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.