceed the limits of this planet by using fossil fuel and technology to grow and develop exponentially, all the while developing false values. To mention some of the aspects of that larger nightmare: war, weapons of mass destruction/bombs/guns, murder, the use of fossil fuels (600 million motor vehicles on this planet, all the tractors and machines used to build huge buildings and hotels and shopping centers, etc.), the machines we depend on, the machine we live in, the population of the world (6,602,224,175 and counting), the mass power of America, the industrial food system, the starving children and adults, slavery, child labor, exploitation, all the garbage that human dump on this earth (plastic toys, diapers, strollers, garbage bags – most things will never decompose), beauty contests, designers like Prada and Gucci that have people dying for expensive bags and clothes, and it goes on. The reason the food in our culture (the American industrial food system) is an aspect of this nightmare is because like most other aspects it relies on fossil fuels, it contributes to many social problems, most of it is junk (bad for your health) and most people are oblivious and completely disconnected from it.
The American industrial food system, which includes many of the countries it imports its food from, is completely dependent on fossil fuel to grow the food, process the food, transport the food and cook the food. Fossil fuels are used as pesticides and fertilizers and then used to spread seeds and plant the fruits and vegetables, to spread fertilizer and pesticides on them, and to harvest them. Corn and soy, the main form of vegetable grown in the country goes through that process and is then transported several times till it ends up as cow and other animal feed, the animals eat the corn till they are fat enough to slaughter, then they are killed and dissected into meat by machines (and some poorly paid/treated immigrant workers) dependent on fossil fuels and transported by vehicles that depend on fossil fuel. Other foods made from corn (not meat) go through extensive processing that uses machines dependent on fossil fuels. The main point in this repetitive story is that all the food that comes to our supermarkets, restaurant and fast food chains are grown/raised, processed, packaged, transported and served to us using a great deal of fossil fuel, which is what makes it possible to feed the 300 million people that live in this country.
With so many mouths to feed and so much money to be made by the head honchos, the industrial food system is not only dependent on fossil fuels but also on cheep labor. The farmers that grow the corn, even though they aren’t directly dependent on the major corporation because they work for themselves and then sell the corn, are in a situation where they are paid as little as possible for the corn and then paid some compensation for by the government, which is all a ploy by the government to make the corn as cheep as possible for the 3 main large corporations to process and sell the corn. But what’s in store for the farmers that grow corn isn’t nearly as bad as what goes on the with immigrant workers who pick fruits and vegetables and work in the slaughterhouse and meat factories. The immigrants who pick fruits and vegetables work 10-12 hour days getting paid only $50 an hour, without health insurance, sick days, or the right to organize (create unions). The immigrant workers who work in meat factories have dangerous jobs working with hazardous machines, sharp knives and fast disassembly lines. As a result of the extremely difficult work they are required to do at such rapid speeds many of them use drugs to enhance their work ability, often given to them by their supervisors. Sexual abuse/harassment is not uncommon either; many of the women are forced to have sex with supervisors in order to get a better job or better pay.
For all the fossil fuels being used and the immigrant workers being exploited, the food we are receiving at the end of line isn’t what we should be eating. As human who have evolved over millions of years, hunting and gathering and growing whole foods we are designed to be eating whole foods. Instead we are eating highly processed food high in starch and sugar but not too high in nutrition. This is evident by the obesity and diabetes epidemics (that is only mentioning two of the many health problems this country is facing).
And lastly, how many people are aware of what is going on? For over 99 percent of the time humans have been on this plant they were hunting, gathering and preparing their own food; they worked hard to survive and had to be aware of what their food was, where is was coming from and how they were eating it. Now, people with absent minds go to the supermarket or fast food restaurant to get there food without thinking about what is in it, where it comes from or what it is doing to their bodies. There is little to no connection between Americans and the food they eat.
As of now, the industrial food system in America seems to be working, almost everyone is fed (74% of Americans are overweight, 29% obese) but fossil fuel wont last forever and neither will of system of food. Unfortunately, most of America isn’t aware of the nightmare we are living in so they can’t wake up and put an end to it.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Final: The Present and Future of Our Food
Describe the past and present of food. Predict the future of food, with reference to class materials and historical trends.
Food: The Past and Present
When most people think about the history of food they think about the ideal or cliché family farm, with the barn and the livestock and the eatable plants in the fields. Or they think about the Indians who grew corn and shared thanksgivings with the pilgrims. What people are really thinking about the history of agriculture, which accounts for only about 1% of the history of our food; for millions of years human collected all their food through hunting and gathering. Hunter-gatherers lived in small groups of people who occupied (but did not own) and survived off of the unmanipulated land. This required that the tribes of people stay small; a mother could only have a child every four years because the lifestyle required the mother to carry their children until they were old enough to keep up with the rest of the group. But when groups grew larger and people needed an easier way to feed themselves, agriculture was a very viable solution. And from there agriculture (and the world’s population) grew and developed into what we think of as the family farm that feeds everyone.
What was diverse agriculture became corn and soy agriculture, most of what the farmers in the US grow and most of what we eat is corn. Type-2 corn (not the sweet kind you eat at your dinner table) is grown and then distributed where it is processed (broken down into its many different parts and then put back together in the form of cereal or a Twinkie) or it is made into food to fatten our meat. The problem with corn, while it is easy and cheap to grow, is that we are not designed to eat it and neither are the animals. We are Omnivores and therefore, yes we are designed to eat all sorts of thing, corn included, but the mass production of corn has resulted in epidemics like obesity and diabetes. We have evolved over millions of years to become the humans we are, it is in significantly less than 1% of that time that we have started eating food like McDonalds and thrown ourselves into a food system with almost entirely processed foods, full of chemical and pesticides.
And the cows, who are herbivores and have stomachs designed to digest grass (not corn), which results in problems with the enzymes, bacteria and other diseases they carry. Once the cows reach slaughter weight (in 14 months rather than several years), they are killed, disassembles and processed. Within the processes of producing meat there are many complex issues, like those of the poor immigrant works and of the quality of the meat (20% of the time guts are broken and the meat is covered in shit). The entire process, which most of America is completely disassociated with, all gets carried onto our plates.
The most crucial part of our food system isn’t the corn though, and it’s not the processing either, it’s the fossil fuels. Without the fossil fuels there would no way to produce all the food for all the people in this country or this world. The farmers are dependent on them for their fertilizers, pesticides and tools (for example tractors), and so are the slaughterhouses, processing plant and especially the transportation companies. And with peak oil in the near future we have an even bigger problem than just the shit and chemicals on our food.
Food: The Future
Eventually, when there isn’t enough fossil fuel to run the food system we have now, there will have to be some major changes in the food we are eating and the way we get our food. In the past 100 years our culture has developed massive technology and grown by the billions. There is no way that this planet can support such an intrusive species that draws out all its resources and then continues to grow. If I were to predict what our food system will look like in the future, after peak oil hits I would say that it is possible that someone will try to invent a pill that supplements all the human nutritional values but I don’t actually think that will work. What I actually think will happen is that many people will starve and the population will decrease. Those who survive will have to grow their own food, hunt and gather their own food or depend on another person/family in the local area to do so.
The current food system is one example of how humans have pushed the earth past its limitations, and this planet isn’t designed to support what humans are trying to do. I believe this planet is designed to adapt but I definitely think there is a limit, if it hasn’t been passes yet it will be shortly; because (despite the fact that they think they do) humans do not have the power to live without the natural world that exists on earth and earth is going to force humans back to a way of life that is sustainable and without the magic of fossil fuels. That means a food systems and a life style that is scaled back, local and mostly independent from strangers.
Food: The Past and Present
When most people think about the history of food they think about the ideal or cliché family farm, with the barn and the livestock and the eatable plants in the fields. Or they think about the Indians who grew corn and shared thanksgivings with the pilgrims. What people are really thinking about the history of agriculture, which accounts for only about 1% of the history of our food; for millions of years human collected all their food through hunting and gathering. Hunter-gatherers lived in small groups of people who occupied (but did not own) and survived off of the unmanipulated land. This required that the tribes of people stay small; a mother could only have a child every four years because the lifestyle required the mother to carry their children until they were old enough to keep up with the rest of the group. But when groups grew larger and people needed an easier way to feed themselves, agriculture was a very viable solution. And from there agriculture (and the world’s population) grew and developed into what we think of as the family farm that feeds everyone.
