HW . 7d

OMDYR
chapter 17:
I was going to take some food home with me back to california, but that would be
everything that joel stands for so I decided against it and decided to cook for
some friends that lived close. The meat and products we get from animals is
always better for us when they eat their natural food because their are certain
things our bodies need and specific amounts such as omega 3. But we can only get
it if cows or fish are eating their natural foods like grass or phytoplankton.
But corn fed cows or fish end up rising the amount of omega 3s they have so that
their will be a raise in heart disease in our society. I wounder if the
companies that are adding corn and all of these extra products know or care that
they are the ones that are responsible for slowly killing our society. They are
the ones that are making obesity, diabetes, etc. rise in america. Yet they dont
do anything to try and stop it. It would make sense to change it because people
will soon realize that maybe it is the food causing their loved ones to die or
become obese and then stop buying those products.

chapter 18:
I wanted to try one more thing out by making a meal where everything has been
hunted and gathered for. Hunting is probably the best way to have a healthy
meal, but since theirs not much game or time for people to go and hunt no one
does it. After getting my license I started looking everywhere for what could
potenionally be part of my dinner, but everyhing was divided into the maybe good
to eat pile or what could possiy kill me and theirs a 50% chance that anything I
pick up could not be edible and a chance that I'm not willing to take. A hunter
gatherer meal is the safest and the best meal and I think if everyone started to
eat like that then all the problems that we have with our health will go down.
But then the problem would be how do you know what is safe to eat and what's
not. So it seems for everything theirs going to be a downside to it. For locally
grown food it's trying to find one close to you or the price.

chapter 19:
To become a vegetarian isn't as easy as it seems you have to make rules on what
you can and can't eat I decided to eat anything with out a face so oysters and
clams were okay. Animals suffer a lot, for chickens in egg farms when they feel
stressed or put under harsh conditions they will act out which causes the the
workers to find ways to punish them such as cutting off the tails for pigs so
that when they bite them it'll hurt more  but they'll know  not to do it.
Mcdonald's even think that it's okay that hey have a 5% error rate and that even
that some of the cows were still alive when they get butchered.

chapter 20:
I was so excited to go hunting for the first time and We could of hunted for
turkey or deer but I felt more comfortable with the wild pig since it's known as
a nuisance here in California. I spotted a a few pigs and was ready to shoo but
y rifle wasn't ready and to put a bullet inthe chamber would make noise so I let
Richard take it. The next time I actually killed one and I was overwhelmed with
emotions and I couldn't see this pig as being meat and that I actually killed a
pig. I couldn't belive that after this Angelo was able to talk about food and
different dishes while I'm still caught up on how I just killed it and was I
going to be able to even eat this. This journey was to look at where or food
comes from and it's food chain and we are simply a part of it. But how we are
going about to get our food is all wrong.

HW . 10

This film is to show the truth behind our food and reveal all the secrets that big companies and the government are trying to keep us from knowing. The way we eat has changed over the last 50 years all the food we eat now is coming from a factory and the labels on the packages with little farms or free range are lies. By keeping this a secret people don’t know that the chicken they ate is mostly made up of chemicals or that the beef they are about to eat has about 70% of ammonia in it. The way to get people to eat it and not worry about things like this is to trick them, we need sugar, salt and fat so what’s better then going to McDonalds or Wendy’s were you get all three for a cheap price. Since food is addictive we got people to choose the cheap "fulfilling" bad food over the good healthy food that’s not going to make you obese by eating it. "This isn’t farming this is mass production like an assembly line in a factory" all the companies care about is making the most of something from very little and making a lot of money off of it, even if its not healthy and good for us. At factories they took pointers from fast food places and made it so that they can add chemicals and do what they have to do like an assembly line. Its kind of disturbing to find out that companies actually bleach our food which I never knew was possible and that companies wish to make it so that 100% of our food is made out of chemicals such as ammonia. I wonder then what do the people that know what there doing to the food eat. If I was a worker for Tyson or Perdue chicken or a beef company and new what was going on with the food I definitely wouldn’t eat it anymore, and I meet even try to stop people from eating it because its bad. But then if everyone stops eating chicken from those companies then they will start loosing money and firing workers and I would then loose a job. But companies automatically assume that people don’t care were their food came from but I think they would if they new especially what was going on. Also the movie gave more insight into what goes on with our food and shows how the big companies know they are doing something wrong if they don’t like  people coming in and looking around at what they are doing.  

HW . 9

In the movie Freakanomics they show how your name affects you and what kind of lifestyle you’re going to have. If you have a ghetto name then you’re probably going to grow up and go to jail a couple times and not have a positive outlook in your life. This isn’t true it depends on where you live and it’s just a coincidence that people with the names such as Tyshawn, Sheniqua or Tyaisha just are in jail or steal pregnant at a young age. In the movie they show that correlation is the causation but that people like to believe that it is. Before you meet someone and you learn their name your automatically going to get a image in your head of what you think the person’s skin color is or how they act or where they from, that’s just from their name and it’s a natural thing because everyone does it  if not always on purpose. But the movie does prove that correlation leads to causation. This is when applying for something either a job or college anything that you are chosen on just by an application. The Indian guy in the movie showed how two job applications were sent out and both had the same exact qualifications only one had a very white name I guess you can say, and the other name was Tyrell.  It only took 10 weeks for the application with the white name to find a job and about an extra 5 weeks for the name Tyrell to find a job. So I agree with the correlation is causation but only when you are in the situation were your not going to physically see the person or talk to them and its just your name that’s known. But that’s how life is when it comes to names people tend to look too much into it and believe that they know everything bout the person already. If I my name was put on a college application they would probably automatically assume that I was white or anything not black especially since Kristin isn’t a common black name. They would probably be surprised when I came into the interview and find out that I was anything but white. That would probably then change their whole assumption of who I was and what they thought of me. I also think people shouldn’t be judged by their names because a name isn’t what makes your who you are its just a word to identify yourself with.

            In the movie the authors uses incentives to make their point and prove it they find evidence. One of their studies was seeing if students will get better grades if they are given the incentive of money. So to figure out if it would work or not they paid students who were able to get their grades up. One boy was going to try and bring his grades up with the incentive that he was going to be paid and that then he could buy skateboard stuff but he ended up failing. While another boy was really excited and actually did improve his grades and did get paid which shows that incentives does work but I think it depends on what it is and who the person is. If they had gave the other boy the incentive of meeting a Pro skateboarder a year supply of skateboard equipment I believe he probably would of tried to do better. The authors look for the evidence they believe will prove their point and by doing that they run test, ask regular people off the street questions, or people who have studied or know personally about what they are looking for. For the sumo wrestling they wanted to know if people were planning the fights and paying people to cheat. So to find out they asked retired sumo wrestlers who then even confessed that they were in on the cheating to at times and that the reason it was used is because there was an incentive. So basically everything revolves around incentives people will do whatever it takes if they are given a good incentive to do it.  

HW . 7c chapter 11,12,13,14,15,16

The Omnivores Dilemma The Secrets Behind What You Eat Chapter 14:

            The pens are arranged very carefully and moved ten feet a day and in about 56 days chickens will be ready to be taken to slaughter house and killed. Joel moves the egg mobile to the area were the cattle had been three days earlier and he waits exactly three days before moving the egg mobile gives the larvae a chance to get fatter but not turn into flies. Another secret to Joel’s farming is he adds corn to the manure then the pigs come and turn the compost over by airing it out which kills and harmful bacteria. On a industrial farm tress would be torn down and seen as unnecessary space were crops could be put down when really its actually helping the grass to grow. The way that Joel takes care of his farm and has everything balanced is almost like our body and how we must keep homeostasis so that nothing goes wrong. By adding to much you through everything off balance, just like adding more chickens to his farm will through it off balance. There will be to much manure, more cows would have to be purchased.

The Omnivores Dilemma The Secrets Behind What You Eat Chapter 13:

            I learned a different way to look at grass, which is the way that cows look at it and that its not all the same its like a salad bar with a variety of grass to choose from. Joel doesn’t use fossil fuel and the secret to why his grass survives better is because he doesn’t let his cows take a second bite. Like on other farmers their cows just sit around and eat up all the grass without giving it a chance to then re grow and then it starts to soon disappear. To stop the cows from getting a second bite Joel moves them around and he knows the grass so well that he knows at what point the grass should be eating by the cows. The best way to take care of your farm is by knowing your grass from the inside out like Joel does.

The Omnivores Dilemma The Secrets Behind What You Eat Chapter 12:

            I visited the Polyface Farm in Virginia compared to other farms it was very different with animals grazing in the field on grass. It is the only non industrial farm that’s still around and not owned by a big business and even the farmers dress differently. Joel Salatin works his farm as a big rotating circle and each animal have a part in it. The reason why Joel lets the chickens roam free is because they go around and clean up after the cattle like a sanitation crew and they put down nitrogen without putting too much that’ll add to our pollution. Joel Salatin’s farm is what I think a organic farm should be and we should have more farms like that, but we never will because then the big companies would be making less money. What’s considered a organic farm today is more of just a step up from an non organic farm and more expensive Joel’s farm is more of an organic farm. Not only are there aren’t chemicals added but everything is naturally taken care of and the animals are treated better to.

The Omnivores Dilemma The Secrets Behind What You Eat Chapter 11:

            I visited a free range organic chicken farm called Rosie. I was expecting a farmhouse or a barn like what’s on the package of the chicken but when I got there I didn’t see that at all, but more of a chicken factory and not farm. Supposedly the birds that live there have it better because they have just a few more inches of space to move around and the option to go outside even though they never do. The organic meal that I made was better than a chicken that’s feed corn and filled with many different pesticides or vegetables that have been sitting in the back of the truck so it is worth it but the paying 35 dollars just to make the meal isn’t cheap especially if you have a big family. Organic is better than a non organic products but the labels on the front are always telling the truth that the animals are on a free range and the farmers pay isn’t that much different than an industrial farmers pay plus all the fossil fuel that’s used to ship the food and keep it fresh isn’t any better. Everything has its ups and downs organic food tastes better but only some, its fresh but it uses up so much fossil fuels to ship it around the world, and there aren’t any pesticides added to it. I would choose to eat an organic chicken over a non organic one because personally I always thought that chicken tasted bland and had no flavor only the skin but I thought that’s just how it’s supposed to taste. But finding out that the reason for that is because those chickens were the corn mixture, antibiotics which altered the taste of the chicken.

HW . 7B

The Omnivores Dilemma The Secrets Behind What You Eat

-Chapter 8:
Some animals have a certain diet that they stick to and will never change like the koala bear, it eats only eucalyptus leaves which keeps it healthy and never to much or to little. Wherever you came from and your culture affects what you eat but their is no culture and when going shopping in the supermarket thiers just so much and no culture to fall back on. Our mouths have many different taste buds from bitterness to sweetness so our body is born liking that taste and having as weet tooth. So on instinct we try to eat as much as we can because you never know when you'll get more. One of the most important tools for an omnivore became cooking because we were able to cook it change all the possiblities of food we can eat which is just more food for companies to try and get us to eat. But the omnivores dilemma is much bigger than that, foods are marketed as being convienent and quick for on your way to school, or after a long day of work just pop it into the microwave and heat it up. So that now eating has become more of something that you have to do and not seen as comfort for you to sit around and spend time with your family.

-Chapter 7:
Food companies scheme to get us to eat more than we need has worked out. The reason behind all that is that for kids all they do is sit and play video games sit at desks  in school all day and eat fast food because the advertisment are so encouraging. When Coca-Cola came out companies would switch the sugars because it was a few cents cheaper which is saving them money and instead of trying to lessen the obesity problem they make the bottle bigger, so that your just drinking a bottle of sugar also known as corn. The man who created supersized meals and drinks David Wallerstein was able to get people to believe and think that they were eating better. Instead of going back up to a Mcdonals counter to get another order of fries and feel liek they are fat, just buy one and you dont feel as fat or greedy. Food companies in a way are brainwashing children with their advertisements to certain foods and candy. Since little kids are like sponges and just soak up anything they see or hear its easy to get to them. Thats why obesity has gone up mostly in kids because all they do is eat and why not if your also getting a free toy and all kids love toys.

-Chapter 6:
Americans eat alot of corn without even knowing it. To find out how the corn is processed I visited a wet mill were the corn is broken down and then put back together to become the sweetner in our soft drinks or the starch in our hamburgers. Processed food sells better for the companies, but not for the farmers they make more money selling whole foods then something that has been processed. The US government helps pay for the raw materials and they end up getting most of the money which is good but with so much corn they need to find ways to get people to eat more of it and humans can only fill their stomachs up so much so next they have to find ways to get americans to spend more money for the same amount of food and eat more then we need. When food is advertised on tv its always something catchy like for children theirs a yogurt that came out and they used a dinosaur to advertise it so of corse children are going to want it becasue its something that they like and think is cool. I also find it interesting that companies will spend so much money to advertise their product even if they know that to much of it can hurt people or that its not good yet they still try and get people to buy it so then they get thier piece of the profit.

HW . 7 chapter 2,3,4,5

Michael Pollan, The Omnivores Dilemma The Secrets Behind What You Eat, Chapter 5:



When I came to poky feeders the cows were standing what I thought was 
mud but actually manure. I bought my own cattle and it costs 1.60 a day for its 
room and board the feedlot isn’t the best place to stay. The purpose of a feedlot 
is to turn corn into beef and when cows come to the feedlot they are forced to 
eat corn and mixture of other things which can range from chocolate to chicken 
manure. Feedlot cattle are always sick because of the corn diet they are forced 
to eat. New types of bacteria have mutated now and can be found in the beef. "7 
pounds of corn = 1 pound of beef" I found it interesting that the reason beef 
costs more than chicken is because of how much corn it’s given and that so much 
corn goes in and only a little bit of beef comes out of that. So your practically paying for 
corn and not beef. I think that the cattle should go back to being feed grass because it’s not 
only healthier for them but us to because there’s a less chance of one of them 
getting sick and then we eat it and get a mutated gene of E coli.
 
 
Michael Pollan, The Omnivores Dilemma The Secrets Behind What You Eat, Chapter 4:
             
I went to the grain elevator in Iowa were they keep all the corn at in tall big concrete tubes. The corn thats in the silos isn't the same corn we eat and their was so much of it that it piled up outside on the ground but it wasn't a problem because its all going to get processed anyway. All the corn at the grain elevator is all treated the same way even though its not but its all treated as type number 2 corn. The factory farmers take the corn and turn it into other products and most of the corn is used as animal feed or used as ethereal fuel for cars. I found it interesting that the farmers force their animals to eat corn even though its not what they naturally, but they have so much of it that they have to find new ways to use it. I think that less corn should be made only the needed amount and not so much that they then have to force feeding it to the animals because thats unfair and then what will happen to the leftover corn from if they don't want to eat it, it'll get wasted .

Michael Pollan, The Omnivores Dilemma The Secrets Behind What You Eat, Chapter 3:

After World War 2 the government would use weapons to
fertilize corn crops and all plants need nitrogen to grow. The Naylor’s don’t
produce their own nitrogen but buy it and the factories that make it use a lot of
fossil fuels. The hybrid corn eats a lot of nitrogen but farmers use so much of it
still and its bad for our environment and increases global warming. I had a
conversation with George Naylor about the problem of how all American farmers are
going broke but the agribusiness companies are taking billions of dollars of
profit. An interesting insight that I found is that the farmers are using
products to help grow our food but at the same time are deadly. The nitrogen they
are using to fertilize their crops is bad for the planet and adding to our pollution.
Also I find it wasteful that we are spending so much money and energy on or
food and get less out then what we put in.
Michael Pollan, The Omnivores Dilemma The Secrets Behind What You Eat, Chapter 2:

            Back then corn wasn’t the only thing that farmers produced  in 1920 they grew a wide variety of things such as cattle, chicken, apples, cherries, grapes, bees, gooseberries, sweet corn, tomatoes, cabbage, oats, sheep and over time it has lessened to just corn, soybeans, cattle, horses, hogs, oats and sheep.  Seed companies started making a hybrid corn seed that had the good qualities of being resistant to diseases and produce a lot and the only way to make sure you came out with the good qualities was to buy new seeds each time which was a positive for the seed companies. Seed companies then started creating GM corn which are created in laboratories and farmers such as George Naylor disagree with the genetically modified corn seeds and doesn’t plant them. Corn dominated the world. When I get food I usually don’t consider or think about where it comes from, or anything about it, but now seeing at how corn has basically taken over and no one even notices how much of an impact it has on our world. It’s surprising because if something was to happen and there was no more corn that’s about a quarter  of our food that we won’t be able to get till theirs a substitute for corn. Which shows how much we depend on things in  our society and not just in food.

HW . 7 chapter 1

Michael Pollan, The Omnivores Dilemma The Secrets Behind What You Eat, Chapter 1:

            Most of the Products that Americans use today are made with corn from food to cosmetics.  Corn is in everything we eat and hidden with names such as Maltodextrin, Monosodium etc. which are all made from corn. It’s the biggest crop planted in America and has even put farm workers out of a jobs. Corn has become so popular because it is able to adapt easily and grow all around.   A quote that I found very interesting was “read the label on any processed food, and corn is what you’ll find. Corn is in the non-dairy creamer, and the Cheez Whiz, the frozen yogurt and the TV dinner, the canned fruit and the ketchup. . .” I was surprised to find out that corn was in most of the food that I eat and not even noticing it. That’s something you would never guess but it makes sense because the animals where your food comes from their feed corn so obviously it’s going to be in your food too, but it just never crossed my mind that it’s in so much. Even in vegetables the wax coating is made from corn. I also found interesting that most of the weird chemicals that you see on the labels of things are made from corn. But why not put that it’s corn and not weird names that people can’t pronounce or know?

HW . 6

        On Wednesday I ate one meal I had fried chicken, collard greens and mashed potatoes that my father cooked for diner. For lunch I had a slice of pizza. I also had some junk food like chips, and fruit roll up, and cake.

               On Thursday I didn’t have breakfast again because I never have time or in the mood to eat it during the week but I ate a cheeseburger and French fries for lunch and for dinner a slice of pizza and yogurt after. A typical teenage girl is suppose to receive 1760 calories a day and I get about 1000 or just a little bit over.  

-pizza calories (800)

-fried chicken calories (750)

-collard greens calories (35)

-cake calories (194)

 

               What I enjoyed most on Wednesday was my dinner. My father’s fried chicken is one of my favorite meals because it’s crispy and has al lot of flavor and fills me up I rarely need sides to go with it. But like my mother and father I noticed that I’ve never questioned the food that I eat when I’m given it and over time I just grown to like whatever the food is. I think that’s something that I have picked up from my parents and never really had a say in what I eat. That’s why when my parents order out food and ask me what I want I never know because I’m so used to people giving me food and eating it with having a say. I wonder if it is genetics that affects what people eat and not just something that’s learned while growing up?  

  When people are skinny everyone tends to assume that they are healthy. But not necessarily for me I eat a lot of junk food and I don’t think I get all the nutrients that I need each day, the reason why I am skinny because I have a fast metabolism not because I eat right. Eating right to me I think is when you eat a lot of vegetables and fruits and eat your three servings a day the right proportion no fast food and at the right time. I think the time does have an effect because I’ve been told that you should never eat after 9 because then you gain more weight eating like that. It makes sense because after that time you usually go to bed and don’t do anything to work the food off so it just sits there in your body.

               When I eat I unhealthy I know it’s bad for me but I still eat it because it’s good. So then I’ll eat fruit or yogurt sometime during the day to so that I know that I might be getting all the nutrients I need. But when someone cooks a meal for me I feel good about it because it’s not processed and had chemicals added to it and its good for me compared to fast food. So over the 48 hours is typical for me sometimes I’ll get something that’s cooked and healthy for me while maybe the next day for dinner and lunch I might just eat fast food.

               I eat a lot of junk food which isn’t healthy. Whenever my mom asks me what I want from the supermarket actual food never comes to mind, I could never really think of anything I would want her to make. Sometimes I think that I could just live off of junk food because a big bag of chips can fill me up as if it was one meal. This isn’t healthy because junk food is nothing but sugar, salt and grease and that’s not healthy and can lead to obesity that’s why most kids today are obese because all they eat is junk food and a lot of fast food.

           

I personally don’t like milk and cheese so I try to eat a lot of yogurt so that in the future I won’t suffer from a bone disorder or something worse. But the problem I have is that I’m never consistent with it I’ll eat once in a while which is good but not good enough.