Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma, Introduction-
Summary: America's food industry has been changing very quickly. People are eating totally differently then they had in the past. This book will take the reader deep into all parts of the food industry, showing what people are eating and where it comes form.
"Gems": "Different as they are, all three food chains are systems for doing more or less the same thing: linking us, through what we eat" Page 7
Thoughts:
-This book seems like it will be very interesting and insightful. I think that it will start off objective, and show more and more bias as it progresses.
- Why did America's food inidustry and ideas about food change so rapidly?
Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma, Chapter one-
Summary: Most of Americans diets consist of mostly corn products. Humans, at least in America, rely on corn to live the way they do. Corn relies on humans to reproduce and without them, it would had never have grown to the crop it is today.
"Gems": "If you do manage to regard the supermarket through the eyes of a naturalist, your first impression is apt to be of it's astounding biodiversity. Look how many plants and animals (and fungi) are represented on this single acre of land! What forest or prairie could hope to match it?" Page 16.
Thoughts and Insights:
-I knew we relied on corn, but I always learned about it from the economic point of view. Corn is really the center piece of american society. It is the single most important crop in the country. If we couldn't grow it or import it, it would be the equivalent the irish potato famine or worst.
- Where would we be now without the discovery of corn?
Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma, Chapter two-
Summary: There has been a new type of corn developed to make industrial farming easier, hybrid corn. Hybrid corn is bred to have the acquired traits. This corn is stronger then average corn, allowing more of it to be harvested. The corn can't be there on it's own, the farmers, and their techniques are very important to corn farming, and the food industry in America.
"Gems": "'Growing corn is just riding tractors and spraying'" Page 40
Thoughts:
- Science has come so far, they should be able to engineer super corn! I don't care if it's natural, it is effective and doesn't put us in danger so there's nothing wrong with it.
-Will the hybrid corn crops kill off the regular corn crops?
Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma, Chapter 3-
Summary:
Corn is harvested and kept in grain elevators. All different farmers bring their corn to these grain elevators, when it is bought, and after that it is mixed and untraceable back to the farmer. It is all classified as "Number 2 Corn", meaning that it is acceptable corn to eat. After that corn is shipped off to be processed or fed to the country's livestock.
"Gems": "My plan when I came to Iowa was to somehow follow George Naylor's corn on it's circuitous path to our plates and into our bodies. I should have known that tracing any single bushel of commodity corn is as impossible as tracing a bucket of water after after it's been poured into a river. " Page 63
Thoughts:
- This chapter changed my perspective on how I see american farming. I thought that every farmer individually sold their corn to the public, or at least individually to the corporations. As it turns out, the corporations couldn't tell you where they got their corn from.
- If all this corn is thrown together, and a disease comes out of it, how can we identify where the disease is coming from?
Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma, Chapter 4-
Summary
Cows aren't being fed grass anymore, they aren't even living on farms anymore. They're living on feedlots now. Feedlots are places where cows are kept in crowded pens, and fed corn. The corn is not healthy for cows, which is why they're also on a steady diet of antibiotics. The corn is so unhealthy for them, that they're manure is toxic. In the pens that cows are kept in, they're knee deep in manure. Overall, there aren't good living conditions for our country's cows.
"Gems": "So then why is it that steer number 534 hasn't tasted a blade of prairie grass since October? