Month: March 2018

Kingsolver- Bittman related views

too much oil – limited renewble resource

too much water- limite resource, slowly renewable

unhealthy – we have to be trained to eat as much as we do

impoverished food cultures – out of balance, “lost” knowledge

remember facts being asked to look at, are facts being formed for an argument.  ex. watching graphic video, narrator makes it seem a certain way.

people who have college degress think differently than people that don’t.

role of university- train people in specialized thinking

expect viewpoints to evolve

Scientific thinking-

open- pre judge

science is evidence- based

predictions- limited data

• Spend at least 20 minutes exploring and taking notes on National Geographic’s interactive infographic on what the world eats. How do food consumption patterns change across time and cultures? Write a blog post entitled “What the World Eats” in which you report on your findings and how they relate to the Bittman timeline you made on March 19.

how do food consumption patterns change across time and culture ?

Time

Sugar intake has increased the most in people’s daily diet,  (calories per person) over time

The average amount of grams someone consumes on a daily basis worldwide increased from 1300 in 1961, to 1800 to 2011.                    Showing an overall pattern of more food being eaten by every person.

Meat consumption is gradually increasing globally, since 1961 it has doubled

Culture

Countries like vietnam stood at around 800 grams consumed per day for decades after 1961, while countries like Australia had               a constant daily intake of around 2500 grams the entire time.

From 800 grams  to 2300 grams daily intake in China has a large uptake in food eaten. Showing that the culture in China and the                greater Asia has changed. They also have the largest percentage of produce, as part of their diet.

Similar theme going on between many cultures, grams eaten per day has increased overall.

The total ton ( national consumtion ) of meat in China has increased 2,364% since 1961, . This shows these cultures embracing meat to a great extent, In Saudi arabia  where national meat consumption is up 3,102 % and in

 how they relate to bittman  timeline 

This relates greatly to Bittmans timeline, in that when food was increasingly being transported to different places thousands of miles away, grams intake per person increased. It makes sense that when the availability of food went up so did peoples appetite.  The reason why availability increased is because of the industrial revolution.

This also relates to Bittmans timeline in that from 2007-2010 we as a country kill 10 billion animals a year to feed our meat craving.  Meat consumption has exponentially prospered. Is an indicator of a culture change.  Of how big a role meat plays in the culture of the US.

Another example of Bittman’s timeline is that the idea of eating organic has gained popularity, from being introduced in american culture in the 1970’s. The amount of produce consumed per person has increased across the world, showing a change in culture and peoples attitude towards healthy food.

What I found most surprising in Kingsolver passage was the idea of dirt, and how baby boomers tried to get the next generation away from maual labor and dirt to more rural lifesytle. Also the biological and national integrity

I would ask Barbara Kingsolver what would be the best way to integrate food knowledge into kids. What would make kids and young adults care about food education. How can you make people see the incentives behind being educated about the food we eat everyday.

Least acceptable

easiest to accept

national integrity reflect cultural values –

freedom!

biological integrity  feed our biological needs – nutrients, water

emotions-

how will learning from this passage alter the way I eat

I eat the cafeteria food 3 times a day everyday, not much to change about this, I will eat a salad everyday and the available meat preseted. My diet is extremely consistent. I choose to eat the healthier options available to me and I will keep doing that. I don’t see what I woukd change about my eating habits, I choose to put in my body the best quality nutrients around. These foods are provided for me and I accept them

Push factor –   less than 1 inch of rainfall since thanksgiving,  currently in the  month of May.

southern tier of US in 3rd straight year of drought

lived in a city that borrows water

Pull factor–  southern appalacia farmland

extended family in virginia, gets to see them more frequently, don’t need to travel far for holidays

“after 25 years in the desert, i’d been called home” pg 3

to a place where “rain falls and crops grow”

“wanted to live in a place that would feed us” pg 3

1. In what variety of ways is oil used in food production?

17% of nations energy use goes to agriculture

synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbisides use oil as their starting materials and their starting point

getting crop  from seed to germinate  responsible for 1/5 of total oil use for our food

1. On pp. 8-13, Kingsolver explains that most Americans no longer have very accurate or usable knowledge about how food is produced. According to Kingsolver, what specific pieces of knowledge have we lost and why does that loss matter?

specific pieces of knowledge have we lost

Which fruits and vegetables to keep through winter and how to preserve others. On what day Autumn’s frost will fall, and when to expect the last of spring. What asparagus patch looks like in August. What food and animals thrive on, in a specific region.

why does that loss matter?

