HW 7B

Chapter 6: The Consumer-A Republic of Fat
Précis: The true cause behind obesity lies in the fact that there is too much corn being produced. Abundance and cheapness simply leads people to eat more and get fat. Soft drink and fast-food companies took advantage of this mountain of corn by not only putting it in their products, but to also sell them in bigger portions so hungry customers do not feel like pigs when they order second servings. Food (corn) abundance leads to tragedy when the stored fat in our bodies are left for a famine that will never come.

Gems:
“And while the gene presents a useful adaptation in an environment of food scarcity and unpredictability, it’s a disaster in an environment of fast-food abundance, when the opportunity to feast presents itself 24/7.” -Page 106
“While the surgeon general is raising alarms over the epidemic of obesity, the president is signing farm bills designed to keep the river of corn flowing, guaranteeing that the cheapest calories in the supermarket will continue to be the unhealthiest.” -Page 108

Thoughts:
1. Does the government not care about the health problems within the people? Do you think the government would rethink about these bills if death rates (instead of obesity/sickness rates) started rising suddenly because of corn?
2. Would obese people be able to survive longer if there were to be a famine? (Since their bodies would be storing lots of fat).
3. Before reading this book, I never knew that corn was the main reason for obesity, especially because of the HFCS. (High fructose corn syrup). Would obese people be able to lose lots of wait if they avoid HFCS/corn?

Chapter 7: The Meal-Fast Food
Précis: On a McDonalds (fast food chain)’s menu most of the meals consist of corn: the McNugget has up to 13 ingredients derived from corn. Humans make huge sacrifices for corn, whether it is the farmers who grow lots of corn to get little money, or the consumers who eat these foods that can cause diseases like diabetes and obesity. People seem to continue to eat fast food because it seems like a comfort food, but usually we get regrettably full after a while.

Gems: “That perhaps is what the industrial food chain does best: obscure the histories of the foods it produces by processing them to such an extent that they appear as pure products of culture rather than nature-things made from plants and animals.” -Page 115
“Of all the species that have figured out how to thrive in a world dominated by Homo sapiens, surely no other has succeeded more spectacularly-has colonized more acres and bodies-than Zea mays, the grass that domesticated the domesticator. You have to wonder why we Americans don’t worship this plant as fervently as the Aztecs; like they once did, we make extraordinary sacrifices to it.” -Page 119

Thoughts:
1. It upsets me how the only ones who could really benefit from overproduction of corn is the ones involved with the business aspect-since they can make so much money. It’s cruel when looking at the hard work farmers go to, the mistreatment of the animals we eat, and the health problems that are brought to the consumers.
2. Is becoming a vegetarian the only way to avoid obesity and diabetes?

Chapter 8: All Flesh is Grass
Précis: Any farm depends on grass to feed on animals, even though many farmers are also involved with the complex system involving corn and distribution. Some farms actually have alternative ways to agriculture, like growing things in the natural way they should be grown, and having a variety of animals and plants. Even the word ‘organic’ has sub meanings according to the government because industrial organic farms also uses corn sprayed with chemicals.

Gems: “If I said I was organic, people would fuss at me for getting feed corn from a neighbor who might be using atrazine. Well, I would much use my money to keep my neighborhood productive and healthy than export my dollars five hundred miles away to get ‘pure products’ that’s really coated in diesel fuel.” -Page 132
“A great many animals, too, are drawn to grass, which partly accounts for our own deep attraction to it: We come here to eat the animals that are the grass that we (lacking rumens) can’t eat ourselves. “All flesh is grass.” -Page 127

Thoughts:
1. Do farmers (like Salatin) make more money than farmers who actually follow the government’s standards for agriculture?
2. What does the government exactly mean when they say ‘organic?’ Would it still be the same as any other farm that follows their regulations?
3. Why can’t all farms be like Salatins’?

Chapter 9: Big Organic
Précis:
Popular organic markets like whole foods use stories/words to make customers feel they are buying products that are safe and natural-when really animals fed in “organic farms” are not so different than any other industrial farm. There was a movement for ‘organic’ food, however the government ended up making the organic requirements very low, therefore leading to no dramatic changes toward food regulations. Pesticides and antibiotics are avoided; however animals (like chickens) are still in close quarters (despite the little door they can go through to a little lawn). Either way, it is difficult to make a simple conclusion as to whether “organic” foods can be considered “better” than those that are made conventionally.

Gems:
“As in so many other realms, nature’s logic has proven no match for the logic of capitalism, one in which cheap energy has always been a given. And so, today, the organic food industry finds itself in a most unexpected, uncomfortable, and, yes, unsustainable position: floating on a sinking sea of petroleum.” -Page 184
“Once that leap has been made, one input follows another, so that when the synthetic nitrogen fed to plants make them more attractive to insects and vulnerable to disease, as we have discovered, the farmer turns to chemical pesticides to fix his broken machine.” -Page 148

Thoughts:
1. I didn’t even know about the term ‘organic’ as much before, and assumed it was the healthiest thing out there-however it seems that it’s not that simple.
2. Any successful business thinks mainly about profit before health-I should have realized before reading the chapter that whole foods is under that same idea.
3. What does it mean to eat ‘good food?’

Chapter 10: Grass-Thirteen ways of looking at a pasture

Précis: Grass and sunlight is the source of the energy we as humans depend on, therefore we should obtain those nutrients by either eating vegetables or the animals that eat grass. However, farmers tend to turn to fossil fuels and petroleum because the whole process is so tedious and tiring. It is also because America’s civilization is strict on keeping things industrial and “cheap” even though cheap corn actually costs a lot when thinking about healthcare, welfare, and the environmental damages. The only rare farmer who does farming the most natural ways, are local farmers like the Saltin’s.

Gems:
“The ninety-nine cent price of a fast-food hamburger simply doesn’t take account of that meal’s true cost-to soil, oil, public health, the public nurse, etc., costs which are never charged directly to the consumer but, indirectly and invisibly, to the taxpayer (in the form of subsidies), the health care system (in the form of food-borne illnesses and obesity), and the environment (in the form of pollution), not to mention the welfare of the animals themselves.” -Page 201
“Grass farmers, who buy little in the way of pesticides and fertilizers (none, in the case of Joel Salatin), do little to support agribusiness or the pharmaceutical industry or big oil. A surplus of grass does nothing for a nation’s power or its balance of payments...”-Page 202

Thoughts:
1. It makes more sense to just have a biodiversity, natural farm like the Salatin family but sadly most people do not realize how absorbed and manipulated they are into America’s industrial food system.
2. Farmers who are uninvolved with the government’s agricultural regulations earn more money than most typical farmers who just grows unhealthy corn.
3. Can America ever change the whole industrial system so we can eat healthy again?