HW 25 Response to Sicko

In class we have been watching the Michael Moore documentary Sicko which is about the U.S. health care system. It shows how our health care system is just another way for big corporations to get bigger and bigger. Another way for the rich to become richer. The truth is the HMO's are not here to help the citizens in the U.S. In a way there here to steal from us. They do this by having everybody get health care because nobody wants to be in a situation where they need health care and don't have it. So the people pay these companies money so that in the case a person needs medical attention they can have it without worrying about there money. But what the people don't know is that the HMO's try their hardest to turn down every claim they can. So the HMO's make excuses to not give you money and some of them may be the most ridiculous reasons. In one case a girl crashed her car and insurance didn't cover her ambulance ride because she didn't call ahead of time to let the the health insurance company know that she was going to take the ambulance. President Nixon and a man named Edgar Kaiser met to discuss the creation of HMO's. Nixon passed the HMO's and tried to make it seem like an amazing thing. When in reality things got really bad. Years later Hilary Clinton tried to get a bill passed that would change the health care system into socialist healthcare. Now of course right wing politicians would do anything in there power to stop this and they did. All of this has led to the untrustworthy, and basically evil system that we call health care.
Something that I found particularly disturbing is that one of the directors at one of the HMO's who stamps if the claim is denied doesn't even read the claims. When he was asked if he read them he didn't know what to say until he finally said no. I think that shows perfectly that these people really don't care about us. It shows that not helping people is no problem to them as long as they get to keep those people's money. Another good example is some of Hilary Clintons political career. She tried with all of her power to get her health insurance bill to pass and it was widely supported. But the HMO's stepped in and took her down. She went from passing bills to reading to kindergartners. Not only that but she was bought out by the HMO's. She supported them in one of her campaigns. This shows that the HMO's have a dominant power in the U.S. Weather people know it or not they are making politicians their puppets with money.

HW 22

Tuesdays With Morrie
by, Mitch Albom
Published by Doubleday in September of 1997
The Chapter, The second tuesday we talk about feeling sorry for yourself, is a very strong chapter about Morrie's views on a situation that most people go through when they know they are going to die. As of right now in the story Mitch finds visiting Morrie more as an act of kindness then learning what may be his important lesson, and it also may be his only chance to learn this. Most would expect somebody dying slowly and painfully to always be feeling sorry for themselves but Morrie is different. Of course there is some self grieving but not that much. He claims that he only feels it in the morning but then he thinks of all the good things in his life and then gets on with his day. In a way he thinks he's lucky that he gets so much time to say his final good byes.
"Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can make strangers shed a tear for one another."pg. 51
This is a very interesting claim. I think that it makes a lot of sense because it is one thing that connects us to everybody and everything living. Everything that lives dies. If you feel and know that kind of pain and fear you may be a lot more sympathetic to people who are unfairly suffering miles away.
"I want someone to hear my story. Will you?" pg. 63
This quote reminded me of some thoughts that I've had. I think that everybody wants to let there story out but it isn't truly appreciated until somebody is dying but that is also when one would want to tell there story the most.
"Ted, we've had thirty-five years of friendship. You don't need speech or hearing to feel that."pg. 71
I Think that this is a beautifully written sentence and I completely agree with it. If you have such a strong relationship with somebody there's a point where just the presents of one another is what strengthens your relationship. Just to know a person is truly there for you is an amazing thing.
This book is really sharpening my views on death and illness for the best. I'm not going to apply all of my thoughts on death on this book but before I read this I had no idea about what happens to people when they die and how they go about doing it. All I knew is I had plenty of reasons to hate death. There is a lot of ambivalence in this book. It shows from what I have heard the happiest dying story and in a way it makes it even more sad. The happier it gets the sadder it gets. This shows that in society death is viewed as a sad thing. Especially to people who do good and don't deserve it. Being sick for most people holds them back but Morrie does something different. He uses dying as a chance to educate and learn. Thats not a very popular way to look at dying. Most would use their time dying to self mourn and pity themselves.

HW 21 Post Comments

Max- I'm sorry to hear about your fathers best friends wife. I can't really relate because I never met my relatives that died of cancer. If you know her story, is your dads best friends wife's story and Beth's story similar? Also I agree with your claim that it shouldn't matter if you have money to get health care. But thinking from another point of view the medicine is really expensive so how can something that is expensive to make be free? Who would supply it?


Evan-I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother and your friend dying. I have always thought what would it be like if one of my friends killed themselves. I've never heard of it happening to anybody I know but I keep hearing how its such a problem. For my own interest how do you think of that person now? I find it interesting that when you were little you had dreams of immortality. I think we all share that when were little but we just don't know better. We can't really understand it. So we all share that dream in a way.

