Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 7)

1. Full learning outcome entries for Integrating Ideas with Others, Active Critical Reading Process, & Writing as a Recursive Process;
   • Full entries include: 1) a paragraph introducing the learning outcome: explain your understanding of the learning outcome – paraphrase the learning outcome language in the syllabus and in these rubrics, 2) several pieces of evidence documenting each of the “markers of fluency” you’re claiming – clearly labeled with language from the rubric, 3) a lengthy paragraph or two summarizing what your evidence of learning shows (PRO TIP: incorporate the language of the rubrics, 4) a photo of your completed rubric
2. Partial learning outcomes entry for Critique Your Own Work and Others’ including 1) a paragraph introducing the learning outcome, 2) several pieces of evidence documenting each of the “markers of fluency” you’re claiming – clearly labeled with language from the rubric, and 3) a photo of your completed rubric.

 

Integrating Ideas with Others 

This learning outcome is the process of using the authors ideas with others to find relationship between their ideas and textual evidence. This outcome requires summary, which focuses on setting up the project or central terms in the text. Paraphrase and analysis to show authors ideas.  By using textual evidence I can find relationships between texts, and make connections to other texts, the world, and myself. This learning outcome also requires me to make claims challenging the writers ideas.

 

I Integrate my ideas with these authors in my assignment connecting Kingsolver, Bittman and Pollan . In this assignment I’m using paraphrase and quotations to show evidence of how Polyface farm can be the answer to these authors critiques of the industrial food system.  My evidence of learning shows that I can use ideas of others to come up with solutions of how to solve some of the problems facing the environment and animals from industrial size farming. I also make claims to challenge ways of Polyface farming, and how that way of farming wouldn’t sustain the meat demand. This also shows my ability to make a text to world connection.  More evidence of Integrating Ideas with others is Reading Pollan 1 assignment. Here I locate specific text from the passage and summarize key features of the farm. I show that I’m able to annotate a text with key concepts and important details. I make text to world connection with the natural cycle of the polyface farm. More evidence of this is shown in reading pollan 2.

Active Critical Reading Process

This learning outcome pertains to the ability to annotate text, exploring the text to find implications of the authors response, and asking questions. Writing up a text is a great way to understand it better, from writing down words you don’t know, big ideas to focus on, and defining important details is all important aspects of this learning outcome. This learning outcome also requires annotations to challenge ideas in the text.

I Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking. Here I show evidence of my annotations. From big ideas like the symbiotic relationship between the animals and the environment at polyface, to a statistic of how 1/3 of chickens diet is insects. These annotations help improve my understanding of my project, and be able to point out evidence faster.

 

 

Writing as a Recursive Process

This learning outcome relates to restructuring paragraphs, developing ideas, and putting in new evidence to strengthen an argument/project. This learning outcome has 4 steps. Pre writing, drafting, revising, and editing. From global revision, thesis and claims, to local revision, sentence and grammar errors, this learning outcome show meaningful revisions of drafts.

I Demonstrate my ability to approach writing as a recursive process that requires considerable revision of drafts of content, organization, and clarity (global revision), as well as editing and proofreading (local revision)

 

Here I show my evidence of pre writing, by making a venn diagram to compare 2 things (polyface farm values, capitalist values, and the values that they both share). This helps show what these 2 things have in common, and the ways they differ. This furthers my understanding of parts of my project.

 

Here are 2 paragraphs from the Food Prompt. I show evidence of local revision by citing my source correctly in the revised paragraph where in the original I just brought up where I encountered the term and supplied a definition without citing where I got that exact definition. I also state how this word directly contradicts the industrial food system values right after explaining what the word means, versus in my original paragraph I don’t state that it contradicts the industrial food system.

 

Original Paragraph 

Meat is part of the culture in this country.  I encountered the term “ecocentrism” in my environmental issues class. “The idea of ecocentrism is a term used in ecological political philosophy to stand for a nature centered versus a human centered system of values”  I believe this is the basis for eating ethically, how your personal system of morals connects, and reaches out to things in nature, like animals and the environment.

Revised paragraph

Meat is ingrained in our culture as Americans.  I encountered the term “ecocentrism” in my environmental issues class. According to Wikipedia, “The idea of ecocentrism is a term used in ecological political philosophy to stand for a nature centered versus a human centered system of values”  I believe this is the basis for eating ethically, how your personal system of morals connects, and reaches out to things in nature, like animals and the environment. Eating ethically directly contradicts how the industrial food system goes about business.

 

Below I show evidence of Global Revision. This paragraph in my rough draft, but I take this out for my final draft. I did this because I don’t think this is necessary for displaying my view of eating ethically, but was for providing a naysayer. It can be important for a project to claim negative critique of my thesis.

Why you cannot undustrialize meat

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.