What was diverse agriculture became corn and soy agriculture, most of what the farmers in the US grow and most of what we eat is corn. Type-2 corn (not the sweet kind you eat at your dinner table) is grown and then distributed where it is processed (broken down into its many different parts and then put back together in the form of cereal or a Twinkie) or it is made into food to fatten our meat. The problem with corn, while it is easy and cheap to grow, is that we are not designed to eat it and neither are the animals. We are Omnivores and therefore, yes we are designed to eat all sorts of thing, corn included, but the mass production of corn has resulted in epidemics like obesity and diabetes. We have evolved over millions of years to become the humans we are, it is in significantly less than 1% of that time that we have started eating food like McDonalds and thrown ourselves into a food system with almost entirely processed foods, full of chemical and pesticides.
And the cows, who are herbivores and have stomachs designed to digest grass (not corn), which results in problems with the enzymes, bacteria and other diseases they carry. Once the cows reach slaughter weight (in 14 months rather than several years), they are killed, disassembles and processed. Within the processes of producing meat there are many complex issues, like those of the poor immigrant works and of the quality of the meat (20% of the time guts are broken and the meat is covered in shit). The entire process, which most of America is completely disassociated with, all gets carried onto our plates.
The most crucial part of our food system isn’t the corn though, and it’s not the processing either, it’s the fossil fuels. Without the fossil fuels there would no way to produce all the food for all the people in this country or this world. The farmers are dependent on them for their fertilizers, pesticides and tools (for example tractors), and so are the slaughterhouses, processing plant and especially the transportation companies. And with peak oil in the near future we have an even bigger problem than just the shit and chemicals on our food.
Food: The Future
Eventually, when there isn’t enough fossil fuel to run the food system we have now, there will have to be some major changes in the food we are eating and the way we get our food. In the past 100 years our culture has developed massive technology and grown by the billions. There is no way that this planet can support such an intrusive species that draws out all its resources and then continues to grow. If I were to predict what our food system will look like in the future, after peak oil hits I would say that it is possible that someone will try to invent a pill that supplements all the human nutritional values but I don’t actually think that will work. What I actually think will happen is that many people will starve and the population will decrease. Those who survive will have to grow their own food, hunt and gather their own food or depend on another person/family in the local area to do so.
The current food system is one example of how humans have pushed the earth past its limitations, and this planet isn’t designed to support what humans are trying to do. I believe this planet is designed to adapt but I definitely think there is a limit, if it hasn’t been passes yet it will be shortly; because (despite the fact that they think they do) humans do not have the power to live without the natural world that exists on earth and earth is going to force humans back to a way of life that is sustainable and without the magic of fossil fuels. That means a food systems and a life style that is scaled back, local and mostly independent from strangers.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Lets Compost New York!
So I am looking for ways to compost in New York City and it seems pretty simple in terms of getting the compost bins into the apartments but I am not sure about how to get it out (where should it go?). Anyways, here is a collection of links about composting in the city:
http://www.nyc24.org/2006/issue2/story08/index.html
http://www.nyccompost.org/how/index.html#quickstart
HOW TO
http://www.nyccompost.org/how/wormbin.html
http://www.nyc24.org/2006/issue2/story08/index.html
http://www.nyccompost.org/how/index.html#quickstart
HOW TO
http://www.nyccompost.org/how/wormbin.html
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Peak Oil
There are some things that are more believable than others, but how someone could try and deny the fact that there is only so much oil on this earth and that people are eventually going to use it up driving there SUVs and eating food that has traveled on average 1,500 miles to their supermarkets.
The Theory
Peak oil is the point at which the oil being extracted begins to decline. When oil is first extracted from a reserve the rate at which they can pump oil continually increases until it reaches its peak, at which point the amount of oil being extracted begins to decline. Peak oil is reached when about half of the oil has been extracted from a reserve.
When?
M. King Hubbert predicted peak oil would be reached between 1995 and 2000.
Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) predicts peak oil will be reached in 2010.
Others predict peak oil will be reached in 2035.
While some people are more optimist and many would choose to believe peak oil wont hit until the latest date possible, peak oil is inevitable. The problem is, if you push peak oil further and further away, denying the problem and neglecting to form some solution or alternative way of living, when it does come people won’t be prepared.
Why does it matter?
As a society, we are completely dependent on oil. Without oil there is no way that the industrial food system will survive. Fossil fuels are used to grow plants with fertilizers and pesticides made from fossil fuels by tractors running on fossil fuels. The food is also transported refrigerated and processed using fossil fuel. It is an entire system based on fossil fuel.
Links
More About Peak Oil
http://energybulletin.net/primer.php
Community Solutions to Peak Oil
www.communitysolution.org
The Theory
Peak oil is the point at which the oil being extracted begins to decline. When oil is first extracted from a reserve the rate at which they can pump oil continually increases until it reaches its peak, at which point the amount of oil being extracted begins to decline. Peak oil is reached when about half of the oil has been extracted from a reserve.
When?
M. King Hubbert predicted peak oil would be reached between 1995 and 2000.
Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) predicts peak oil will be reached in 2010.
Others predict peak oil will be reached in 2035.
While some people are more optimist and many would choose to believe peak oil wont hit until the latest date possible, peak oil is inevitable. The problem is, if you push peak oil further and further away, denying the problem and neglecting to form some solution or alternative way of living, when it does come people won’t be prepared.
Why does it matter?
As a society, we are completely dependent on oil. Without oil there is no way that the industrial food system will survive. Fossil fuels are used to grow plants with fertilizers and pesticides made from fossil fuels by tractors running on fossil fuels. The food is also transported refrigerated and processed using fossil fuel. It is an entire system based on fossil fuel.
Links
More About Peak Oil
http://energybulletin.net/primer.php
Community Solutions to Peak Oil
www.communitysolution.org
Friday, March 30, 2007
Comments on Others People's Papers
On Gary's Paper: You talk about CEOs making all the money and getting all the benefits. I don't think that this is bad in itself. I think the reason it is wrong is because while the CEO experience the benefits the workers under them are all screwed over. Therefore, I think you should address the treatment of workers and the bad affects of the CEO's benefits on the rest of the people involved in the company.
On Josh B's Paper: I think there is a lot more to the industrial food system than just the break down of the words industrial, food and system. While I agree that the industrial food system uses machines I don't think that's all there is to it. I think if you want to focus your definition of the industrial food system on what it runs on you should also talk about the major companies as well as the animals and plants involved.
On Josh B's Paper: I think there is a lot more to the industrial food system than just the break down of the words industrial, food and system. While I agree that the industrial food system uses machines I don't think that's all there is to it. I think if you want to focus your definition of the industrial food system on what it runs on you should also talk about the major companies as well as the animals and plants involved.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
The Industrial Food System Paper
Descriptive
The industrial food system is millions of de-beaked hens that live their lives in cages without an inch to move and without ever seeing the world they live in. The industrial food system is growth of genetically altered corn that is broken down, separated and redistributed like automobile parts to become different parts of what we eat. The industrial food system is the rearing of hundreds of cattle in undersized pens that are showered with food in order to get fat, murdered, violently dissected at expeditious speeds and shoved out the doors of slaughterhouses and into our supermarkets. The industrial food system is the greasy, unhealthy Big Macs and French fries we eat for lunch. The industrial food system is the method in which America gets its food and its nutrients and rarely bothers to think or worry about.
The industrial food system is a compilation of different modernized farms and processing plants designed to produce mass quantities of food that is then distributed to fast food restaurants, restaurants and super markets. The industrial food system works through the many different farms that grow plants and raise animals that are then separated and broken down only to be latter processed and put back together in the form of “whole foods.”
Most of the industrial food system is based off of F-2 corn, which is fed to animals in order to make them grow faster and also broken down and processed into different ingredients that play a major role in adding flavor and texture to the “whole foods” that are made from the compilation of other processed foods. As well, the industrial food system run on fossil fuels, which are used in growing the plants we eat, transporting the food and processing the food.
Those involved in the industrial food system are the farmers of the corn, the people working in the elevators that collect the entirety of F-2 corn in a certain area who then distribute it to the animal farms and the processing plants. From the animal farms, the meat is sent to slaughter house where people kill and dismantle the different parts of the animal, which is driven in freezer trucks to places like McDonalds and Walmart Super Centers. From the processing plants (owned mostly by Cargill and ADM) the corn is sent to science labs and turned into different ingredients that then end up being made into chicken McNuggets and other packaged foods. And finally, at the very end of the chain of industrial food, lies the consumer, us, the people who eat the food.