HW 21 - Expert #1

List:
-There may not be any symptoms to a sickness until it spreads.
-What happens to the people with these sicknesses is not let out to the whole public.
-Denial is a big stage in dying.
-There are treatments that may slow the process but won't eliminate of the problem.
-As a person continues to die they become more helpless.
-Eric was diagnosed the day before thanksgiving, a day we are supose to be thankful for what we have.
      When Beth was telling us about how her Husband got sick she mentioned that there were not really any serious symptoms. There was only one that could connect to kidney cancer but it wasn't something to worry about. This just shows how somebody can be completely healthy one day to having a fatale disease the next. They then start to slowly die away. You will look like a completely normal person and then slowly there will be symptoms and it will spread and sooner or later the body will be too weak to survive.
        In many stories about death that I have heard, almost all of them, the person who is dying is in denial at least once during the time they have left. But it seems to fade away as time goes on. Beth was saying how Eric was in denial in the beginning. The word death was not even used around him because it would be upsetting. I think that everybody is scared to die and it has always been like that. Especially in this modern era where theres so many different ideas about it. With science also taking over religion, nobody can know what happens which is the scary part. People find comfort in their lives by knowing they are safe and the ones they care about are safe. Since it's most likely impossible to talk to the dead you can not know what happens when you die which is frightening. Also since your dead you won't be able to look over your loved ones and you'll have no idea how they will survive

HW 19 - Family Perspectives on Illness & Dying

In my family illness has been somewhat of a long struggle. Although I can't know for sure because I have never really spoke to my parents about it to much. Recently my grandpa has been very sick and he has had diabetes for a while. He has had to do a number of things such as take medicine and go to the hospital. On the other side of my family both of my grandparents died of cancer but that was before I was born. My father also has arthritis in is leg and it got so bad that he needed to get a hip replacement.

For my whole life I have always been afraid of death and the idea of death. I remember when I was very little I asked my parents to not even say the word around me. So it has never really been talked about in my family too often. Not only that but I don't have anybody in my family that I know well enough that has died. When somebody did that I didn't know my parents responded with mourning and seriousness. At the time when I remember this happening I was too young to understand and asked why. I got an answer similar to because someone died. So I was taught never really to ask questions and just to be sad.

In my family there has been a lot of sickness but I never have to go to the hospital to often. I haven't had to since my dad got his hip replaced. I understood that this was a big surgery that couldn't be done by just resting it off. After he got his surgery my fathers friend, my mother, and I all went to visit him in the hospital. It was very clean and safe as far as I knew, but very plane and not someplace I would want to stay for too long. This was the same for my father who didn't want to stay either. It turns out that he ended up leaving two days before he was suppose to. So it seems like to me that the hospital is not a bad place but its a place nobody really wants to go unless they have too. Knowing that I was in a hospital gave me the feeling of death around me which made me somewhat uncomfortable.

Illness and Dying HW 17

When I think of illness and dying the first thought that comes to my mind is what happens after you die. I feel that this is something that comes to everybody's mind at least once. There are so many different approaches and religions that try to explain what happens after you die. But I realize that it is impossible for me to know, or for anyone to truly know. If somebody claims to have talked to god and nobody was there then it could be a lie or maybe that person is crazy. It is also quite possible that this person did speak to god. It just seems like religion is just a way to tell people how to live using the one thing that they hold dearest to them, which is their lives and their families lives. As I said I would never be able to know what happens. I have had numerous thoughts about what could happen but that is just a prediction. It seems like there is just nothingness afterword but that brings up body and spirit. Weather the body and spirit are separate or if it is all one. If the body and mind are separate then there are endless possibilities to what the afterlife is but if not it seems like literally a dead end. I have no idea what exactly illness is. Whenever I have had been sick I have never really felt like I had microscopic organisms attacking me from the inside. To me that sounds a bit abstract but this is what I have been taught my whole life so that is what I have to go with. But I still have never seen any germs or any sicknesses so I can't really know for sure what it is that makes people sick. I have always been taught that dying and illness are very serious things which is true. You always have to treat sick people good and always respect the dead. Nothing really that seems unreasonable. When a person dies all they leave behind is there memories, which is really the only thing we all have, so in respect to that many try to keep the memory of that person alive.

HW 12 Outline

Thesis-
In modern day society dominant social practices and dominant discourses define what is normal and what is weird, when in reality these normal routines are actually nightmarish industrial atrocities.
Chunk 1 of Major Argument: 
The treatment of the animals in the food industry is horrible and disgusting. It could very easily make a person think about what they are eating before they eat it if they knew. 
Evidence 1
The meat in the U.S. is dirty.
Link:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/interviews/schlosser.html
Evidence 2
The feedlot is very tightly packed and unhealthy.
Link:
http://www.themeatrix.com/#
Evidence 3:
The animals could be suffering a long and painful death when they are being slaughtered.
Source:
Omnivores Dilemma YRE chapter 19

Food Inc. HW 10

Food Inc. is a movie about the American food industry and how the people don't know exactly what they are eating. It shows a close up view of many different parts of the food industry like the corn farming industry. The film focuses a lot on our meat and how the animals are treated before they re sent to the slaughter house and in the slaughter house. It shows how cattle are raised in their own excretion.  They may spend their whole life seeing very little daylight. These animals get sick and humans can get sick from eating the sick animals.
Food Inc. is based off of two books that have been read during class. Omnivores Dilemma and Fast Food Nation. They both tell the same basic story but show it in a different way. In the movie you get to see a view of what is actually happening. Unlike in the book you can see and hear what is going on. But in the book you get a very good interoperation of whats going on from what your own thoughts are.
I would definitely like to see more about the small organic farms because compared to the big farms the smaller farms seem a lot better. This movie had shown me that it is definitely worth it to eat healthier more organic foods for the extra price. The thought that their could be manure in my food or even in my foods food disgusts me.