“Because it’s causing problems like overdependence on petroleum, and a epidemic of diet related diseases. ” pg 9

“Rendered us a nation of wary label-readers, oddly uneasy in our obligate relationship with the things we eat” pg 10

1. On pp. 13-15, Kingsolver explains the “drastic reconfiguration of American farming … just after WWII” in terms of corporate goals and activities, changes in federal government farm policies, and the emergence of advertising to sell industrially produced food. Give a before-and-after description of these changes.

before-  no advertising, less government policies, less transportation of food.

after- yields on midwestern corn and soy beans. These 2 crops became a standardized raw material for a new extractive industry. New indusrty made poiles of high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and thousands of other starch based chemicals. Munition plants, converted from making bombs to using ammonium nitrate surpluses into chemical fertilizers.

1. On pp. 15-21, Kingsolver mourns the absence of a working “food culture” in the United States, asking “where are our ingrained rules of taste and civility, our ancient treaties between our human cravings and the particular fat of our land?” (16). First, find her definition of “food culture” and paraphrase it entirely in your own words. Don’t do a word-by-word paraphrase. Instead, read the passage and restate it in your own words. It’s likely that your paraphrase will be longer than the two-sentence Kingsolver definition. Then explain what, instead of an authentic food culture, Americans use to decide what to eat?

parapharse in my own words  kingsolver definition of food culture

food culture collective education about plants and animals that grow and how to make them appealing,  taste wise.

explain what, instead of an authentic food culture, Americans use to decide what to eat?

Americans use fad diets to decide what to eat, it’s in our advdrtised crazed world, to try something new in hopes of a better, healthier lifestyle.

When people lived in cities they had to go buy food from a supermarket. Idustrialized factories were outside of cities. When people lived in suburbs they had to make their own food or travel to supermarket

1st segment       logic defining

2nd segment         the way we think about animals – emotionally complicated

the connection between eating food that really came from animals. Sort of the same thing, eating a animal after butchering it vs. eating canned meat

3rd segment quirky thinking about dogs

just because someone has a pHd doesn’t mean they know a lot about animals ex. lady in story with phd

4th segment    morally problematic relationship with animals

ethics- guide behavior   too complicated to make on the fly decisions

primary discourse – love for dogs, never wanting to eat them

What do I think about mark Bittmans article. Emotionally defying

stop raising animals industrially, start eating them thoughtfully. I think for America this is a unrealistic want. He’s pretty much saying that every farmer and butcher needs to change they way they make a living. Which will never happen. If you undustrialize meat, then it’ll take longer and be more expensive to produce it. Then meat will get very expensive, then less people will buy it and it’ll be a chain reaction.  Asking people to think about the meat their eating, and really be mindful of what that animal went through so you could enjoy a taste can be powerful. If everyone watched videos of cattle and pig being slaughtered then I bet sales would decrease. Out of mind out of sight. If you don’t think about it, you don’t see it. If you dont think about the death of that animal, then you don’t see anything about other than the taste on the frying pan.

Part 1

1st segment-   

Main idea – Moral status of animals. Examples that Herzog uses to bring this idea to life, was how Judith Black and Joseph Weldon disagree about the moral status of fish. Judith somehow believed fish weren’t animals,  what a joke. She even had a PhD in anthropology.  This supports the main idea because a human who has an effect on animals, had the mental vision that fish weren’t animals, therefore they had no rights.

2nd segment- 

Main idea- Questioning the morality of keeping pets. Jim Thompson the 25 year old doctoral student in mathmatics worked in a poultry research lab.  A spontanous life changing, career altering moment occurred when Jim read an animal conservation magazine. The Animals agenda, which caused him to never eat meat again, forever becoming a vegetarian. This scaffolds the idea of morality of pets because if you believe animals are living beings, with a conscious, then you view them as equal. Many compassionate people have this attitude toward nature.