Critique Own and Others Work

This learning objective demonstrates my ability to critique my own and others’ work by showing global revision early in the writing process and local revision later in the process. Comments relating to claims, evidence and organization. Making specific suggestions for change, whether it be a grammar error, or a thesis change. Offering explanations to expand ideas and clarify notions. Comments are thoughtful and do attemot to follow guidelines given. I offer and accept feedback happily.

 

I show here that I critique my own and others work. I show suggestions for change regarding my peers project. I also begin to address idea development. My comments also work to clarify concepts and to address evidence, for example when I say “still need to integrate opinion of how to revamp IFP (industrial food system) and how you would eat more ethically.” Im offering a suggestion on what to integrate into the project. I also correct grammar mistakes for example where to put a comma, or point out a spelling error.

 

The literacy success narrative influences incentives and compliance by putting this idea in our heads that literacy leads to success. Debra 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.  So much focus on master narratives, blinds novices of literacy (students) to other incentives, like self fulfillment. Teachers do not get into the business of teaching literacy for money or access to “social goods”(Gee). They work to benefit others. The teacher’s incentives are to help the student grow and prosper. Students need to comply to their Teachers (sponsors), Novices comply with the teachers to receive the education and a passing grade in their current course. Being a member of an educated community, is a social imperative for some. This is an example of an incentive to be literate. When your able to communicate with someone on an educated level, your able to get more out of that interaction. People want to feel a sense of belonging, if someone can’t connect with another by words, it can lead to a lack of understanding each other. If you can’t understand someone, it leaves a lot more room for assumptions and judgments.  

If we as students are always thinking or expecting we’ll get an award, it is a bad mindset for learning. Real life doesn’t hand out awards for completing every task. Real life doesn’t give you a positive outcome every time you overcome a problem. As Alexander writes” When we view literacy as serving specific means, we limit it’s influence and affect.” I think this statement goes hand in hand with expecting too much. The cognizance and realization that literacy doesn’t always lead straight to achievement, is imperative to novices with having a realistic mindset to literacy.

 

Compliance is very much related to incentives. For example, if you are an apprentice the incentive to comply with your mentor (sponsor) is how you are going to get into the discourse and eventually reep the benefits of social goods. The entire apprenticeship is about complying with the instructor in order to advance. Debra Brandt says “sponsors nevertheless set the terms for access to literacy and wield powerful incentives for compliance and loyalty” Just as anyone in an apprenticeship, you need to comply with others who are higher on totem pole than yourself, or you won’t make it. The idea of sponsorship requires one to lead and another to follow, in most cases. These sponsors are of high importance to their predecessors. So much that as Debrah Brandt explains  “sponsors seemed a fitting term for the figures who turned up most typically in people’s memories of literacy learning; older relatives, teachers,priests, supervisors, military officers, editors, influential authors.”

 

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.

 

The conclusions I have drawn here are that Literacy is driven by Compliance and Incentives. People comply in order to receive incentives later on. The constant development in Literacy is in the hands of sponsors. “Obligations towards one’s sponsor runs deep, affecting what, why, and how people read” (brandt).  That is a reference to the effectiveness and the foremost power sponsors bear. With that kind of esteem presence comes responsibility to direct that influence in the right direction. A negative effect that associating literacy with success can have is as Alexander writes “ one consequence is a view of literacy as utilitarian and practical, a means to an end rather than something that can serve other purposes, such as pleasure, satisfaction, self awareness, self expression, or learning for learning’s sake”

 

If we as students are always thinking or expecting we’ll get an award, it is a bad mindset for learning. Real life doesn’t hand out awards for completing every task. Real life doesn’t give you a positive outcome every time you overcome a problem.

 

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 an area of expertise, and the impact that can have on a beginner.

 

While Gee claims, “Social groups will not usually give their social goods whether these are status or solidarity or both- to those who are not natives or fluent users,”  Teachers do not get into the business of teaching literacy for money or access to “social goods”(Gee). They work to benefit others. The teacher’s incentives are to help the student grow and prosper. Students (novices) need to comply to their Teachers (sponsors), to receive the education, experience, and a passing grade in their current course. Sponsors of literacy according to the literacy scholar Deborah Brandt are “agents local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy”. Being a member of an educated community, is a social imperative for some. This is an example of an incentive to be literate. Incentives “something that incites or tends to incite to action or greater effort, as a reward offered for increased productivity” (www.dictionary.com). When your able to communicate with someone on an educated level, your able to get more out of that interaction. People want to feel a sense of belonging, if someone can’t connect with another by words, it can lead to a lack of understanding each other. If you can’t understand someone, it leaves a lot more room for assumptions and judgments.  

 

Compliance is very much related to incentives. For example, if you are an apprentice the incentive to comply with your mentor (sponsor) is how you are going to get into the discourse and eventually reep the benefits of social goods. The entire apprenticeship is about complying with the instructor in order to advance. Deborah Brandt says “sponsors nevertheless set the terms for access to literacy and wield powerful incentives for compliance and loyalty” Just as anyone in an apprenticeship, you need to comply with others who are higher on totem pole than yourself, or you won’t make it. The idea of sponsorship requires one to lead and another to follow, in most cases. These sponsors are of high importance to their predecessors. So much that as Deborah Brandt explains  “sponsors seemed a fitting term for the figures who turned up most typically in people’s memories of literacy learning; older relatives, teachers,priests, supervisors, military officers, editors, influential authors.”