Around the age of one, when I was still breast feeding, I was also introduce to mashed up apples, sweet potatoes and many of the other fruits and vegetables I now eat today. My experiences with industrial food began when I started eating jars of baby food and will continue until I take my last bite of food. I eat industrial food everyday, from the packages cereals I eat for breakfast to the salad I eat for lunch to the burrito I eat for dinner. Like my friends, neighbors and the rest of the world, I have often ate my meals without thinking about where they came from or the process it took to get them into my stomach. Fresh and healthy or fried and unhealthy, home cooked or restaurant ordered, most of the food I consume comes from the long chain of industrial food. It is not until recently that I became aware of what it means to be apart of the industrial food system, and it was when I realized that every piece of food I was eating had a much longer history than I imagined. And that was when I became more conscious of where my food comes from and that I really didn’t want to eat some of the things I had been eating my whole life.
Analytical
The cause for the industrial food system and the reason it is the primary source of nutrition for America is because of America’s size and lifestyle and desire to get everything for as cheep as possible. With a population of nearly 300 million, it requires a mass production of food to feed all those people. But the real dictator of industrial food is the lifestyle; if we were to feed everyone locally it would require that many more people assume the profession of a farmer. With advances in science and society there are many different jobs for people take, if everyone had to grow, raise and hunt their own food there would be no time for building rockets, defending people in court rooms and writing books. In order to feed all 300 million people that are working in our developed society, there is no choice but to industrialize and mass-produce food. Plus, Americans like to consume more food than they need to. If you go to a diner, a typical representation of American food, and order a club sandwich it is enormous, stacked high with turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and comes with a whopping side of friend fries soaked in oil and coleslaw. If you eat all that food you stretch out your stomach and that just means you are going to want more the next time. This gigantic appetite America has is causing a greater market for food. And most of the time Americans are unwilling or unable to pay for expensive food, and therefore the food industry strives to make everything as cheap as possible.
As a result, the treatment of the workers is poor and the quality of the food is even worse. One example of the many different industries within the entire food industry is the tomato industry, where farmworkers are treated poorly.
Today, food harvesting in the United States is anything but fair: Tomato pickers in Immokalee mist pick two tons of tomatoes one by one – literally 4,000 pounds – just to make $50, and they regularly work 10- to 12- hour days with no overtime pay, no right to organize, no sick days and no benefits whatsoever (Buckley).
The workers at fast food restaurants, who were once teenagers who could afford to make less money (since they didn’t need to fully support themselves), are now mostly elderly, handicapped or immigrants (Schlosser 70). Workers at slaughter houses, who work dangerous jobs at the assembly lines, cutting up meat and fish as the line moves faster than they can safely work, are mostly immigrants and an estimated 1/4 of them are illegal. This is so because they come from places where they would be making much less money and are willing to work for less than most Americans, they are also less likely to join unions (Schlosser 160-62). Aside from the issues of financial exploitation, workers are also sexually exploited by their supervisors and co-workers as well as targets of drug dealers in their community.
The slaughterhouse and meat packing companies, who play a large role in the American industrial food system are the cause of not only the health problems in this country but also of the other issues society faces, specifically the drug and sexual abuse problem. Workers are forced into positions where they are powerless and often find themselves have sex with supervisors in order to gain better jobs, a secure place in America, a green card or a husband (Schlosser 176). Drugs enter the lives of the poor slaughterhouse workers when
The unrelenting pressure of trying to keep up with the line has encouraged widespread methamphetamine use among the meatpackers. Workers taking “crank” feel charged and self-confident, ready for anything. Supervisors have been known to sell crank to their workers or to supply it free in return for certain favors, such as working a second shift (Schlosser 174).
Mixing sex and meat packing is a dangerous thing to be doing. A woman working in the disassembly line that is being felt up by a supervisor or coworker cannot possible be safe trying to cut up meat with a sharp knife. Nor is a person much safer working with large machinery if they are on drugs, even if they feel more pumped to being doing that work. The industrial food system is responsible for mixing meat, sex and drugs; they are also responsible for the poor health of this country.
The meat is unsafe to eat. “A nationwide study published by the USDA in 1996 found that 7.5 percent of the ground beef samples taken from processing plants were contaminated with Salmonella, 11.7 percent were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, 30 percent were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, and 53.3 percent were contaminated with Clsotrudium perfringens. All of these pathogens can make people sick; food poisoning caused buy Listeria generally requires hospitalization and proves fatal in about one out of every five cases. In the USDA study 78.6 percent of ground beef contained microbes that are spread primarily by fecal material” (Schlosser 197). It is the fast moving lines that is not only the cause of a dangerous work environment but also the feces in the meat. While removing the guts of the expeditious moving animals, the guts are often broken and the contents contaminate the meat. The meat is clearly unhealthy and sickening, but it isn’t even those contaminations that are causing the many other more predominant issues associated with the food most people eat today. Diseases like obesity and diabetes plays a major role in causing poor quality life and death in this country. And while there is some attention paid to obesity and diabetes this country still doesn’t think enough about what they are eating, what microbes are contaminating their food and what their food is going to result in (poor health and disease).
The core of the industrial food system is really just death production that reduces the process of eating to survive and to enjoy the pleasure of food into a final product that will cost little and lack quality. In the process, and in essence, the industrial food system is not only killing the food we eat but also disregarding the harm it is doing to the environment and the health and well being of the people it is working for.
Martin Heideggar says, “Agriculture is now a motorized food industry, the same thing in it’s essence as the production of corpses in the gas chambers and the extermination camps, the same thing as the blockades and the reduction of countries to famine, the same thing as the manufacture of hydrogen bombs.” Which is to say that in providing meat to the people they are simply working to herd millions of animals to their death, but is not only specific to the animals that are being killed. In addition to being a production of animal death, the industrial food system is also responsible for the death, suffering and injury of the workers that work in the dangerous mechanical plants and the people eating the meat who are often sickened and killed by the food they eat.
Evaluation
The industrial food system plays an essential and influential role in the lives of nearly every person in America, but does not pass through the minds of the majority of the population. And while it isn’t something many people put much thought into it is extremely import because food is the essence of life; we are what we eat. When consuming a BigMac, that person becomes the poor quality beef made of chemically injected and corn and antibiotic fed cow, the bun made from cornstarch and the tomatoes picked by immigrant workers paid near to nothing. As a part of the industrial food system we are not only the animals we think we are eating but also the process in which they are produced. Which means we are responsible for consuming the fossil fuel that goes into production of the meat, that antibiotics and other steroids and drugs that are fed to the animals we eat, the diseases the animals contract in the unnatural living environments they are raise in and the gut contents (shit) that gets all over our meet.
As a part of a system that is feeding animals chemicals to make them grow faster and spraying plants with pesticides there is a lot to be said about who we are, the culture we live in and the situation we are faced with (not to mention the situation we are going to face when this industrial food systems falls). We are a part of a complex industrial system but are unaware and completely disassociated with what we eat are what we are made of. We simply just don’t think about what we are eating. And as a society, we are just a group of people who don’t think about we are eating. We are also a group being manipulated by not only the people who make the decision about what we are eating but also by our lack of values, that have allowed us to become people that care so much about the price of things that we disregard all the morals we claim to have while we disassociate with the process of living.
The industrial food system is millions of de-beaked hens that live their lives in cages without an inch to move and without ever seeing the world they live in. The industrial food system is growth of genetically altered corn that is broken down, separated and redistributed like automobile parts to become different parts of what we eat. The industrial food system is the rearing of hundreds of cattle in undersized pens that are showered with food in order to get fat, murdered, violently dissected at expeditious speeds and shoved out the doors of slaughterhouses and into our supermarkets. The industrial food system is the greasy, unhealthy Big Macs and French fries we eat for lunch. The industrial food system is the method in which America gets its food and its nutrients and rarely bothers to think or worry about.
The industrial food system is a compilation of different modernized farms and processing plants designed to produce mass quantities of food that is then distributed to fast food restaurants, restaurants and super markets. The industrial food system works through the many different farms that grow plants and raise animals that are then separated and broken down only to be latter processed and put back together in the form of “whole foods.”
Most of the industrial food system is based off of F-2 corn, which is fed to animals in order to make them grow faster and also broken down and processed into different ingredients that play a major role in adding flavor and texture to the “whole foods” that are made from the compilation of other processed foods. As well, the industrial food system run on fossil fuels, which are used in growing the plants we eat, transporting the food and processing the food.
Those involved in the industrial food system are the farmers of the corn, the people working in the elevators that collect the entirety of F-2 corn in a certain area who then distribute it to the animal farms and the processing plants. From the animal farms, the meat is sent to slaughter house where people kill and dismantle the different parts of the animal, which is driven in freezer trucks to places like McDonalds and Walmart Super Centers. From the processing plants (owned mostly by Cargill and ADM) the corn is sent to science labs and turned into different ingredients that then end up being made into chicken McNuggets and other packaged foods. And finally, at the very end of the chain of industrial food, lies the consumer, us, the people who eat the food.
