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.