 

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.

 

The conclusions I have drawn here are that Literacy is driven by Compliance and Incentives. People comply in order to receive incentives later on. The constant development in Literacy is in the hands of sponsors. “Obligations towards one’s sponsor runs deep, affecting what, why, and how people read” (brandt).  That is a reference to the effectiveness and the foremost power sponsors bear. With that kind of esteem presence comes responsibility to direct that influence in the right direction. A negative effect that associating literacy with success can have is as Alexander writes “ one consequence is a view of literacy as utilitarian and practical, a means to an end rather than something that can serve other purposes, such as pleasure, satisfaction, self awareness, self expression, or learning for learning’s sake”  The big problem with success stories is the idea that drives it, the more capable someone is when it comes to literacy, the more the success he or she will be. Having a preconceived notion that you will receive profit or prosperity based off of the level of literate skill you posses, is a major false sense of security. If we as students are always thinking or expecting we’ll receive an award, it is a bad mindset for learning. Real life doesn’t hand out awards for completing every task. Real life doesn’t give you a positive outcome every time you overcome a problem. As Alexander writes” When we view literacy as serving specific means, we limit it’s influence and affect.” I think this statement goes hand in hand with expecting too much. The cognizance and realization that literacy doesn’t always lead straight to achievement, is imperative to novices with having a realistic mindset to literacy.

 

Works Cited

Rising Cairn Daria Letcher   “education”

James Paul Gee   (1989) pp. 5-25 The journal of Education Vol. 171 No. 1 Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics

Kara Poe Alexander (2011) pp. 609-633 CCC 62:4 Success, Victims and prodigies:

Deborah Brandt Literacy Scholar

 

Ethical Eating

By Chris Jones

 

Eating food ethically is challenging for some, and an unknown concept to many others. My belief about eating ethically starts with knowing where it came from, before it lands on your plate. Once you’re informed of that, it’s a matter of how you extend your moral ground to whatever it is you’re eating. Eating food is something everyone does everyday, and there’s a lot of suffering that is happening because of the demand for meat. The society we live in has meat integrated everywhere. From grocery stores and restaurants, to cafeterias and our homes. Meat is ingrained in our culture as Americans.  I encountered the term “ecocentrism” in my environmental issues class. According to Wikipedia, “The idea of ecocentrism is a term used in ecological political philosophy to stand for a nature centered versus a human centered system of values”  I believe this is the basis for eating ethically, how your personal system of morals connects, and reaches out to things in nature, like animals and the environment. Eating ethically directly contradicts how the industrial food system goes about business. From treatment of animals, to the environmental impact of meat, the industrial food system has many negative repercussions on us and our planet. These are the two ethical questions relating to the Industrial food system, animal cruelty and the environmental impact it has on the earth. The first animal cruelty, involves placing animals in confined spaces and the act of severing body parts. The second is environmental impact, from the massive consumption of oil, to the addition of greenhouse gases. Both of these issues are ingrained in our present day society. Real life problems, with real life consequences. The Industrial food system shows no responsibility towards these issues. Below are critiques of the industrial food system, by people widely educated on food and it’s process. Barbara Kingsolver an American novelist and Michael Pollan an American author present their critiques of the Industrial food system. Kingsolver explains, “each food item in a typical US meal has traveled an average of 1500 miles”(pg 5). This is one of the biggest reasons why agriculture is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. With all the variety of food displayed in every grocery store, gas station and cafeteria, this creates the demand for this product in all locations. The great interest with meat in our country creates a broad market for it to be distributed and sold. Animal cruelty is inherent in the industrial food system. For example the idea of treatment of pigs is also at the heart of Michael Pollan argument of ethical eating. Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, declares that “farmers dock, or snip off, the tails at birth, a practice that makes a certain twisted sense if you follow the logic of industrial efficiency on a hog farm”(pg 218). From sawing off chickens beaks, to keeping animals in small spaces, These relate to one of the most compelling ethical questions in need of discussion, animal cruelty. A monoculture farm is where they raise one type of animal in enormous amounts. In order to operate monoculture farms, farmers must employ some unethical practices. This idea shows industrial food system puts efficiency and money before the well being of its animals. In the hog industry for example as Michael Pollan shows, these pigs are living in concentrated animal feeding operations, CAFO. Pollan believes “pigs in these CAFOs are weaned (accustom young mammal to food other than its mother’s milk) from their mothers ten days after birth, (compared to 13 weeks in nature,) because they gain weight faster on their drug fortified feed than on sow’s milk, but this premature weaning leaves the pigs with a lifelong craving to suck and chew, a need they gratify in confinement by biting the tail of the animal in front of them” (pg 218). The industrial size farms cut of the tails of pigs at birth as a result. Money is why there is animal suffering. If farmers let pigs live the way they should, in mud, with lots of area to play in, and being fed by their mothers milk (sow), they’d make less money. Because the pigs wouldn’t grow as fast, and it would take them longer to slaughter. Which opens up the culture to the efficiency of the industrial food system. Efficiency equals more money.