3rd segment- 

Main idea- Moral implications of keeping a predator for a pet. Herzog introduces his personal experience when he kept a boa constrictor on his home, and fed it meat. Some individuals, particularly human rights activist look down upon the notion of feeding snakes cats. Because cats are animals, and they shouldn’t be subjected to death in that manner. The argument that snakes shouldn’t eat meat like cats, but everyone who has cats feeds them meat from a can, which theoretically is the same thing. Also, when a predator captures and kills its prey, theres nothing more natural than that. Another argument of the stat that animal shelters euthanize 2 million cats, which instead could be fed to predators that require that nutrients. This connects to the idea of moral implications of keeping a predator because the idea of putting an animals inside the cage for the sole purpose to get eaten is sickening to Herzog

4th segment- 

Morally problematic interactions between people and animals. When the graduate student Ron Neilor was studying how the brain reorganizes itself after injury. His dramatic experience of surgically destroying specific parts of their brain, and then creating a relationship with these cats who were subjects of this study. Only in turn to have to kill them and cut open their heads to examine brain tissue. This procedure is referred to as perfusion. This relates to the idea of people running into problematic interactions with animals, Ron became tense, withdrawn and shaky do to his experience. His personality changed dramatically. Having negative effects both on humans and animals.

Part 2

My first reaction was “wow”, because that is very unusual for a family in America. More similar to  the  culture in Asia, and the ways they use their dogs. Just a little surprised to hear the decision they made as a whole. After the scenario explained that they would be celebrating the dogs life and appreciating the taste, I don’t view this as a bad thing.  I think a family has the right to do whatever they want with their animals once they’re no longer living. This is common practice in places around the world.

Describing what I would do if I was a member of that family 

I would probably research dog meat and know a little before I did that. I would be taken by surprise if I was apart of that family,

4 reasons explaining my actions if apart of dog eating family.

My 1st action is,  I would part take in the meal. Mostly because it interests me to experience what dog meat tastes like.

A 2nd action I would take, is googling information about eating dogs and things of that nature, purely because I would be curious to know more about dogs and their meat going into it

A 3rd action  I would take is finding out the “most popular” part of dog to eat, or the most “tasty”. The more I know the better.

The 4th action I would assert, would be to talk to my dad about it, who obviously has some experience in the manner.

Conducting Experimet 

What is wrong with eating dog meat ? This is more of an opinion than anything else. Dogs in this culture, are viewed as members of the family. People would never eat a person but a dog is considered okay, because it’s a certain type of animal.  Humans are a specific animal too. We have meat and bones and a lot of things the dog has. Morally, some view dog eating as evil, the idea of eating something we interact with can be hard to grasp ethically. An experiment to conduct, would be to feed people some chicken, steak, and dog meat. Not tell anyone until after the experiment what kind of meat they ate, record opinions about their experience before and after finding out what kind it was.  Look out for their stance on eating dogs, to change based on this experiment.

Part 3

When Herzog says he sits in the troubled middle on many ethical issues, he’s refers to his own conflictions about ethical obligations to animals. The philosopher Strachan Donnelley coins the term’ troubled middle” Someone who doesn’t eat as much meat as they used to, someone who opposes testing oven cleaner on animals but is for animal testing if it means a possibility to curing human diseases like cancer. The most logical way of explaining a “troubled mind”. Is these people see the world in shades of gray versus clear black and white.

Before movie

Thoughts-

whats wrong with the way we eat

we eat too much, and the kinds of food we eat aren’t healthy

2 Questions-

whats wrong with the way we eat

how does the amount of food affect our physical lives

how does the kind of food we eat affect ourselves mentally ?    high fructose corn syrup ? addicting

Analogy-

how does the amount we eat and the type of food we eat affect us

post movie

Thoughts-

hard to believe that I should be eating only 1/2 of meat a week?

isn’t meat healthy for you ? weren’t we designed to eat meat ?

Questions-

what is so bad about meat that requires us to eat 1/2 pound a week?

why does the USDA say that American adults should eat 1/2 meat a week?

will eating less meat allow us to live longer ?

whats considered an unhealthy amount of meat to eat when some already eat so little?

Analogy-

Is changing the way we raise farm animals realistic to the farmers way of making a living ?

Is it unreasonable to ask to convert the way all cows eat (corn, soy, poultry) to all grass fed ?

Whats my favorite type of food and why?

My favorite type of food is seafood and steak. Steak because it tastes amazing, a juicy steak that cuts easy can be visually appealing. Seafood because I picture seafood as somewhat a delicacy. I think the process of eatings some seafood like crab can be somewhat fun.

My most hated food looks like a cauliflower, and has the same dry tasteless feeling as cauliflower. I always ate veggies so eating cauliflower wasn’t the worst thing, but just the texture of it, and the bad taste really amplifies how bad it is.  I maybe would eat it if it was served at a friends house, not heavy set on one direction. For example I eat guacamole because I know it’s good for me, but I don’t enjoy the taste of it.

 Integrating Ideas with Others heading

I have learned that integrating my ideas with others is a crucial in the writing as a recursive process.

Evidence

Novice skill level (beginners) are not the only ones who get the privilege of reaping the benefits of the specialized training they receive from their sponsor. The sponsor themselves “lend resources or credibility to the sponsor but also stand to gain benefits from their success, whether by direct repayment, or indirectly by credit of association” (Brandt) For example if a orchestra teacher at a school, takes a young aspiring violin player, and this new member of the arts, who is trying to learn to play, ends up being a world class violinist one day, the sponsor benefits by credit of association, years after, when the sponsored has mastered the discourse. If a Private Piano teacher does daily lessons with their client, they’re benefiting from this with direct payment. Literacy narratives tell an author’s experiences with literacy, culture, or history of a society. According to Daria Letcher in the Rising Cairn Literacy Narrative “Education”,  “My family put a lot of pressure on education because of my family history” (n.p.) This literacy narrative opens up the impression that that could be the biggest force behind her incentives to perform well in the classroom. Possibly to live up to her family’s expectations. Most teenagers that are raised with the intention to succeed in education, would say their relationship with their parents is greatly influenced by their academic performance. Nobody wants to disappoint their parents.

Writing as a Recursive Process

I have learned that the writing process takes a lot more time than originally thought.  Writing as a recursive process involves 4 steps pre writing, drafting, revising and editing. I learned that a paper can be writen more smoothly when completing these 4 steps in order.

Evidence of Writing as a recursive process

The literacy success narrative influences incentives and compliance by putting this idea in our heads that literacy leads to success. “Literacy as success master narrative in one personal story has many of these same negative results, including a bauve and partial understanding of literacy and ones relationship of it’’ (Deborah Brandt). Deborah Brandt, literacy scholar states “literacy looms as one of the great engines of profit and competitive advantage” Drawing a connection between literacy and making money.  Such abundant focus on master narratives, blinds novices of literacy (students) to other incentives, like self fulfillment. Master narrative “according to Jean Francois Lyotard, is an overarching story people tell themselves about their experience in relation to culture, literature or a history of society” (Deborah Brandt).

Revised paragraph

The literacy success narrative influences incentives and compliance by putting this idea in our heads that literacy leads to success. “Literacy as success master narrative in one personal story has many of these same negative results, including a bauve and partial understanding of literacy and ones relationship of it’’ (Deborah Brandt). Deborah Brandt, literacy scholar states “literacy looms as one of the great engines of profit and competitive advantage” Drawing a connection between literacy and making money.  Such abundant focus on master narratives, blinds novices of literacy (students) to other incentives, like self fulfillment. Master narrative “according to Jean Francois Lyotard, is an overarching story people tell themselves about their experience in relation to culture, literature or a history of society” (Deborah Brandt). James Paul Gee a literacy scholar points out that “apprentice someone in a master apprentice relationship in a social practice (discourse) where you scaffold their growing ability to say, do, value, believe, and so forth, within that discourse you demonstrate your mastery and supporting theirs when it barely exists” I elaborate on this idea of having someone guide another in a area of expertise, and the impact that can have on a beginner.

Active critical reading process

Critique own & others work

Evidence

-caption/label  ( “use marker of fluency” language form rubrics)

reporting verbs

signal phrases

”       ”  (#)   MLA format put page number of source. – Way of citing source