Food Journal # 8

I read: The Seven Deadly Myths of Industrial Agriculture. This article said that industrial food, contrary to most people's beliefs, is actually very expensive when you include the health, environmental, and social costs to the supermarket price of the food. The article is also saying that the price of food and how it is made is actually way more expensive than how the food is priced in supermarkets. This is because the food and crops undergo a lot of "technology" and pesticides to get the produce to grow faster. Most people and consumers are not aware of this.
Industrial foods and farming ruins our environment because of all the water, soil, and air being used up as well as the pesticides being sprayed on the crops. Since 1960, we have lost half of our topsoil. Also, the food travels at least 1,300 miles from the field to our supermarkets and that is also fossil fuel being emmited into the air which helps cause pollution which then goes back into our crops, food, and lungs.
For health costs, many people get sick per year because of food-related illnesses. These sicknesses can be contributed to the pesticides, hormones, and other chemicals put into our food. Manure also put in food can contribute to this. Agriculture farming is the most accident prone career in this culture.

Food Journal # 7

Grilled Cheese:
- 1 slice of Kraft American cheese
- 2 pieces of whole grain or white bread from the bag
- 1/2 tomato sliced
- 2 pieces of turkey or regular bacon
- 1/4 spoon of butter

1. Take out a pan and turn the stove on to a medium flame.
2. Put the butter in the pan and stir it around the pan till melted. There should be a lot.
3. Put the 2 pieces of bread into the pan and leave it their for about 1 1/2 minutes.
4. When the bread looks a bit brown and crispy, put the slice of cheese on 1 piece of bread.http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/2291637/grilledcheese-main_Full.jpg
5. Quickly, put the tomatoes on the cheese and tear little strips of bacon on top of that.
6. Flip the other side of bread onto the other side and press the spatula on top of the bread so everything melts and stays together.
7. Serve and cut in half.
This is how it should look:http://i.ehowgrilledcheese-main_Full.jpg

Chapter 5 Omnivores Dilemma

In chapter 5 of The Omnivores Dilemma, Pollan investigates on how corn is processed. He said that even though we don't eat a lot of corn, we still ocnsume a lot of it in ways we don't expect: the meat that was once cattle was fed corn gets into our body, alcohol is made from corn, fossil fuel, things fried in corn oil, and much more. In addition, corn enzymes are broken down into carbs that starts a long chain of different organic compounds. Corn is also found in processed food in this way: glucose, fructose, maltodextrin, methanol to name a few. Plowing the corn takes a lot of energy in the tractor-about 10 calories of fossil fuel is burned by gathering a ton of corn which is a big amount. The processed food companies also trick us. For example, if the cost of soy or corn spikes, the company will switch to fat and call it natural substances so that is why many items say: "contains one or more of the following ingriedients: corn, soybean, or sunflower oil."Also, the more ingriedients a product has, the less healthy it is because it means that many unnatural and unhealthy items are used to re-create the final processed food. They mix ingriedients together to get the product to look appealing and to fool the consumers. That is why processed food companies are a bit hesistant to give out ingriedients in the product because then the people would know exactly what is in the food and stop buying it and also to prevent other companies from stealing their ideas.

Chapter 4 Omnivores Dillema

In chapter 4 of The Omnivores Dilemma, the main topic is how meat is processed and even before the meat is made, what raising the cattle is like. Even though this is already a known fact, Pollan confirmed for us that the cattle which is made into meat are kept in unsanitary conditions and are fed cheap corn so that the herders don't need to spend as much money for good corn for the animals. Pollan noted that the feedlot owners care a little bit about bacteria and do attempt to keep bacteria away but it just costs too much money to do that.

Chapter 2 Omnivores Dilemma

In chapter 2 of The Omnivores Dilemma, The author was saying how he went to a corn field with a farmer named George Naylor and he got to see what went on and how the corn husking industry works. Pollan noted that it was almost hypnotic in the motion of plowing the corn and gathering it up day in and day out. He also said that very good corn has to be fertilized by the sun and for that to happen, farmers need to wait a long time because the weather in the Midwest usually is not all that great so to speed up the process, farmers use artificial fertilizers that act as sun so that the corn could give off the impression of being fertile by the real sun. According to Pollan, this is why there is hardly any "ecological" process of farming crops these days-it takes too long and crops aren't sold. On another subject, Pollan talked about the economic toll on farmers of growing crops. For example, the price of vegetables are dropping and corn, for instance, used to be $3 and now its $2 therefore, farmers make less money than they produce the food. Also, there is competition between farmers in areas mainly occupied by farmers. The farmers see who can get most of the profit and sell the most corn. I agree that these results are interesting and it stresses for me even more why it is so difficult to be a farmer in today's world.

Groceries

I noticed that in grocery stores, the first thing you see usually is the fresh fruit and vegetable area. Then the dairy and juice area. And then there are rows and rows of frozen food aisles and the sweets and unhealthy things are towards the back. My guess is that supermarkets want to appeal to consumers in showing that you should buy healthy an then work your way to the back where sweets are. I read somewhere that stores arrange their food strategically to appeal to customers. For example, things that are used a lot go in the back and things in front are the less needed items. In my household, my mom tries to cook healthy because she has cholestrol problems but she also cooks things that aren't always healthy such as steak. But when my mom buys things such as meat, she only buys the organic kind. She might buy food that is generally unhealthy but she always buys the "healthier" version so that it could at least help a little bit.

food eaten in a week

in a typical week, I eat alot of each category of food which are grains/beans, vegetables, fruits, and maybe meat? My meals are mostly out of pastas and potatoes which are grains and I eat alot of vegetables such as lettuce and string beans. But one of my favorite things to eat are fruits. During the summer, I'll eat a lot of peaches, cherries, and plums. I also enjoy mangoes, strawberries, pineapple, apples, oranges, and there are more. I think it's good to eat in moderation from all these categories because too much of one can be unhealthy. For example, If I only ate fruit I wouldn't be healthy because even though fruit is very healthy, there is still sugars in there that aren't healthy for you in large quantities.

May Day

I do not think that understanding May Day is the key to understanding a good life. I think it is hard for me to understand it because I am not a worker and I do not know a worker. Also, in the U.S. we do not celebrate or recognize May Day-we recognize Labor Day and even then, it isn't a big celebration like May Day is. Labor Day is just BBQs, going to the beach, and kind of partying it up. It does not really have many intellectual events going on and Labor Day is just a day to relax. It is a more low-key then May Day. May Day there are actually protests and big parades. It is a bigger affair and it has more meaning than Labor Day, in my opinion. The principal is important because it is celebrating workers rights. My dad is in Paris and he was there on May Day and he said the streets were packed and there were parades and protests going on. He told me he watched a protest. It is interesting to learn how different places celebrate different holidays. This holiday is obviously more significant for the union workers and workers than for average people.