 

The practices of the Industrial food system directly contradicts Joel Salatin and his Polyface farm management. Polyface farm does resolve many of the ethical questions industrial farming raises. One of Polyface core values is individuality physiological distinctiveness, As Salatin claims it “reinforces the cowness of the cow”. Animals are happier when put in their natural state, because in the nature setting, chickens don’t poke each other to death with their beaks, and pigs don’t bite each other tails off, like they do in the Industrial food system. Another foundation of Polyface farm is the idea of not doing the work to maintain the animals, but having the animals do that themselves. The organic symbiosis between nature and animals on this distinct farm is explained further in relation to a quote from the Spiritual leader of the Tibetan people Dalai Lama. As the Dalai Lama asserts “At heart the issue is the relationship between our knowledge and power on the one hand, and our responsibility on the other” He speaks a deeper meaning of scientific breakthroughs and the advancement of our world as a whole. For example how scientists are experimenting with tomatoes that are injected with spider genes so they are more pest resistant, to keep tomatoes from being infested/wasted, so the farmer can sell more, to make more money (Dalai Lama pg 187)  Joel Salatin exemplifies the relationship of power and responsibility. Mr. Salatin has power over his animals, as any farmer does, but he takes a ethical responsibility towards them. He thinks in the best interest of the animals, and everything comes second behind that. For example when chickens on polyface farm defecate, it fertilizes the grass below, making the farm self sufficient in terms of nitrogen then these chickens eat insect larvae and parasites which breaks down cycle of disease, and the chickens also pick up the manure of the cows, and that in turn fertilizes the grass, so the cows can eat the grass over and over. Then Mr. Salatin uses his cows manure to give the chickens protein themselves, which helps the chickens stay healthy. The act of sanitizing a pasture by chickens. This is the cycle that Polyface has set up, animals helping other animals. This facet makes polyface farm the standard for ethical and environmental farming. The Dalai Lama claims that it’s impossible for ethical thinking to keep pace with technology, which is where the industrial food system comes into play, their ethics has gone out the window and their advancement in technology allows them to do just that. At polyface Farm their culture is Natures template, which means the animals get the same diet as they get in the wild. In the industrial food system, animals are fed corn, soybean, and chicken feed for one purpose only, to gain more weight, so they can sell for more, all to make more money. Animal cruelty is inherent in the industrial food system.  For example this idea of killing extremely large amount of animals is at the heart of the Mark Bittman argument of “What’s Wrong with the Way we Eat”. This quote perpetuates my claim of animal welfare. As Mark Bittman argues “I like animals and I don’t think it’s fine to to industrialize their production and to churn them out like they were wrenches, but there no way to treat animals well when you’re killing 10 billion of them a year”(5:45). The U.S. accumulated  meat consumption are in the billions of pounds. The average american consumes 270 lbs of meat a year (npr, nation of meat eaters), this is the biggest statistic that shows our want for meat as a nation. The most beneficial way to revamp our food production system to work more like Polyface Farm is to treat the animals with an ecocentric system of living. Letting farm animals roam about without being contained in cages, feeding animals real food instead of the mass amounts of corn and soybean. Overall entitling animals to grass and sunshine, as all animals should be. Paying yourself back in your soul is the most prominent way to raise animals ethically, because when you farm with ethics your eating with morals.

 

Some of the factors that have shaped my own eating habits are economical and structural. I live on a college campus, which means that the vast majority of my diet will be provided by the school. I eat what the school cafeteria offers me, regardless of how the meat I consume, got to my plate, I need to eat it. An economical factor that plays a role in my eating is the price of having a meal in the commons. A meal swipe is just over 5 dollars. For the amount of food I eat and for the amount I pay, it’s overwhelmingly in my favor. Especially in the United states, where the cheapest food, being considered fast food, is expensive in comparison with my school cafeteria. The most popular burger in America, The “Big Mac” is over 5 dollars just by itself. There’s much incentive to eat where I do, in terms of convenience and money. A cultural factor that influences my diet is also my peers. The one time during the day that my teammates and I sit down and talk is when were eating together, if I were to outsource my food in order to eat more ethically I would miss out on this daily activity that I enjoy from a social standpoint. An alternative to the way I eat my food now, would be living in an apartment/house where I personally go out and pick the foods I choose to eat. Then I would be able to selectively pick the kind of food to cook. A popular dilemma at the grocery store, for someone trying to eat ethically would be to buy or not to buy (genetically modified organisms) GMO foods. This is a common choice many families must make, this goes back to the topic of eating ethically. The trade offs of eating ethically would be for example, eating 100% grass fed beef. This would be spending more monetary value, versus eating factory made meat but for a cheaper price. This is the best way, in my opinion to eat meat morally.  The cost benefit analysis is whether I connect my ethics to my food. The question that arises is whether I Am willing to spend more money in order to eat with morals. Americans use fad diets to decide what to eat, it’s in our advertised crazed world, to try something new in hopes of a better, healthier lifestyle. If we can all realize what’s going on with our food before it gets to our plate we can start to care. You can’t care about something when your unaware of it. It’s about educating people on it, I believe this should start in schools. What better way to get people aware of the problems in the food industry than to introduce this into kids. With many years of development, this is the best way to make changes for the better of our planet, and the animals that inhabit it. The other best way to eat food ethically is to grow it yourself. When you experience the process of planting a seed, continued nurturement with sun and water you feel a certain responsibility. When you feel responsible, you take ownership of it. This makes you consciously aware of the organic food your putting in your body. When we can all learn to extend our moral beliefs to our foods, then we can improve the life of animals, and progress to a healthier lifestyles, and the development of our surrounding environment.