Reading Response 7d

Chapter 17 10/18/10
Have you ever had food that is directly off the farm? Well most likely not, I know that I haven't. Michael cooks a meal for his friends from the chickens raised, the corn grown, and the eggs that were laid on Polyface farm. He notices many differences in the foods. The fresher eggs have a more solid yoke for example. The way Michael explained this meal made it sound amazing. I would really like to try all of this food fresh. I like fresh fruits when I had them in the past. Does this mean that organic foods aren't only better for you but taste better as well? Maybe if people focused a little less on the quantity and more on the quality then food in the U.S. would possibly be some of the best in the world.
Chapter 18 10/19/10
Now most of us get our food at the supermarket. We look to shop organic to be healthy or just get whatever is at the local supermarket. There are also some who grow their own food. They farm their food the old fashion way. But how many of us go into the wild and do the natural thing. Find and eat the food that mother earth has given us? There is a lot of food in the wild that is all natural and may be a lot healthier then the same thing you see in the supermarket. There's such a large variety of stuff in the wild like fruits, vegetables, and even fungi. Then we can hunt our own animals as well. The way things were meant to be. Getting food as easily as we can is nice but is it really worth it. How truly different are we to those chickens who could barely walk in food inc.?
Chapter 19 10/20/10
Precis- Being a vegetarian is not as easy as it sounds. As humans we have evolved to live off of meat. But it may be hard to eat meat when you hear about the slaughter houses and treatment of the animals we eat. There is no doubt that the American industrial food chain is a disgusting and horrific sight to see, if your unlucky enough to see it and definitely are horrible event to even think about. The owners of these big food chains see these creatures as raw materials to make money rather then living creators that live and die just like humans do. It is part of these animals nature to be eaten by humans, they are domesticated animals. They have evolved to live by, be used by us which includes being eaten by us. But it is not part of their nature to live in a dark cage or on in a crowded feed lot standing in their own feces. It is not wrong to kill and eat animals but it is wrong to take the away the nature of them.
Gem- Before Temple Grandin created the double-rail cattle slaughter system there were stories of cows still being alive while they were being skinned and butchered.
Thoughts and Questions- Something that I found particularly interesting was when McDonald's hired Temple Grandin to make a quick and painless slaughter system. Since when has McDonald's cared about the cows going through the system. It is good that they would do that but why is that all they do? There are so many more ways that they can improve the system for the cows, why are they only doing that?
Chapter 20 10/21/10
Precis- Michael is going to go hunting for his first time. This is the first time that he has tried getting his own food. Michael doesn't like killing animals but he wants to try to hunt and gather his own meal. What he is hunting for is wild bore in California. The first time that Michael went hunting he didn't kill anything. He had the chance to but since he didn't exactly know what he was doing his rifle was not cocked and would scare of the bores if he did. So he went hunting another time with only his hunting instructor. The instructor didn't look at the bore as a creature, just as future food. This time Michael did kill the bore. He was very excited about it until later when he felt bad about kill the animal.
Gem- Wild pigs aren't actually wild. Since they are domesticated animals they are considered feral, which means domesticated and living in the wild.
Thoughts and Questions- I thought that the difference in the reactions in the two men was very interesting. Michael who in a way represents the normal American citizen can barely look at what he hunted. But Angelo, his french instructor thought of the killing as nothing. So if that is how Michael would all of the other normal American citizens be able to deal with killing their own food?
Chapter 21 10/23/10
Precis- To complete Michael's meal that shall be purely hunted and gathered he goes into the forest to look for and gather fungi. There are a lot of mushrooms that are very unsafe to eat and can kill a person so fungi hunters have to be careful what they pick. The mushroom that Michael and his friends were looking for are called chanterelle mushrooms. These should be cooked before eaten. Michael was only able to find five but Angelo found a lot more. Most of the fungi is underground and the mushroom is only one part of the whole fungi. Humans know very little about fungi even though it is the third kingdom of life on earth. It is a very hard form of life to observe.
Gem- People who gather fungi call it hunting instead of harvesting because picking the wrong mushrooms can kill a person.
Questions and Thoughts- Once again the normal guy, Michael only comes out with five mushrooms when the experienced hunter comes out with many more. I think this shows how much most people depend on America's nightmare industrial food chains.
Chapter 22 10/23/10
Precis- Now that all of the food that Michael hunted and gathered is together it is time to cook. Michael is now going to cook a big meal from that food. All the food that was caught and gathered is in season, so this is basically the perfect organic meal. He decides to only buy the salt at the store because the salt that he got out of the salt pond in San Francisco tasted bad. All of Michael's friends and family loved his meal.
Gem- To get salt one must take water and evaporate it.
Thoughts and questions- This Perfect meal that Michael has made is just impossible unless of a special occasion because people just don' have the time to go hunting, look for mushrooms, and cook a meal that takes eleven hours. The only way we can change everybody's food is by changing the food system,