Around the age of one, when I was still breast feeding, I was also introduce to mashed up apples, sweet potatoes and many of the other fruits and vegetables I now eat today. My experiences with industrial food began when I started eating jars of baby food and will continue until I take my last bite of food. I eat industrial food everyday, from the packages cereals I eat for breakfast to the salad I eat for lunch to the burrito I eat for dinner. Like my friends, neighbors and the rest of the world, I have often ate my meals without thinking about where they came from or the process it took to get them into my stomach. Fresh and healthy or fried and unhealthy, home cooked or restaurant ordered, most of the food I consume comes from the long chain of industrial food. It is not until recently that I became aware of what it means to be apart of the industrial food system, and it was when I realized that every piece of food I was eating had a much longer history than I imagined. And that was when I became more conscious of where my food comes from and that I really didn’t want to eat some of the things I had been eating my whole life.
Analytical
The cause for the industrial food system and the reason it is the primary source of nutrition for America is because of America’s size and lifestyle and desire to get everything for as cheep as possible. With a population of nearly 300 million, it requires a mass production of food to feed all those people. But the real dictator of industrial food is the lifestyle; if we were to feed everyone locally it would require that many more people assume the profession of a farmer. With advances in science and society there are many different jobs for people take, if everyone had to grow, raise and hunt their own food there would be no time for building rockets, defending people in court rooms and writing books. In order to feed all 300 million people that are working in our developed society, there is no choice but to industrialize and mass-produce food. Plus, Americans like to consume more food than they need to. If you go to a diner, a typical representation of American food, and order a club sandwich it is enormous, stacked high with turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and comes with a whopping side of friend fries soaked in oil and coleslaw. If you eat all that food you stretch out your stomach and that just means you are going to want more the next time. This gigantic appetite America has is causing a greater market for food. And most of the time Americans are unwilling or unable to pay for expensive food, and therefore the food industry strives to make everything as cheap as possible.
As a result, the treatment of the workers is poor and the quality of the food is even worse. One example of the many different industries within the entire food industry is the tomato industry, where farmworkers are treated poorly.
Today, food harvesting in the United States is anything but fair: Tomato pickers in Immokalee mist pick two tons of tomatoes one by one – literally 4,000 pounds – just to make $50, and they regularly work 10- to 12- hour days with no overtime pay, no right to organize, no sick days and no benefits whatsoever (Buckley).
The workers at fast food restaurants, who were once teenagers who could afford to make less money (since they didn’t need to fully support themselves), are now mostly elderly, handicapped or immigrants (Schlosser 70). Workers at slaughter houses, who work dangerous jobs at the assembly lines, cutting up meat and fish as the line moves faster than they can safely work, are mostly immigrants and an estimated 1/4 of them are illegal. This is so because they come from places where they would be making much less money and are willing to work for less than most Americans, they are also less likely to join unions (Schlosser 160-62). Aside from the issues of financial exploitation, workers are also sexually exploited by their supervisors and co-workers as well as targets of drug dealers in their community.
The slaughterhouse and meat packing companies, who play a large role in the American industrial food system are the cause of not only the health problems in this country but also of the other issues society faces, specifically the drug and sexual abuse problem. Workers are forced into positions where they are powerless and often find themselves have sex with supervisors in order to gain better jobs, a secure place in America, a green card or a husband (Schlosser 176). Drugs enter the lives of the poor slaughterhouse workers when
The unrelenting pressure of trying to keep up with the line has encouraged widespread methamphetamine use among the meatpackers. Workers taking “crank” feel charged and self-confident, ready for anything. Supervisors have been known to sell crank to their workers or to supply it free in return for certain favors, such as working a second shift (Schlosser 174).
Mixing sex and meat packing is a dangerous thing to be doing. A woman working in the disassembly line that is being felt up by a supervisor or coworker cannot possible be safe trying to cut up meat with a sharp knife. Nor is a person much safer working with large machinery if they are on drugs, even if they feel more pumped to being doing that work. The industrial food system is responsible for mixing meat, sex and drugs; they are also responsible for the poor health of this country.
The meat is unsafe to eat. “A nationwide study published by the USDA in 1996 found that 7.5 percent of the ground beef samples taken from processing plants were contaminated with Salmonella, 11.7 percent were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, 30 percent were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, and 53.3 percent were contaminated with Clsotrudium perfringens. All of these pathogens can make people sick; food poisoning caused buy Listeria generally requires hospitalization and proves fatal in about one out of every five cases. In the USDA study 78.6 percent of ground beef contained microbes that are spread primarily by fecal material” (Schlosser 197). It is the fast moving lines that is not only the cause of a dangerous work environment but also the feces in the meat. While removing the guts of the expeditious moving animals, the guts are often broken and the contents contaminate the meat. The meat is clearly unhealthy and sickening, but it isn’t even those contaminations that are causing the many other more predominant issues associated with the food most people eat today. Diseases like obesity and diabetes plays a major role in causing poor quality life and death in this country. And while there is some attention paid to obesity and diabetes this country still doesn’t think enough about what they are eating, what microbes are contaminating their food and what their food is going to result in (poor health and disease).
The core of the industrial food system is really just death production that reduces the process of eating to survive and to enjoy the pleasure of food into a final product that will cost little and lack quality. In the process, and in essence, the industrial food system is not only killing the food we eat but also disregarding the harm it is doing to the environment and the health and well being of the people it is working for.
Martin Heideggar says, “Agriculture is now a motorized food industry, the same thing in it’s essence as the production of corpses in the gas chambers and the extermination camps, the same thing as the blockades and the reduction of countries to famine, the same thing as the manufacture of hydrogen bombs.” Which is to say that in providing meat to the people they are simply working to herd millions of animals to their death, but is not only specific to the animals that are being killed. In addition to being a production of animal death, the industrial food system is also responsible for the death, suffering and injury of the workers that work in the dangerous mechanical plants and the people eating the meat who are often sickened and killed by the food they eat.
Evaluation
The industrial food system plays an essential and influential role in the lives of nearly every person in America, but does not pass through the minds of the majority of the population. And while it isn’t something many people put much thought into it is extremely import because food is the essence of life; we are what we eat. When consuming a BigMac, that person becomes the poor quality beef made of chemically injected and corn and antibiotic fed cow, the bun made from cornstarch and the tomatoes picked by immigrant workers paid near to nothing. As a part of the industrial food system we are not only the animals we think we are eating but also the process in which they are produced. Which means we are responsible for consuming the fossil fuel that goes into production of the meat, that antibiotics and other steroids and drugs that are fed to the animals we eat, the diseases the animals contract in the unnatural living environments they are raise in and the gut contents (shit) that gets all over our meet.
As a part of a system that is feeding animals chemicals to make them grow faster and spraying plants with pesticides there is a lot to be said about who we are, the culture we live in and the situation we are faced with (not to mention the situation we are going to face when this industrial food systems falls). We are a part of a complex industrial system but are unaware and completely disassociated with what we eat are what we are made of. We simply just don’t think about what we are eating. And as a society, we are just a group of people who don’t think about we are eating. We are also a group being manipulated by not only the people who make the decision about what we are eating but also by our lack of values, that have allowed us to become people that care so much about the price of things that we disregard all the morals we claim to have while we disassociate with the process of living.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Homework - 3.2.07
2 Comments on Elliot's Paper
1.) "'But what if there was a diet that said that thoughts are the worst of the all and that the best to eat for fast results is meat and cheese.' I don't understand what you are trying to say here."
2.) "Do you actually believe what you are saying about the Atkind Diet being better than all other diets?"
1.) "'But what if there was a diet that said that thoughts are the worst of the all and that the best to eat for fast results is meat and cheese.' I don't understand what you are trying to say here."
2.) "Do you actually believe what you are saying about the Atkind Diet being better than all other diets?"