 

Literature Cited

 

Rowe, Stan J. (1994).“Ecocentrism: the Chord that Harmonizes Humans and Earth.” The Trumpeter 11(2): 106-107.

 

Barclay, Eliza June 27, (2012), NPR: A nation of meat eaters (7:47)

 

Pollan, Michael (2006) “The Omnivore’s Dilemma- A Natural History of Four meals”

 

Bittman, Mark (2007) “What’s Wrong with the Way we Eat”

 

Kingsolver, Barbara (2007) “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life”

 

Lama, Dalai (2007) “Ethics and the new genetics”

Eating food ethically is challenging for some, and an unknown concept to many others. My belief about eating ethically starts with knowing where it came from, before it lands on your plate. Once you’re informed of that, it’s a matter of how you extend your moral ground to whatever it is you’re eating. Eating food is something everyone does everyday, and there’s a lot of suffering that is happening because of the demand for meat. The society we live in has meat integrated everywhere. From grocery stores and restaurants, to cafeterias and our homes. Meat is ingrained in our culture as Americans.  I encountered the term “ecocentrism” in my environmental issues class. “The idea of ecocentrism is a term used in ecological political philosophy to stand for a nature centered versus a human centered system of values” I believe this is the basis for eating ethically, how your personal system of morals connects, and reaches out to things in nature, like animals and the environment. Eating ethically directly contradicts how the industrial food system goes about business. From treatment of animals, to the environmental impact of meat, the industrial food system has many negative impacts on us and our planet. These are the two ethical questions relating to the Industrial food system, animal cruelty and the environmental impact it has on the earth. The first animal cruelty, involves placing animals in confined spaces and the act of severing body parts. The second is environmental impact, from the massive consumption of oil, to the addition of green house gases. Both of these issues are engrained in our present day society. Real life problems, with real life consequences.

 

The Industrial food system shows no responsibility towards these issues.

 

Barbara Kingsolver an American novelist and Michael Pollen an American author present their critiques of the Industrial food system. Kingsolver explains, “each food item in a typical US meal has traveled an average of 1500 miles”(pg 5). This is one of the biggest reasons why agriculture is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emmisions. With all the variety of food displayed in every grocery store, gas station and cafeteria, creates the demand for it in all locations. The great interest with meat in our country creates a broad market for it to be distributed and sold. Animal cruelty is inherent in the industrial food system. For example this idea of treatment of pigs is also at the heart of mark bittman argument of….                              These 2 quotes advance my claim of …………(how they support idea)

 

Michael Pollen, author of “The Omnivores Dilemma”, explains that “farmers dock, or snip off, the tails at birth, a practice that makes a certain twisted sense if you follow the logic of indutrial efficiency on a hog farm”(pg 218). From sawing off chickens beaks, to keeping animals in small spaces, These relate to one of the most compelling ethical questions in need of discussion, animal cruelty.

 

Industrial farms cut off the tails of pigs at birth because they bite eachothers tails off, one of the reasons the pigs do this is because their in such a confined space that they feel stressed and discomforted. This causes the aggressiveness to increase in these animals.  In order to operate monocultured farms, farmers must emply some unethical practices. This idea shows industrial food system puts efficiency and money before the well being of it’s animals. In the hog industy for example as Michael Pollan shows, these pigs are living in concentrated animal feeding operations, CAFO. Pollan believes “pigs in these CAFOs are weaned (accustom young mammal to food other than it’s mothers milk) from their mothers ten days after birth, (compared to 13 weeks in nature,) because they gain weight faster on their drug fortified feed than on sow’s milk, but this premature weaning leaves the pigs with a lifelong craving to suck and chew, a need they gratify in confinement by biting the tail of the animal in front of them.” The industrial size farms cut of the tails of pigs at birth as a result. These farmers take the natural ways of living for pigs, and make an artificial life for them because they want to make as much money as possible. Money is why there is animal suffering. If farmers let pigs live the way they should, in mud, with lots of area to play in, and being fed by their mothers milk (sow), they’d make less money. Because the pigs wouldn’t grow as fast, and it would take them longer to slaughter. Which opens up the culture to the efficiency of the industrial food system. Efficiency equals more money.

 

The practices of the Industrial food system directly contradicts Joe Salatin and his Polyface farm managment. Polyface farm does resolve many of the ethical questions industrial farming raises. One of Polyface’s core values is individuality physiological distinctiveness, As Salatin claims it “reinforces the cowness of the cow”. Animals are happier when put in their natural state, because in the nature setting, chickens don’t poke eachother to death with their beaks, and pigs don’t bite eachother tails off, like they do in the Industrial food system. Another foundation of Polyface farm is the idea of not doing the work to maintain the animals, but having the animals do that themselves. The organic symbiosis between nature and animals on this distinct farm is explained further in relation to a quote from the Spiritual leader of the Tibetan people Dalai Lamai.

As the Dalai Lama says  “At heart the issue is the relationship between our knowledge and power on the one hand, and our responsibility on the other” He speaks a deeper meaning of scientific breakthroughs and the advancement of our world as a whole. For example how scientists are experimenting with tomatoes that are injected with spider genes so they are more pest resistant, to keep tomatoes from being infested/wasted, so the farmer can sell more, to make more money (Dalai Lama pg 187)  Joe Salatin exemplifies the relationship of power and responsibility. Mr. Salatin has power over his animals, as any farmer does, but he takes a ethical responsibility towards them. He thinks in the best interest of the animals, and everything comes second behind that.

For example when chickens on polyface farm defacate, it fertilizes the grass below, making the farm self sufficient in terms of nitrogen then these chickens eat insect larvae and parasites which breaks down cycle of disease, and the chickens also jpick up the manure of the cows, and that in turn fertilizes the grass, so the cows can eat the grass over and over. Then Mr. Salatinl uses his cows manure to give the chickens protein themselves, which helps the chickens stay healthy. The act of sanitizing a pasture by chickens. This is the cycle that Polyface has set up, animals helping other animals.This facet makes polyface farm the standard for ethical and environmental farming. The Dalai Lama claims that it’s impossible for ethical thinking to keep pace with technology, which is where the industrial food system comes into play, their ethics has gone out the window and their advancement in technology allows them to do just that. At polyface they go by Natures template, making sure they get the same diet as they get in the wild. In the industrial food system, animals are fed corn, soybean, and chicken feed for one purpose only, to gain more weight, so they can sell for more, all to make more money. Animal cruelty is inherent in the industrial food system.  for example this idea of killing extremely large amount of animals is at the heart of the Mark Bittman argument of “Whats Wrong with the Way we Eat”                              These 2 quotes advance my claim of how they support idea)

 

As Mark Bittman argues “I like animals and I don’t think its fine to to industrialize their production and to churn them out like they were wrenches, but there no way to treat animals well when youre killing 10 billion of them a year”(5:45). The U.S. accumulated  meat consumption are in the billions of lbs. The average american consumes 270 lbs of meat a year (npr, nation of meat eaters), this is the biggest statistic that shows our want for meat as a nation. The most beneficial way to revamp our food production system to work more like Polyfacs Farm is to treat the animals with an ecocentric system of living. Letting farm animals roam about without being contained in cages, feeding animals real food instead of the mass amounts of corn and soybean. Overall entitiling animals to grass and sunshine, as all animals should be. Paying yourself back in your soul is most prominent way to raise animals ethically, because when you farm with ethics your eating with morals.

 

Why you cannot undustrialize meat

 

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.

 

Some of the factors that have shaped my own eating habits are economical and structural. I live on a college campus, which means that the vast majority of my diet will be provided by the school. I eat what the school cafeteria offers me, regardless of how the meat I consume, got to my plate, I need to eat it. An economical factor that plays a role in my eating is the price of having a meal in the commons. A meal swipe is just over 5 dollars. For the amount of food I eat and for the amount I pay, it’s overwhelmingly in my favor. Especially in the United states, where the cheapest food, being considered fast food, is expensive in comparison with my school cafeteria. The most populr burger in America, The “Big Mac” is over 5 dollars just by itself. There’s much incentive to eat where I do, in terms of convenience and money. A cultural factor that influences my diet is also my peers. The one time during the day that my teammates and I sit down and talk is when were eating together, if I were to outsource my food in order to eat more ethically I would miss out on this daily activity that I enjoy from a social standpoint. An alternative to the way I eat my food now, would be living in an apartment/house where I personally go out and pick the foods I choose to eat. Then I would be able to selectively pick the kind of food to cook, a popular dilemma at the grocery store would be not buy or no to buy (genetically modified organisms) GMO foods. This is a common choice many families must make, this goes back to the topic of eating ethically. The trade offs of eating ethically would be for example eating 100% grass fed beef, also would be spending more monetary value, versus eating factory made meat but for a cheaper price. The cost benefit analysis is whether I connect my ethics to my food. The question that arises is whether I’am willing to spend more money in order to eat with morals. Americans use fad diets to decide what to eat, it’s in our advertised crazed world, to try something new in hopes of a better, healthier lifestyle. If we can all realize whats going on with our food before it gets to our plate we can start to care. You can’t care about something when your unaware of it. It’s about educating people on it, I believe this should start in schools. What better way to get people aware of the problems in the food industry than to introduce this into kids. With many years of development, this is the best way to make changes for the better of our planet, and the animals that inhabit it.