Freakonomics

Today I went to see the movie Freakonomics with school. It is about two guys, an economist and a journalist who talk about economic and social issues. They explore many different topics and use tools to go about explaining or maybe figuring out many of these issues. One important thing that I noticed was that they always refereed to people as a whole. They never really brought in their own personal experiences. When they interviewed people, it would always be a variety of people from the group that is important in the issue. Always looking at the bigger picture in a way. They were also very straight forward with all of their issues. For example when they were talking about the difference in names between blacks and whites they were very straight forward with the type of questions asked. Or it might have just seemed like that because it can be considered slightly controversial. (Not really in my opinion).
I think that the authors pretended that correlation is causation in a way because there was proof that it was true but there was also proof that it wasn't true and that its just a coincidence in many situations. I think that you can usually link it far back to correlation vs. causation but they were talking about specific things. For example, when abortions were legalized the crime rate went down a lot. Is the crime rate dropping due to abortions, maybe we can't know for sure. But that does seem very probable. So they don't know for sure but they believe as much as they can. They most relied on experiments and peoples opinions. Every Segment they did was like an experiment or a review in a way. When they gave the kids money to raise their grades that was a test. When they were looking at names and what it has to do with race they interviewed a lot of people. They relied on people for their experiment. When they were examining sumo wrestling thats like a review where they relied on people once again.
I don't really agree because it wasn't showing anything that wasn't normal. They showed pretty normal issues so I didn't find anything particularly weird. They showed cheating in sports which happens all the time. Kids and their grades which is a common problem. Names may be the most common thing in the world.

Reading Response 7c

Chapter 11 10/13/10
So what is all this hype about organic foods? Some may say that it is healthier. That the animals are treated well on the farms and live a good life. Well some of this may be true but it seems there are a lot of white lies when it comes to organic foods. Just like non organic foods organic food farms have turned into more of a factory. The food isn't all that different either except for the fact that there are no added chemicals. So yes it is healthier but the difference can't be all that much. Also the animals are claimed to have been taken care of better. For example, free range chicken farms. Some of these farms that claim to let their chickens roam free aren't exactly telling the whole truth. Sure they aren't stalked up in cages but they definitely not in a much better environment. These chickens may not be let out until they are 5 weeks old but at that point many wont want to go out. Instead hundreds of thousands of chickens may be packed into a room or maybe a mobile chicken coop. So does that make these organic foods that people think are so great all just one big hoax?

Chapter 12 10/14/10
It seems like there are only really big industrial farms around now. No more happy farms with happy animals, and even people. But there still must be some out there. Yes of course there are, for example there is one called Polyface Farm. It sounds like your normal American farm, or at least what was your normal American farm. They raise all different types of animals and grow all different types of fruits and vegetables. Now the big question is how does this small happy farm compete with the big mean industrial farms and agri-business. Well the farm makes all of its money on corn. I would also think that they have to put in a lot less money in order to grow their foods. They don't need any gas, no manure, they have their farming tools, no chemicals. That sounds pretty good to me. But theres just to much food to grow and too little time for the traditional farm to make money off of meat and fruit. I guess their food is the truly organic meal.

Reading Response 7b

Chapter 6, 7, 8, and 9 10/11/10

We eat corn a lot more then we think we do. Corn is in almost all processed foods. The way it gets into all of our food without us being able to recognize it is by going through a wet mill. The wet mill brakes down the corn so that each part of it can be used differently. The three important things are the skin, the germ, and the endosperm. After the corn has gone through the mill and all of the things that the mill does to it, it is easy to take apart. For example the germ may be separated from the rest of the kernel and then squeezed for corn oil. This made me wonder if they use the empty germ or if they just throw it away. A very popular ingredient in many foods is corn starch. What corn starch is, is basically the rest of the kernel crushed up into mush and then dried until it becomes the powder which is corn starch. Corn starch was able to be turned into the sugars glucose and fructose. You'll definitely see those in a lot of processed foods. Processed foods are very bad for farmers because they sell things in wholes for less and the big companies sell very spread out amounts for more. What I mean is if a farmer sells a cob of corn for lets say a dollar, then the company brakes the corn up and puts it into all of there food and sells that same cob of corn for maybe four times as much as the farmer.

I have always been told since I was little that vegetables are healthy and will help you grow big and strong. Well corn is a vegetable but it seems like corn has become a problem here. As I perviously stated corn is in everything so thats means it is in those fatty foods that don't do to good for your health. Corn tends to have a lot of calories in its products. So with more calories in almost all processed food obesity is bound to rise a lot. This may be a problem but I personally don't think that corn in processed foods is really the problem. If people cared they would watch what they are eating and have the processed food with the corn, but also keep a good diet. Maybe they wouldn't be so obese if they ate less.