Sunday, February 25, 2007
The Right Way for People to Eat: Eating Through the Community
Here is the first part (its not a complete draft) of my "What's the right way for people to eat?":
It’s definitely hard to say what the one right way to eat is, but in order to consider what the right way to eat is it’s important to understand what you want to get out of eating first. I believe that the right way to eat will leave a person healthy and happy and the only way to truly achieve that is to eat food from your community. This means more though than just buying locally, this means planting, growing, killing and cooking your food in and with your community. Eating food from your own community means cutting out the processed food that many of the money oriented food producing companies are making, and in turn cutting out some of the most unhealthy things people eat today. It also means more fresh food, which is a way to introduce more healthy food into your diet. If you are producing and cooking your own food, the food is coming from your community, which means short travels to get it, and less money because you and your community are working for it and cutting out the cost of shipment and most importantly the money tapped onto the cost of food by the companies you are buying it from. And lastly, community based food programs are more ethical. Without the need for mass production animals raised for meat will not have to live in the gruesome conditions, and many don’t necessarily need to be raised by the community, hunting becomes one of the methods for gathering food. Along with the better treatment for the animals comes better treatment for people, community based programs allow for a shorter chain of people working to produce and distribute the food, and all the participants are doing it for the own good, cutting out many of the worker issues. Through community based food programs not only is their healthier food, more accessibility and better ethics but there is an improved quality of life in the community.
Health
World Health Organization defines health as, “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Which means that being healthy is not only about eating right, keeping proper nutrients in your body and exercising to keep your body physically fit, but also about keeping your mind and your human relations in good state. Working in a community based food system supports eating right, exercising and staying active and working and relating to your community, all of which do the job to keep you healthy.
Nutrition and Preservatives
Eating raw food may not be better than eating cooked food but it is more nutritional. This is because by heating the food the chemical make up of it changes and many of the vitamins and amino acids that the food has when it is fresh are broken down (living-foods.com). But whether or not your eat raw food doesn’t always depend on whether or not your food is being produced locally, you could be eating only local food but still cooking it all. What is does affect though is the fact that processed food is processed in all different kinds of way and heating is one of them. Like heating food to preserve it, there are other ways food is preserved and even some of those ways also use heating. Frozen food is persevered by taking the fresh food, dropping it into boiling water (to kill off microbes) and then freezing it. Canned food is preserved by first taking the food and heating it and then placed in a can and sealed (often in metal cans, which can contaminate the food). Pasteurizing, smoking and sterilizing are three other ways food is processed with heat. Other ways food is processed is through methods of salting, pickling, drying and irradiating (exposing the food to radiation) the food (informedeating.org).
To completely stop food processing would be impossible and unhealthy, people have been processing food as a way to preserve since the prehistoric ages and advanced greatly in the 19th and 20th century to serve military needs (wikipedia.org). Processing food is the only way to preserve it so it will not rot during off seasons of certain foods. And community base food programs would have to preserve their food because they wouldn’t be buying produce from other places that have the food they do not.
What community-based food programs do eliminate is the use of chemicals in process and preserved the food. Although it is not true that all chemicals are unhealthy and harmful to the human body and environment, many of them are. And one introducing chemicals into the body is unhealthy. Taking steroids is know to be bad for the body, but much of the beef in your supermarket was once a cow that was injected with steroids to make it grow bigger and faster. Humans have evolved over the last 200,000 years eating plants and fungi they collected and animals they hunted in the nearby area (wikipedia.org) until recently when food became another major and global industry. As humans evolved eating such things, they did not evolve to consume such chemicals that are being added in great quantities to the food you can find in the supermarket today. Excess salt causes hypertension (high blood pressure and arterial disease), saturated fats cause heart disease and obesity, excess sugar causes dental caries and diabetes and all the chemical additives cause cancer (informedeating.org). If you are producing and eating locally, you are processing your own food and therefore controlling the substances that preserve the food and can potentially destroy life.
Physical Health
The physical health aspect of community based food systems is simple, by working to produce the food yourself you are maintaining an active physical routine that will keep you in shape. Human evolved eating that food they had hunted and gathered and in doing so were able to get an equivalent amount of exercise many people do by going to the gym to stare at a wall and run on a moving piece of floor. If people are working to produce their own food they have to be working to grow and gather their own plants, raise their own animals and/or hunt there own animals, which all requires more energy and burns more calories than walking to a local supermarket or ordering from Fresh Direct. In America adults are encouraged to exercise for 30 minutes a day (fitness.gov), if just that is sufficient for keeping people in shape people working to produce their own food easily meet that standard.
Mental Health
Like physical health, mental health is also something that becomes very simple in a community-based food system. By working with the land and with the community, people achieve personal happiness and positive social interaction. In a story about a man who works with chronically ill people in an organic garden he says, “I personally believe that a huge benefit comes from a renewed relationship with nature. It starts with an ‘I won't poison you, you won't poison me’ attitude, and ends with ‘I'll nurture and respect you, you nurture and respect me’” (lookwayup.com/free/organic.htm), which goes to show that through growing food people become in touch with themselves and the earth, finding some personal satisfaction. The social aspect is also apparent in that people in the community are working together to feed themselves and each other; by working within a community people are able to experience companionship with and support from other members of the community. And with such personal and communal benefits, people working in community-based food systems are able to achieve a better state of mental health.
It’s definitely hard to say what the one right way to eat is, but in order to consider what the right way to eat is it’s important to understand what you want to get out of eating first. I believe that the right way to eat will leave a person healthy and happy and the only way to truly achieve that is to eat food from your community. This means more though than just buying locally, this means planting, growing, killing and cooking your food in and with your community. Eating food from your own community means cutting out the processed food that many of the money oriented food producing companies are making, and in turn cutting out some of the most unhealthy things people eat today. It also means more fresh food, which is a way to introduce more healthy food into your diet. If you are producing and cooking your own food, the food is coming from your community, which means short travels to get it, and less money because you and your community are working for it and cutting out the cost of shipment and most importantly the money tapped onto the cost of food by the companies you are buying it from. And lastly, community based food programs are more ethical. Without the need for mass production animals raised for meat will not have to live in the gruesome conditions, and many don’t necessarily need to be raised by the community, hunting becomes one of the methods for gathering food. Along with the better treatment for the animals comes better treatment for people, community based programs allow for a shorter chain of people working to produce and distribute the food, and all the participants are doing it for the own good, cutting out many of the worker issues. Through community based food programs not only is their healthier food, more accessibility and better ethics but there is an improved quality of life in the community.
Health
World Health Organization defines health as, “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Which means that being healthy is not only about eating right, keeping proper nutrients in your body and exercising to keep your body physically fit, but also about keeping your mind and your human relations in good state. Working in a community based food system supports eating right, exercising and staying active and working and relating to your community, all of which do the job to keep you healthy.
Nutrition and Preservatives
Eating raw food may not be better than eating cooked food but it is more nutritional. This is because by heating the food the chemical make up of it changes and many of the vitamins and amino acids that the food has when it is fresh are broken down (living-foods.com). But whether or not your eat raw food doesn’t always depend on whether or not your food is being produced locally, you could be eating only local food but still cooking it all. What is does affect though is the fact that processed food is processed in all different kinds of way and heating is one of them. Like heating food to preserve it, there are other ways food is preserved and even some of those ways also use heating. Frozen food is persevered by taking the fresh food, dropping it into boiling water (to kill off microbes) and then freezing it. Canned food is preserved by first taking the food and heating it and then placed in a can and sealed (often in metal cans, which can contaminate the food). Pasteurizing, smoking and sterilizing are three other ways food is processed with heat. Other ways food is processed is through methods of salting, pickling, drying and irradiating (exposing the food to radiation) the food (informedeating.org).
To completely stop food processing would be impossible and unhealthy, people have been processing food as a way to preserve since the prehistoric ages and advanced greatly in the 19th and 20th century to serve military needs (wikipedia.org). Processing food is the only way to preserve it so it will not rot during off seasons of certain foods. And community base food programs would have to preserve their food because they wouldn’t be buying produce from other places that have the food they do not.
What community-based food programs do eliminate is the use of chemicals in process and preserved the food. Although it is not true that all chemicals are unhealthy and harmful to the human body and environment, many of them are. And one introducing chemicals into the body is unhealthy. Taking steroids is know to be bad for the body, but much of the beef in your supermarket was once a cow that was injected with steroids to make it grow bigger and faster. Humans have evolved over the last 200,000 years eating plants and fungi they collected and animals they hunted in the nearby area (wikipedia.org) until recently when food became another major and global industry. As humans evolved eating such things, they did not evolve to consume such chemicals that are being added in great quantities to the food you can find in the supermarket today. Excess salt causes hypertension (high blood pressure and arterial disease), saturated fats cause heart disease and obesity, excess sugar causes dental caries and diabetes and all the chemical additives cause cancer (informedeating.org). If you are producing and eating locally, you are processing your own food and therefore controlling the substances that preserve the food and can potentially destroy life.
Physical Health
The physical health aspect of community based food systems is simple, by working to produce the food yourself you are maintaining an active physical routine that will keep you in shape. Human evolved eating that food they had hunted and gathered and in doing so were able to get an equivalent amount of exercise many people do by going to the gym to stare at a wall and run on a moving piece of floor. If people are working to produce their own food they have to be working to grow and gather their own plants, raise their own animals and/or hunt there own animals, which all requires more energy and burns more calories than walking to a local supermarket or ordering from Fresh Direct. In America adults are encouraged to exercise for 30 minutes a day (fitness.gov), if just that is sufficient for keeping people in shape people working to produce their own food easily meet that standard.
Mental Health
Like physical health, mental health is also something that becomes very simple in a community-based food system. By working with the land and with the community, people achieve personal happiness and positive social interaction. In a story about a man who works with chronically ill people in an organic garden he says, “I personally believe that a huge benefit comes from a renewed relationship with nature. It starts with an ‘I won't poison you, you won't poison me’ attitude, and ends with ‘I'll nurture and respect you, you nurture and respect me’” (lookwayup.com/free/organic.htm), which goes to show that through growing food people become in touch with themselves and the earth, finding some personal satisfaction. The social aspect is also apparent in that people in the community are working together to feed themselves and each other; by working within a community people are able to experience companionship with and support from other members of the community. And with such personal and communal benefits, people working in community-based food systems are able to achieve a better state of mental health.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Nutritional and Historical Lenses at the Supermarket
Nutritional
How do organic products differ?
If given the chance, I usually chose organic products over non-organic products. I like to think organic products are better for me. What I have never done is actually done is compared the nutritional values. I did this with organic eggs and non-organic eggs in the supermarket today.
Organic Eggs Vs. Non-Organic eggs
- 0.5g less fat in Organic eggs
- 0.5g less saturated fat in Organic eggs
- 55mgs less cholesterol in Organic eggs
- 15mg less sodium in Organic eggs
- 2g less protein in Organic eggs
- Same amount of Carbohydrates
- 2% les vitamin A and Calcium in Organic eggs
And then I compared them to packaged egg whites, which have nothing in then except for 95mgs of sodium, 90mg of potassium (not mentions on the other egg’s nutritional values), 1g of carbohydrate (the same as the eggs) and 6g of protein.
Plastic wrap (the meat) can’t be good for you.
How does the nutritional value of fresh food compare to the nutritional values of packaged and processed food?
How does packaging food change its nutrition?
What preservatives go into all the packaged foods? What are the ingredients labeled (with words no one knows) are the preservatives?
History
When did meats begin to be packaged the way they are, with plastic wrap?
People on a farm, eating their own chickens, never have the choice to have 6 legs, rather than a whole chicken.
What happens to the left over meat? How much is wasted? How does meat waste compare to 100 years ago?
How long have foods been packaged with so much wrapping?
When were supermarkets invented? How have they changed?
Is there a difference in the nutritional values of modern food and food from 100 years ago?
When were pre-packaged meals first introduced onto the food market and where? How has it changed the way people eat?
When was bottled water introduced to the food market?
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Mixing Things up at Burritoville
I considered myself someone who didn't eat fast food because I don’t eat at McDonalds or Burger King, but as it turns out, I am really eating fast food at least once a week. And that’s because I am a Burritoville junkie. So I took this project as an excuse to eat there today.
When I got there with Devin, neither of us knew what we wanted so we ate some tortilla chips with salsa while we decided. I tried to order some salad my mother ordered from there this weekend, but I didn’t order it right and I didn’t get exactly what I was hoping for. I ordered a salad in the fried tortilla shell, which I didn’t get, but I asked for it after I noticed there wasn’t one. So I started eating my salad that consisted of lettuce, tomato, some sort of jerk chicken, tortilla chips, guacamole, cheese and sour cream. I started eating it and thought it tasted pretty good. Then my shell was ready so I took half of my salad and dumped it into the shell. I broke the shell off into a chip size and shoveled some salad onto it with my fork and took a bite.
I gave some of my shell to Devin, who thought it was so good he order one for himself, to eat with his burrito-bowl, which I also ate. The burrito bowl had lettuce, brown rice, black beans, a green hot sauce, chicken, cheese and sour cream. When I was eating that I tasted mostly the chicken, beans and rice, what I didn’t taste, and Devin said was pretty hot, was the green hot sauce. Devin dumped his whole burrito bowl into his friend tortilla shell.
We kept eating and towards the bottom of my salad I realized the bottom of the shell we soggy and gross, go figure. I was thinking about how unhealthy these fried tortilla shells were, how if you go to the fair everything is fried like this. (That’s when Devin says, “we should eat these with everything.”)
Anyways, we kept eating the food and then I decided to mix what was left in my bowl with what was left in Devin’s, so I just emptied my plate of food onto his. At that point, I was full but I kept eating what tasted like a pure concoction. Eventually I stopped eating the burrito-bowl-salad concoction and ate a few more tortilla chips, dipping them in sour cream, before I finally stopped eating all together. I felt bloated and gross afterwards from eating so much, but that usually how I feel after I leave Burritoville. Outside I ate a few peanut M&Ms; the chocolate was perfect tasting.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Composting
When can we start? How do we do it?
We can start composting today. Compost is a way of recycling left over food, dried leaves and other organic materials. It then can be used instead of commercial fertilizers to give nutrients to the soil and plants. Compost consists of a ratio of materials rich in carbon and nitrogen. Carbon-rich, also called “browns,” are things like dried leaves, straw and wood chips. Nitrogen-rich, also called “greens” are things that are fresh or green like grass and kitchen scraps (left over lettuce, egg shells, anything but meat mostly). For every 1 part “green” you want about 25 parts “browns.”
What Variety?
There are million varieties of compost; it all depends on what type of material you put into the compost. But generally compost is just one mixture of many different things. Variety doesn’t apply to compost the same way it does apple trees or chickens.
Issues/Concerns
The only issues or concerns I have about the compost is that it would smell. This would be caused by too much of the nitrogen-rich material not mixed with enough carbon-rich material.
Links
General
http://www.compostguide.com/
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/homecompost/building.html
http://www.care2.com/channels/solutions/outdoors/211
The Purpose of Compost
http://www.kitchengardeners.org/2006/04/compost_it_will.html
Building a Compost Bin
http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/g00148.asp
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=2030
Complete Instructions
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicgardening/compost_pf.php
We can start composting today. Compost is a way of recycling left over food, dried leaves and other organic materials. It then can be used instead of commercial fertilizers to give nutrients to the soil and plants. Compost consists of a ratio of materials rich in carbon and nitrogen. Carbon-rich, also called “browns,” are things like dried leaves, straw and wood chips. Nitrogen-rich, also called “greens” are things that are fresh or green like grass and kitchen scraps (left over lettuce, egg shells, anything but meat mostly). For every 1 part “green” you want about 25 parts “browns.”
What Variety?
There are million varieties of compost; it all depends on what type of material you put into the compost. But generally compost is just one mixture of many different things. Variety doesn’t apply to compost the same way it does apple trees or chickens.
Issues/Concerns
The only issues or concerns I have about the compost is that it would smell. This would be caused by too much of the nitrogen-rich material not mixed with enough carbon-rich material.
Links
General
http://www.compostguide.com/
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/homecompost/building.html
http://www.care2.com/channels/solutions/outdoors/211
The Purpose of Compost
http://www.kitchengardeners.org/2006/04/compost_it_will.html
Building a Compost Bin
http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/g00148.asp
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=2030
Complete Instructions
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicgardening/compost_pf.php
Friday, February 9, 2007
Healthy Eating - Class Questions
What food seems healthy?
I think healthy eating would be eating lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, soy and some animal products. Here are some things that come to mind:
Fruits – mango, pineapple, apples, papaya, berries (various kinds), bananas, tomatoes, peppers.
Vegetables - lettuce, spinach, corn, beets, carrots, onions, garlic, carrots, leeks, celery.
Grains & Wheat - barley, brown rice, wild rice, whole grain bread, whole-wheat bread, whole grain cereals.
Meats, fish and others – Chicken, turkey, tofu, salmon, cod, tuna (fish only sometimes because of mercury levels.
Here is a 3-day menu that is a little boring but I consider healthy eating:
Day One
Breakfast – Fruit salad, eggs with turkey sausage, whole grain toast with smart butter (non-dairy, not margarine), and fresh squeezed orange juice.
Lunch – A turkey sandwich with lettuce or fresh spinach, tomato, mustard, mayo and cheese.
Dinner – Salmon burgers with whole grain bread, lettuce and tomatoes, a salad with fresh vegetables and a side of roasted vegetables (potatoes, squash, parsnips).
Day Two
Breakfast – Whole grain hot cereal (like oatmeal) with maple syrup or honey, low fat or soymilk, topped with fruit and fresh squeezed orange juice or hot tea.
Lunch - Chicken soup with barley, onions, carrots, zucchini, corn, spinach, celery and spices, some whole grain bread/toast and a small side salad with fresh vegetables.
Dinner – Lasagna with tomato sauce and full of vegetables (carrots, onion, basil), toast and a salad.
Day Three
Breakfast – Strawberry or banana pancakes with whole-wheat flour and maple syrup, fruit salad and fresh squeezed orange juice.
Lunch - Tuna salad (with celery, pepper, radish) sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes on whole grain bread. Noodle soup with lots of vegetables (corn, zucchini, onions, carrots, etc.).
Dinner – Chicken baked with herbs and brown rice and artichokes with a vinaigrette sauce
In general, if I could eat anything it would be soups. I think soups are tasty and a good way to combine many healthy ingredients, I almost think I would eat soup (different soups of course) for every meal.
What should people eat?
I think people should eat lots of fresh food. I think that eating meals is important; I think healthy snacks are fine but should not have too much sugar or artificial ingredients. I think people should be able to eat what they want, but I think that if I were to control the food market I would take out a lot of the snack food and candies that are full of sugar and lack nutrients. I also think that it is important for people to eat "real" food, rather than stuff that has been processed so much. For example I think people should eat Macaroni and Cheese made with real cheese, rather than the powered stuff that comes in a box. But most importantly I believe food is something people should enjoy and if some people want to eat unhealthy, sugary things and it will make them happy, they should go for it. What is important to remember though, is to balance what you are eating and not eat too much.
I think healthy eating would be eating lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, soy and some animal products. Here are some things that come to mind:
Fruits – mango, pineapple, apples, papaya, berries (various kinds), bananas, tomatoes, peppers.
Vegetables - lettuce, spinach, corn, beets, carrots, onions, garlic, carrots, leeks, celery.
Grains & Wheat - barley, brown rice, wild rice, whole grain bread, whole-wheat bread, whole grain cereals.
Meats, fish and others – Chicken, turkey, tofu, salmon, cod, tuna (fish only sometimes because of mercury levels.
Here is a 3-day menu that is a little boring but I consider healthy eating:
Day One
Breakfast – Fruit salad, eggs with turkey sausage, whole grain toast with smart butter (non-dairy, not margarine), and fresh squeezed orange juice.
Lunch – A turkey sandwich with lettuce or fresh spinach, tomato, mustard, mayo and cheese.
Dinner – Salmon burgers with whole grain bread, lettuce and tomatoes, a salad with fresh vegetables and a side of roasted vegetables (potatoes, squash, parsnips).
Day Two
Breakfast – Whole grain hot cereal (like oatmeal) with maple syrup or honey, low fat or soymilk, topped with fruit and fresh squeezed orange juice or hot tea.
Lunch - Chicken soup with barley, onions, carrots, zucchini, corn, spinach, celery and spices, some whole grain bread/toast and a small side salad with fresh vegetables.
Dinner – Lasagna with tomato sauce and full of vegetables (carrots, onion, basil), toast and a salad.
Day Three
Breakfast – Strawberry or banana pancakes with whole-wheat flour and maple syrup, fruit salad and fresh squeezed orange juice.
Lunch - Tuna salad (with celery, pepper, radish) sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes on whole grain bread. Noodle soup with lots of vegetables (corn, zucchini, onions, carrots, etc.).
Dinner – Chicken baked with herbs and brown rice and artichokes with a vinaigrette sauce
In general, if I could eat anything it would be soups. I think soups are tasty and a good way to combine many healthy ingredients, I almost think I would eat soup (different soups of course) for every meal.
What should people eat?
I think people should eat lots of fresh food. I think that eating meals is important; I think healthy snacks are fine but should not have too much sugar or artificial ingredients. I think people should be able to eat what they want, but I think that if I were to control the food market I would take out a lot of the snack food and candies that are full of sugar and lack nutrients. I also think that it is important for people to eat "real" food, rather than stuff that has been processed so much. For example I think people should eat Macaroni and Cheese made with real cheese, rather than the powered stuff that comes in a box. But most importantly I believe food is something people should enjoy and if some people want to eat unhealthy, sugary things and it will make them happy, they should go for it. What is important to remember though, is to balance what you are eating and not eat too much.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Introduction to Locally Available Apples
Left: Cameo Apple Right: Mutsu Apple
Apple Cider Donut
a.) What is this food?
These are two different kinds of apples. One is a Cameo, which is similar to a Fugi apple. It is red, yellow and green. It is a medium size and supposedly sweet. Like most apples, it is a round shape, but compared to some of the other apples it is not as perfectly round. When looking through the crates of Cameo apples they seem to be very asymmetrical. The other apple is called a Mutsu and is a crossbreed of a granny smith apple and a sweet delicious apple. The apples are a greenish yellow and orange color. The greener they are (the ones that look more like granny smiths) are sourer/tarter and the more orangey colored ones are sweeter and taste more like the golden delicious.
Whatever apples don't get sold at the farmer market are taken back to the farm and made into apple cider and apple cider donuts.
b.) Why is it good to eat apples?
Apples are good to eat because they are full of pectin, which is a soluble fiber that can reduce cholesterol and protect against environmental toxins. They are also a good source of vitamin C. The fiber in apples is also good for your digestive system and will help you poop. Apples are esthetically good because they are crunchy, sweet and fun to eat. And as most everyone knows from looking at the food pyramid that you are supposed 2-4 servings of fruits a day. Plus, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.
c.) Who sells it? Where?
These apples are grown by a farmer named Ken Migliorelli on the Migliorelli farm in Tivoli, NY. The Migliorelli farm is 550 acres and grows large quantities of apples, other fruits and vegetables. At the farmers Market at union square, in the middle of winter, the Migliorelli Farm stand sells apples, pears, apple cider donuts and apple cider. In the summer they sell other fruits like peaches and vegetables like lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers. They also have another Migliorelli farm stand in Hudson valley, closer to the farm. The man who sold me the apples had been working for the Migliorelli farm for 13 years. That he woke up at 1 in the morning to go to the farm, get the apples and drive them to NYC 3 days a week.
Migliorelli Farm
46 Freeborn Lane
Tivoli, NY 12583
USA
tel: 845-757-3276 or 914-757-FARM
d.) How do they grow it?
When I asked the man at the farmers market how these apples are grown he said, “They plant the seed, water it and wait. Then it grows and there are flowers on the tree.” So I’m guessing there isn’t anything very special about how these apples are grown. I asked about pesticides and the man told me that Migliorelli Farm uses “very expensive pesticides that wash off by just rinsing the apple with water.” He also noted that he eats them without rinsing them and he’s “fine.”
e.) Links
General information about Apples
http://www.bestapples.com/healthy/index.html
http://www.vegparadise.com/highestperch39.html
http://health.learninginfo.org/apple.htm
Specific information about the Cameo Apple
http://www.cffresh.com/fresh/cameo_profile.html
Specific information about the Mutsu Apple
http://www.cffresh.com/fresh/mutsu_profile.html
Cooking Pasta
I began by boiling about 6 or 7 cups of water. I put it in the medium sized pot, on the bottom left flame, because that is the hottest flame on my stove. Then I waited for the water to boil. I walked away and came back when I could hear the little metal piece on the lid bouncing up and down, which is an indication that the water is boiling. Then I poured in a little more than half a box of colorful, cylindrical spiral pasta. I let it cook for about 10 minutes, until it was soft. I tested it before I turned off the flame. The first time I tested it was softer on the outside but still a little hard on the inside. I let it cook more and when I tested it again, it was the right softness. I took the pot off the stove and over to the sink where I poured the pasta into the colander. Then I was done. The End.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
In My Stomach and On My Plate
For dinner I went out to the diner and had a Caesar salad with chicken. But I didn’t bring my camera. The chicken was crispy, like it had been cooked in a pan, was thin and dry. It was cooked with rosemary, which was not obvious at first, but I tasted it afterwards when I was eating the chicken without the lettuce and dressing. The dressing was creamy and salty from the anchovies, which I thought about as I ate because I really don’t like anchovies but I didn’t mind the dressing. But thinking about the salt and anchovies, I wasn’t as tempted to pick of the pieces of lettuce drenched in it on the bottom. The croutons were big, crunchy and fake buttery. They were fun to eat but I didn’t think they were the best, I can’t identify the specific taste that reminded me of something artificial. Overall, my salad was pretty good and I felt better eating it than I usually do when I go to the diner and order a burger. But I didn’t go to the diner without having some of a burger. My (fat ass) boyfriend had a buffalo burger with bacon and cheese, French fries with gravy and coleslaw. The gravy tasted like chicken gravy and I would say was not too thick and not too thin. The French fries were limp, soft and salty, and combined with the gravy tasted even saltier and felt mushier. The burger, I cant even remember what I tasted most but am sure I tasted everything on it, had gravy pepper jack cheese, bacon, lettuce and tomato. Thinking back now, I remember the strongest flavor and sensation was the bacon. It was harder to chew (all the fat) and tasted salty and meaty and delicious. The buffalo burger tastes fresher and is less chewy than a beef burger. I couldn’t really taste the gravy, I just knew I ate it after it squirted out from the burger and onto my face; just what I love. The tomato was ripe and juicy, which added moisture to the bite. The lettuce was crunchy. I couldn’t really taste the cheese, which I expected to be spicy and flavorful but it wasn’t. The coleslaw was moist, sweet and mayonnaise-packed. The cabbage was crunchy, but not too, because it had been marinating in the mayo. When I got to the middle I noticed there were raisins in it, which probably added to the sweetness. I didn’t eat them because I don’t like raisins. For desert we ordered strawberry shortcake. The cake was fluffy and soft. The white icing was light and didn’t taste as much like coolwhip as I expected, not did it taste like heavy cake icing. It was sweet, but not too sweet. The strawberries had been marinated in some sugary substance like, and were soft and super sweet. The sugary substance, which the strawberries floated in, was jam like and transparent red. On top was a fresh strawberry with a nasty layer of some clear sugar coating. I tasted it and it just tasted like some gross sugar mixture. The strawberry was crisp but mixed with the taste of the sugar layer wasn’t that good.