 

Literature Cited

 

Rowe, Stan J. (1994).“Ecocentrism: the Chord that Harmonizes Humans and Earth.” The Trumpeter 11(2): 106-107.

 

Barclay, Eliza June 27, (2012), NPR: A nation of meat eaters (7:47)

 

Most people who eat food in general don’t know where it comes from, they would tell you that it came from a farm. “Absensce of that knowledge has rendered us a nation of wary label readers” says Kingsolver, she shows knowledge of why this matters. This ill educated habit we’ve fallen into, causes for a lot of food to be thrown away. Statistics shows that 40% of produce in the super market gets thrown out. Once we as consumers see the expiration date our mind has already been made up. When in reality, from experience we all know food is still healthy and tasty after the expiration date displayed. The sell by date, is merely a guidline for when the product prime time to eat it. Much of the communities and it’s inhabitants around the US and the world finds it hard to make a moral connection between keeping food or throwing it away, whether it be newly expired or leftovers. Creating a mindset where you only buy food that you will eat is a challenging task, when our culture is to buy and consume as much as possible. There are already markets for these foods. Many super markets already do donate to food banks and sell them to salvage stores.

 

Animal cruelty is inherent in the  industrial food system for example this idea of … is also at the heart of mark bittman argument of….                              These 2 quotes advance my claim of …………(how they support idea)

 

Bring in alternative living in paartmetn cooking for self

What are tade offs and costy benefot analysis

 

Values of polyface

one of their core values is grass based. Pay you back in your soul, you farm with ethics your eating with morals.

individuality physiological distinctiveness reinforces the cowness of the cow. Animals are happier when put in their natural state.

Natures template – make sure they get the same diet as they get in the wild.

dont work to maintain the animals, the animals do that themselves

distincitiveness – being your own

is there way to make living  way to do that wothout getting out of the loop of grow more, more product and more money

 

Criticism of polyface favor of industrial food system   is there way to make living  way to do that wothout getting out of the loop of grow more, more product and more money

 

More incentive to eat food – grow it yourself -possible connection

 

“the industrialization of agriculture, the simplified process reached it’s logical extreme- in monoculture,

“The average US food item on a grocery shelf traveled farther than most families go on their annual vacation”. – Barbara Kingsolver

 

Applying moral standpoint

Having ecocentric view is basis of eating ethically

Knowledge and degree of connection to what we eat

Is it possible to eat meat ethically ?

 

Section 1

Key points of critique env impact

Lack of knowledge of food

Animal treatment

 

Section 2

 

Section 3

 

points of critique then the answer of ecocentrism

 

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO THINK ETHICALLY ABOUT FOOD

 

CONNECT PARAGRAPHS

 

TIE IDEALS AT POLYFACE TO  IDEALS INDUSTRIAL FOD PRODUCTION

HOW TO POLYFACE COUNTERS  A TO INDUSTRIAL

 

LAST SEGMENT AIM 3-4 PARAGRAPHS  WHAT WOULD DAY OF MINDUL EATING LOOK LIKE

WHAT VALUES OF SALATIN POLLAN DO I SEE WORTH MAKING EFFORT TO

 

Why you cannot undustrialize meat

 

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.

 

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

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?

 

Barbara Kingsolver, a woman who moved her family to a farm in Virginia from Arizona, so they could have a relationship with nature and with the food they grow and eat, states that the industrial food system “causes problems like overdependence on petroleum, and a epidemic of diet related diseases”. This coincides with one of the moral questions of the environmntal impact the industrial food system has on our planet.

 

Why have an  eportfolio

communicate story about what you can do ?