Humans are very picky creatures. We have such a wide variety of food that it becomes a problem what and what not to eat. Unlike humans most animals eat only a couple of things, or maybe even one thing. But thats also why the human population is so big, since we can eat almost anything we can spread and live all over the world. A huge impact on what people eat is the taste of a certain food. Its basically what makes humans picky eaters. If we didn't have any preference of taste then we would eat anything that is there to eat just to make us full like every other animal. But I think that it also has to do with the availability of food and the choice of food. I think that the term "beggars can't be choosier's" perfectly explains this in a way because if your begging for food and starving you aren't going to turn down food that you may not like. But if you aren't begging then you can have any food that you want if your in the right place.

What is the biggest most popular food chain on earth? McDonald's of course. But not only that it is very unhealthy. Especially the chicken nuggets. The chicken nuggets from McDonald's have 38 different ingredients, many of which come from corn. Some of the ingredients in a chicken nugget were never even meant to be eaten. Chemicals that keep the food from going bad or looking unappealing. These chemicals aren't harmful enough to kill you but they are sure not good for you. What I now realized is that all fast food really does taste the same. I've never really thought about it enough but it all leaves that kind of nasty fast food taste in your mouth that makes you want to get more just so you can taste the good part of your meal again.

Growing my own food

Growing my own food was an interesting experience. I feel that it didn't really affect me that much because sprouts are not exactly my choice of meal. If it was something that I was more likely to want to eat I may have had a different view on it. Lets say it was strawberries. I would have payed a lot more attention to the strawberries. But still growing the stalks was a good experience. They didn't really look like they were going to taste very good but they ended up tasting not half bad. They tasted a lot like grass but better. I had mine on a sandwich with ham. I really liked it with the sandwich compared to alone. I feel like since this was something that we had to do it took out all of the growing your own food feeling out. It was more of just an assignment rather then providing for yourself. There was no love in the growing, just more work. But I personally found this to be pleasant and interesting.

Reading Response

The Omnivore's Diet, Michael Pollan Chapter 1 & 2

Corn has been around for a very long time. It's been around so long and it was such a successful plant that it is now in almost everything you see and eat today. The reason corn spread is because it adapted to our needs and was regrown by humans. Since it was so useful it spread out across America first by going to indians in the north east. It pushed a lot of other crops that europeans had brought out of the picture. "A single planted corn seed could yield 150 to 300 fat kernels." (Pg. 16) I thought that this was an interesting example of corn having the ability to take over. One seed for that many healthy kernels a lot and would push other crops that farmers grow out of the picture. Corn also had multiple purposes such as food for people and animals, fuel, food that could be stored for the winter, and can be made into drinks like beer or whisky. What I am wondering is how corn first got into America. How did it get from down in Mexico and central America all the way to Canada?

So if corn is in all food and all of everything, then where does something that appears more then frequently in our lives come from? Well of course from a farm but not really the types of farms that you would think. Michael Pollan goes to a farm owned by George Naylor whose family has owned his 470 acres of land since the 1880's. In his 470 acres he only grows two types of crops, corn and soybeans. When I read this I thought to myself, how can a farm survive on only two things? Also with all that land, wouldn't you think that there would be a lot of different things. Back in the early 20th century farming was a lot different then it is today. There would be many different things on a farm as many would think. But now mostly corn is grown on many farms because it is so popular. Big businesses have found ways to cross breed corn so that it may be more durable, sweeter, bigger, ect. But you would have to buy the seeds from these companies you couldn't replant them like the old fashion way. These hybrid corns has caused corn to increase even more on farms to around 180 bushels per acre. That many bushels add up to more then 5 tons of corn. In one day 1.8 million pounds of corn can be planted. Reading this made me think, wow its no wonder corn is everywhere. I believe that this has caused corn to evolve and increase more and more but the farming culture has definitely died out due to this increase.

Chapter 3 10/5/10

These big businesses, called agri-businesses need really cheap corn in order to be successful. Not only do they provide the farmers with seeds to grow the corn. They also sell the farms the tools and fertilizer necessary to grow the corn. In order for corn to stay cheap the agri-businesses needed help from the government. After World War 2 the government had a lot of extra ammonium nitrate from extra explosives. This makes me wonder what else could be in my food if something that is used to kill people is in corn. These fertilizers used the nitrogen from the explosives in order to grow more corn. Because of this extra nitrogen the growth or corn did increase by a lot. The Naylors didn't have to depend on natural nitrogen anymore, this also means that they wouldn't need the animals that made the natural fertilizer. When I heard this I thought to myself, wow this won't turn out good. I'm sure many people thought that back then to but why didn't anything happen? The farms soon had no need for any working animals or even other crops on their farm. Farms have become exactly like factories. Like many factories, farms need a lot of fossil fuels in order to run smoothly or at this point run at all. For one acre of corn it takes 75 gallons to keep the corn alive and healthy. For the Naylors 470 acres, that's a lot of oil. When I heard this I didn't even believe it. That must be horrible for the environment. With all the corn that the Naylors sell, since corn is so cheap they don't make enough money to support their own family. The government has to give them money and even with that money George Naylors wife needs to have a job on the side. The people who get the money are the big agri-businesses who sell to the farmers. When the prices of corn fall farmers need to find ways to grow more corn and the agri-businesses find a way and make more money selling to the farmers.

Chapter 4 10/6/10

Since corn is used in everything do the people who take care of our corn treat it all the same? Well no not really. There is the corn that you eat, which is treated so that it is healthy. But then there is the corn that is for everything else. This corn is not made for eating, by people at least. This corn is call number 2 field corn. This number 2 field corn is not taken care of well at all. There is so much that it doesn't fit in the mill and ends up just laying outside of the mill whatever the conditions may be. This corn may be used for animal feed (which is what most of it is used for), processed foods, high-fructose corn syrup, fuel, ect. This made me think that this corn may not be so bad if its being used for fuel. What does it need to be in good condition for?

Chapter 5 10/7/10

Since 47% of number 2 field corn goes to animal feed I was wondering where most of this corn goes. It turns out that some of it goes to feed lots for cows. Now to me this doesn't really make much sense considering I've grown up knowing cows to eat grass. Well these cows at the feed lots are forced to eat the corn. That is going against nature. Cows are not meant to eat grain like corn. It is not healthy for them and gets them sick. The only good thing about about feeding them corn is that it gets them very fat very fast. But this animal feed is not just corn. It is many numerous things one being the beef that could have been at the same feedlot. They send the extra parts of beef from the slaughterhouse back to the feed lots to put in the animal feed for extra protein. This caused an epidemic in Europe called mad cow disease which happened because a cow infected by this disease, its brains got into the cow feed infecting cows that led to infecting and causing the death of many people. I remember hearing about this as a little kid and it scared me so much that I didn't eat beef or a hamburger until I was in middle school. Now a bacon cheeseburger may be my favorite food. To me it sounds like we are turning the defenseless animals that eat grass all day into cannibalistic diseased creatures. These cannibalistic diseased creatures which are served on many of our plates very often. Some interesting things that are also in the animal feed may be chicken manure, cattle manure, cardboard, cement dust, hooves, feathers, and much more but I listed the ones I found particularly disturbing. How does that stuff get in there? Somebody has to put it in, I'm sure cardboard doesn't just fly into the mills and turn into feed. This also brings up the point, how do we know whats in our food. There could very well be cement dust in our meals everyday. These cows are constantly getting sick, so another thing added to the animal feed is antibiotics. I don't like the over use of antibiotics because it very well can make an bacteria that can not be cured and very dangerous. Especially if its in food as common as beef. Without it though the cows would get sick and die but maybe if the cows weren't forced to eat something that isn't natural for them then maybe there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Food Diary

Over the past two days I have had my normal diet that I have during the week. Whenever I'm home I always have a dinner like the ones that you see in the pictures. For lunch I didn't have what I usually have but I did have very similar food. Breakfast is the same every morning. For breakfast every morning I have a danish with chocolate chips in it, warmed up, with a glass of milk. Overall the calories in this meal are almost 250. I really enjoy this breakfast when I'm eating it. It taste well cooked and the chocolate chips go amazing in it. But since it is the morning I am barely awake. I really just eat it and don't think besides, finish your food. Also since it's early in the morning my breath is bad so that causes a really bad after taste later on until I brush my teeth. The after taste basically ruins the whole meal. It is a very dry food to eat but along with the milk it goes down quite nice. I think that this is healthy to eat in the morning because I get nutrition from the milk and from the dough. I know this is a very French food which I noticed when I was reading the label. I didn't pick that food it's just the food that was given to me.

Next off is my lunch. Normally everyday I will get a bacon egg and cheese on and everything bagel from a deli but the past two days I got different food. Two days ago a got a bagel with strawberry cream cheese without a drink. Today I got a pepperoni pizza with a Snapple and then got two cookies afterwords. I could not find the exact calories in this but I am guessing around 500 to 650 depending on how much strawberries were in the cream cheese. After I got this I went to my usual spot where I enjoy my lunch and started to eat. This is the first time I tried this cream cheese and I am not a big fan of cream cheese. I really like this though. It tasted like strawberries with some cream cheese and had chunks of strawberries in it. That mixed with the bagel made it very nice. It was very rough to eat though, especially with out anything to drink. At the time I was also in a rush to get back to class so I didn't get to finish it sadly. I saw this and I said wow that cream cheese looks really good, I want to try it. Which is why I choose that instead of my everyday bacon egg and cheese. Today I had a pepperoni pizza, a Snapple, and two cookies. This is all about 800 - 900 calories. I decided to get pizza today because it was a long lunch today. So while looking for things to eat I wanted to get cookies from this cookie place because the cookies are possibly some of my favorite food. The pizza was conveniently located on the way and that is more of a real lunch then just cookies. So I got a pepperoni pizza which looked pretty good. When I got it, it was a bit overcooked and wasn't too great but it was fine for the moment. I couldn't really taste the pepperoni too much. But the pizza place was nice and there was no rush. So overall I enjoyed my food. Then we went to the cookie place. I got a chocolate chip cookie and a coconut pecan cookie and they were both amazing as always. They both were right out of oven so they were nice and warm. You could taste the dough and the butter. Along with the coconut which didn't taste too much of coconut. The chocolate was also very nice. The place also smells amazing so it was very nice to sit and eat their.