When I came home my mom was making dinner for herself and my father. I ate some spinach pie. The outside was flaky, but not greasy like some other spinach pie I have had. The inside was sweet, the cheese and everything was moist. The spinach didn’t taste dry and make my teeth feel funny, which happens sometimes when I east steamed spinach. The whole thing was soft on the inside and barely crispy on the outer layer. The bottom layer of dough was soft and moist. The spinach pie was definitely worth eating even though it was sort of a second meal and I should probably not eat so much.
When I came home my mom was making dinner for herself and my father. I ate some spinach pie. The outside was flaky, but not greasy like some other spinach pie I have had. The inside was sweet, the cheese and everything was moist. The spinach didn’t taste dry and make my teeth feel funny, which happens sometimes when I east steamed spinach. The whole thing was soft on the inside and barely crispy on the outer layer. The bottom layer of dough was soft and moist. The spinach pie was definitely worth eating even though it was sort of a second meal and I should probably not eat so much.
On My Plate
On my plate: Pad Thai, Pad Woon Sen, Green Curry, Masaman Curry and Thai Fried Rice.
Eating The Pad Thai
The Pad Thai is a Thai noodle made with brown tofu, eggs, beans sprouts, scallions and peanuts. The noodles are soft and bigger, the strongest flavor is the peanut. When I fill my mouth with a bite of Pad Thai noodles, it fills my mouth completely and chewing is soft and full. The bits of peanuts create something chunky amongst the softness of the noodles. The pieces of tofu that look like eggs in fried rice, adds another softer texture, but because of the soft noodles and the lack of flavor that the tofu has, I don’t know exactly what it tastes like. But the tofu adds an interesting texture. The bean sprouts add crunch and moisture. When I keep chewing, the Pad Thai turns into a big ball of soft mush in my mouth, and when I swallow it goes down nice and easy.
Eating The Pad Woon Sen
These small noodles fill my mouth completely differently than the Pad Thai, they tickle and touch all the sides of my mouth, and are easy to bite apart. They don’t have much flavor, except for when you bite down and can taste the green onion.
Eating The Green Curry
This is the spiciest item on my plate. The green curry is a mixture of vegetables, including bamboo shoots, basils, bell peppers, zucchini and cabbage, cooked in coconut milk and green chili paste. My favorite ingredient is the cabbage, which is sweet amongst the spicy sauce. There is an interesting mixture of textures with the small pellets of softer rice and the crunchiness of the cabbage and the bamboo shoots and the softness of the cooked peppers. When eating this green curry, the chili paste is very spicy and burns the inside of my mouth. The coconut milk sauce that the vegetables are made in mixes with the rice and makes a sort of soupy mixture that is soft and doesn’t require very much chewing. It is easy to chew but is very spicy.
Eating The Masaman Curry
This Curry is made with chili paste, potatoes, peanuts and onions. Compared to the Green curry, this curry is not as spicy, and tastes very strongly of peanuts. I didn’t get any potatoes and ended up eating the sauce with the peanuts and onions over rice, like the soupy mixture the green curry made. The peanuts were crunchy but the rice was soft and the sauce hot (in both ways) and smooth.
Eating The Thai Fried Rice.
This friend rice tastes a lot like friend rice from the Chinese restaurant. It is made with rice, scallions, onions, carrots tomatoes and eggs. The rice is greasy, it is soft and brown but it doesn’t tastes like it’s been pan friend. The carrots are sliced in circle/oval shapes, with a zigzag pattern around the edge, crunchy in the middle and softer around the outside. They taste moist, and sort of bland like carrots usually do. The onions add a nice flavor that is sweet and tart, and are a nice slightly crunchy ingredient. The tomatoes are juicy, and don’t have a very strong flavor, when eaten with the rice they make a wonderful combination because that ass moisture to my entire mouth.
Over all this meal was fairly spicy and had a lot of peanut flavoring. The blandness of the rice complimented all the flavor of the spices, and the noodles were soft, kind of sweet and very tasty. When eating this is was also very nice to mix all the things together in one bite, getting all the flavors (which are all sort of similar) and the texture (which are all very different. This was a pretty good meal, but I must say, since the last time I ate Thai food, my friend left it in a nice heaping pile on my floor and I was not too excited to eat it again this time. But I did.
In my Fridge
Coke (all Terry’s)
Chocolate Syrup
Joint Supplement
Capers
Teriyaki Sauce
Old Root beer
Jam (several kinds)
Ginger
Wasabi
Mustard
Peanut Sauce
2%
Whole Milk
Lots of Pulp Orange Juice
Lox
Cream cheese
Butter
Cheddar cheese
Grapefruit
Clementines
Lemon
Ginger root
Brown sugar
Carrots
Green onions
Olives
Rotisserie chicken
Organic Spring Mix - Mesclun
Green peppers
Mushrooms
Parsley
Apple Maple breakfast chick sausage
Prego Pasta Sauce
More Olives
Dog Food
Maple Syrup
Mayo
Smart Butter
Silk (soy milk)
Apple Sauce
Portabella Mushrooms
Garlic Pasty stuff
Hummus & More Hummus
Mango
Left over whole grain rice with vegetables
Turkey
Wheat germ
Chocolate sauce
Chocolate Frosting
Vanilla frosting
More Olives
Better than bouillon
Blueberries
Whole grain bread
Salsa
Munster
Brie
White cheddar
Jarlsburg
Tortilla
Tomatoes
Garlic
Organic eggs
Cat food
Beets
Celery
More green peppers
Potatoes
Artichokes
Cucumber
This is my Fridge:
This is my Pantry:
Chocolate Syrup
Joint Supplement
Capers
Teriyaki Sauce
Old Root beer
Jam (several kinds)
Ginger
Wasabi
Mustard
Peanut Sauce
2%
Whole Milk
Lots of Pulp Orange Juice
Lox
Cream cheese
Butter
Cheddar cheese
Grapefruit
Clementines
Lemon
Ginger root
Brown sugar
Carrots
Green onions
Olives
Rotisserie chicken
Organic Spring Mix - Mesclun
Green peppers
Mushrooms
Parsley
Apple Maple breakfast chick sausage
Prego Pasta Sauce
More Olives
Dog Food
Maple Syrup
Mayo
Smart Butter
Silk (soy milk)
Apple Sauce
Portabella Mushrooms
Garlic Pasty stuff
Hummus & More Hummus
Mango
Left over whole grain rice with vegetables
Turkey
Wheat germ
Chocolate sauce
Chocolate Frosting
Vanilla frosting
More Olives
Better than bouillon
Blueberries
Whole grain bread
Salsa
Munster
Brie
White cheddar
Jarlsburg
Tortilla
Tomatoes
Garlic
Organic eggs
Cat food
Beets
Celery
More green peppers
Potatoes
Artichokes
Cucumber
This is my Fridge:
This is my Pantry:
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