Use for applying to a job, to show what you’ve learned

 

eportfolio end of semester meetings

ENG 123

Literacy archive project

draft

revision

Thinking about food

draft

revision

Mid semester evidence

end of semester evidence

 

 

Critique own work – evidence of planning

made notes of what kinds of changes would want to make, revison plan

Right there

inferences more or less

fit in logic of person trying to figure out, if projecting yourself probably wrong

pull together different pieces of reading q4 synthesis, 2 sources

 

some questions ask you to draw yourself into it

cascading error, makes it hard to catch up. If you don’t recognize it’s asking for your viewpoint, can lead to misinterpretation

 

q1 reading dalai lama 2

no single religon has all the answers

secular liberal politics

advances in science and  technology

individual – response to ethics of genetic modification, can we leave it up to ndividual to decide to eat the chicken breast ?

incorporate these values to polyface

 

scientists experts –

public -if public is to have ethical voice  need to be educated in school “scientific thinking”

debate/discussion

media

public consultation

activism/advocacy

PETA

science should be folded in entire education, use ethics of point of view

 

 

complex

interdependent web

decision making

experts

consumers

political- self interest

 

 

way we think about animals defines logic

 

peer review- what would naysayer say

what would someone whos enthusiastic say

2 motivations

help classmates with the their paper and

20% my grade is on critiquing own work and others

 

approach to commenting on peers drafts

 

be 2 readers when peer review

reader you are who kows materails – misquoting

function as reader who doesn’t know anything about the topic

 

peer review shouldnt take a couple minutes

find substantive work

 

 

• In what ways might the practices of Polyface Farms contribute to a solution to the problems Kingsolver and Bittman say come along with industrial food production practices?
• Based on your review of the criticisms of Polyface Farm, how far, in your view, do the practices of Polyface Farm take us in solving the problems that attend industrial food production?
  • POST REQUIREMENTS: Be sure to quote from at least two of the following texts in your post: Kingsolver, Bittman and Pollan. Be sure to quote/paraphrase and discuss critiques of Polyface using evidence from your web search.  Use Barclay’s Formula, TRIAC, signal phrasing with well-chosen signal verbs, [square brackets], and ellipses in your post. At the end of the post, include a photo of a well-formatted MLA Works Cited page for all sources used in this post (you’ll need to write this in a word processor or Google Docs to get the formatting correct).
• Bring your Little Seagull Handbook to class with you on Wednesday.

 

Polyface farm does contribute solutions to the problems in the industrial food system, outlined by Kingsolver and Bittman. In the industrial food system Bittman says a locavore is “someone who eats only locally grown food”, and that everyone used to be a locavore. Polyface farm offers a solution to this problem, by growing all their food on the farm and not shipping that food away past a certain number of miles. Before the industrial revolution, all food was eaten is which town it was made. Now food is being shipped hundreds, in some cases thousands of miles. Polyface farm attempts to keep their products close to home to ensure its connectivity to their own community and it’s animals.

A problem about the industrial food production stated by kingsolver ” isn’t ignorance of our food sources causing problems as diverse as overdependence on petroleum, and an epidemic of diet related diseases”.  This coincides with the issue of not knowing where our food comes from, because of how ill educated we are about our food, and the amount of gases and oils used in mass produced food facilities. The world is suppossed to run out of petroleum in the next 50 years, the industrial food system uses “33% of total global warming effect, can be attributed to food production” (http://www.sustainabletable.org).  The industrial food system is a big component of this, and is what a lot of factories operate on.  Polyface farm doesn’t use machines, further seperating them from factory food production.

“About a third of all our calories now come from what is known as community consent, as junk food.” This is a quote by kingsolver that shows how much fast food, and industrialized food has become part of our culture. The convenience and price of fast food is a reason for it’s popularuty, Polyface farm is also popular for the exact opposite reasosns, they grow all their products naturally which doesn’t contribute to the fast food epidemic, and doesn’t contribute to the killing of tens of millions of animals, or the practice of freezing meat.

Mark Bittman writes, “suggest that in the interest of personal and human health Americans eat 50% less meat, it’s not enough of a cut, but it’s a start.” This contradicts what the industrial food system and capitalism is all about, producing the most products to make the most money. Increasing supply so demand will too. Mark is thinking environmentally and more healthy. He knows eating less meat is better for your body, and it’s also heps curb climate change. Polyface farm cows are half of the weight of factory cows, primarily because the cows diet on polyface is 100% gras, and other cows are pumped with growth hormones and antibiotics. This unatural techniques is one of the foundations of factory foods in order to just make more money. Mr. Salatin isn’t all about making money, he and his farm prioritize the animals and the earth before that.

 

“Studies have suggested that free-range and organic chickens may have more negative environmental impacts than traditional poultry products, as the chickens take longer to produce.^[9] Additional criticism claims that Salatin’s farm is not scalable, since the Earth—which already uses 26% of ice-free land for grazing—does not have enough land to support free-range meat at current consumption levels”

This criticism does have some truth behind it, the cows at polyface take up 33% more land than industrial size productions and the time to slaughter on polyface (20-29 months) is twice as long as a factory cows. “Given we are already using a lot of land to produce the meat people are already eating, this would not be a sustainable increase.”  Modern technology does allow for more sustainable land use. These criticims are coming from real life scenarios and statistics. The amount of land available for farming is so great but does have a limit. With the population increase in the world, it wouldn’t be very sustainable if every farm went about things like polyface does. With more people requires even more meat production, and an efficient factory that produces more meat in less space is worse for animals but realitically sustainable for people and the current/future challenge of feeding everyone.