Last but not least dinner. My dinners at home are always similar. This is because my parents always buy chicken and pasta at the supermarket. According to them that is all I like. The first night I had a Chicken breast with corn and snap peas. In all there was about 300 calories in this meal. It tasted good the way it always does. All the flavor is in the skin. I really didn't like the corn though. It was not sweet as usual and it tasted kind of like the chicken which wasn't nice. I really liked the snap peas because the tasted like they were supposed to. Nice and sweet without much other taste then that vegetable taste. It was in my house so it was just an average dinner nothing special about it. Today I had pasta with some leftovers form yesterday. The snap peas and the corn was in it. There was about the same amount of calories 300. Maybe more then the night before. This wasn't as good because left overs usually aren't. The corn lost its bad taste though but just tasted kind of bland. As well as the snap peas. The noodles were good though. It was a very boring dinner. There wasn't much I could do or choose in it. In a way it is a lot like breakfast. Just eating to eat and not eating to enjoy.

Dominant Discourses Regarding Contemporary Foodways in the U.S.

Advertisements are all over the place. Anywhere you go you are bond to see at least a couple that you may know. In food especially. You always see commercials for Tostidos, or Goldfish, or Pringals, ect. But how often do you see a commercial for vegetables? I haven't really seen once since the Jolly Green Giant commercials and that was almost 7 years ago. But then again I don't really watch TV. Yet still I always see advertisements for fast food places and snacks everywhere else. I feel like this is what makes the money which may say something about dominant discourses. Maybe there is a higher branch of dominant discourse that says that the money being made is more important then the peoples health. This would affect the dominant discourse of food and what gets out to the public. So if money is more important then peoples health that could be why there aren't as many "Jolly Green Giant's" as there are "Ronald McDonald's."

After reading the articles what they are saying is that people eat too much junk food and don't know enough to tell other wise. That America is grossly unhealthy and needs help. But people are starting to be educated and realize. Its saying that things are happening to change this. Some things may not work but others have been working well. Still these are targeted at certain people. I picked up this quote from the article (Fresh Vegetables Where Fast Food Reigns) which states "People, mostly women with small children and the elderly, begin to filter into the lot about the same time." These are all the people who generally want to keep their health up. Woman want to keep a good figure and old people don't want to die. But the woman are buying the groceries for the family so that means that the men in the house are also eating healthier as well. If the children also get into the habit of eating vegetables rather then fried chicken they will grow to like vegetables. So yes from reading these articles I believe reform is happening. It's happening but it may be a decade before results show. 

People who are sculpted by the media would probably think that a good meal would be a nice chicken with a lot of vegetables on the side. I would expect this person to eat at home with their family. This being at the same time and place with a good family discussion to go along with the meal. This is usually how a good family meal is shown on TV. So this person would try to mimic what a good happy family dinner would look like as much as possible. This person may go shopping at a whole foods or at a green market. Anywhere where the food is fresh and looks good. This person may think of food as what their family is consuming and whats going to help them live a long happy life. But that is only one type of person. 

My Families Foodways

I don't really think my parents influence my food choice too much unless they are the ones who are making me the food. When they make me food they make all different types of things. I normally have chicken, pasta, pizza, with some vegetables on the side. When I do eat with my parents it is always in the same place around the same time. From four to seven at the coffee table. I often eat very fast and quietly because I want to return to what I was doing before I started eating. But the food is always very different from what I may get if I am out eating dinner. It is much better prepared and takes more time to make. The food never gets looked into though. Unless I am looking for something that I don't like thats in the food. But there aren't really any questions being asked about it. The preparation in my food at home takes a lot of work though. Sometimes even an hour. My dad uses all different stuff which is always different so I'm not sure what it is. It varies from wine to garlic to chicken broth and more.


This is my fridge. It's filled with all of the normal stuff that you would see in a fridge. Milk, condiments, cheese, fruit, vegetables, meat... There isn't any water though which isn't good in my opinion. I think it is always good to have some bottled water in your house. You may not be able to tell from the picture but my fridge has a lot of things that you would find on the side of many dish's. What I mean by that is "the broccoli on the side." In the freezer are where all of the frozen foods are and the chocolate and ice cream. But there is also meat in there and a lot of bread.


Because both of my parents grew up in New York they had similar eating habits as I do. Just older foods and stuff. All of the classic candies and snacks of today were brand new back then. I feel as if as they got older they realized that they need to eat healthier in order to live a longer better life. They never really eat fast food or unhealthy things unless I go out to buy it. They like to eat a lot of fish and seafood. Thats what my dad even does for a living. He is the manger of a big fish company that sells to restaurants. So they are always taking home fish which I personally don't really like. My parents have a lot of different tastes. Back when my mom was a kid she didn't have any choice what to eat and would eat leftovers and pretty much the same stuff. She always brings that up to me whenever I say I don't like my food. I think that now kids and teens have a lot more control over what they eat.

McDonalds vs. The Greenmarket

              So today in class we took a trip to the McDonald's and the Greenmarket at Union Square. We did this to observe peoples eating habits and the differences between the two places. I also noticed that in class everybody was more excited to go to McDonald's rather then the Greenmarket. Anyway to start our small trip we went to McDonald's first. At McDonald's I grabbed a seat and started to make observations. The People who were eating there didn't really seem to classy and why should they, it's just a fast food place. I remember learning a year or two ago that the colors red and yellow are what get people hungry. So i took that as a way of McDonald's subliminally messaging people. I also feel like they were trying to make it look classy in a way. The way the designs were gave me that feeling but everything still looked cheap. Andy mentioned that we should look at the lighting and I never really thought about that and i noticed that it wasn't really like the regular lighting in a store. It was a little more dim. But that could just be cheap lighting. There were advertisements all over the place. Inside and outside. Even on the tables. Im not sure if this is true but I have heard from a number of people that on the adds the "food" is actually plastic that has been painted to look really good. This makes sense to me because whenever I see an add for fast food I say to my self, "wow that looks really good right now" and when I get the food it looks nothing like in the add. Also they try to give there products clever names like the "Frappe´" and like the "McNuggets" which are all ways to attract customers.
              After we finished up at McDonald's we made our way to the Greenmarket across the street.  Now this place was directly in the middle of Union Square and outside so there are definitely going to be a lot of people there weather they are shopping or not. This is smart because a lot of people passing by may stop and get something. But the scene at the Greenmarket was completely different. It was all trying to market organic foods. The tents were from all different places in the more rural tri-state area which makes sense because thats where farms are. The people who worked there also looked like they were from a farm area. They were a lot nicer then the people who were in McDonald's. I didn't really get much time to make observations because we had to go back to class but overall in was a cleaner, healthier place.
              So after looking at both of the places I made some comparisons about the two. People who go to McDonald's may be just getting lunch or getting a quick snack or whatever. But they came to get food and eat and get on with there day. People also want there food fast and well FAST food. People who go to the green market definitely aren't stopping by for a snack. Many who go there look to go grocery shopping or just want to get some healthy food for there house. I wouldn't really expect somebody to buy an ear of corn and start eating it on the street. Also the people who worked at the different locations had very different personalities. The people at McDonald's were kind of grumpy. I'm sure they didn't like their job, I know I wouldn't. But the people at the Greenmarket were very kind happy people. Also McDonald's is one of if not the biggest chain restaurants in the world. Everybody knows what it is and the M symbol is the most recognized shape in the world, I've heard. Fast food also gives the people what they want and they give it fast and cheap. A good tasting meal that can be taken with them or quickly eaten.

Food

My ideal meal is a nice meal with my girlfriend at TGI Fridays when there isn’t much to do and I have the money to spend. I would love to do this everyday but I can’t because of many reasons. TGI Fridays is a lot of money and they aren’t very close to the school, which is where I am everyday. Also my girlfriend lives in New Jersey so I can’t enjoy the meal as much.  So the main two problems are that I don’t have the money and it’s too far away. Also if I am spending the money and going out of my way to go there I want to make it as nice as possible which for me my girlfriend would have to be there.

            For my regular everyday meal I Normally get a bacon egg and cheese on a bagel from the deli down the block from school. Then I will go to the small plaza on 22^nd to enjoy it with my friend Harry. The reason I do this everyday is because it may be one of my favorite things to eat. It is also cheap and very close. We were talking about routines in class the other day; well this has become a routine. The question, were should we go to eat? Is never even asked.

            Dinner is never really the same for me. One day I’ll go out, others I’ll eat at home, others maybe I’ll order some food or go and pick some up, or maybe I am just going to meet up with a friend. Usually there is never a set time just anytime past 5 is when I have dinner. I feel like lunch and dinner are really similar. Except if you go to a restaurant I can usually have a meal that would normally be made for lunch at dinnertime. When I have dinner at home I try to eat it really quick. I do that because there is something I am doing or something that I want to do after dinner always. The only time I don’t rush my dinner is when I am around other people.
            I think that food is sacred but in our society we don't really have to do anything in order to eat besides pay for it. It is also a first priority when it comes to money. Before people go and spend there pay check they will usually buy groceries for the fridge if they live alone. So I think it is but we don't notice it because it is around us so much. I'm not sure if this is a real phrase but I know I've heard "work for the bread" before and I think this is kind of the way that people make food sacred. At the same time we just throw out our food all the time so I feel like we don't respect it and aren't greatful that we have all this food but we do in a way keep it as a first priority.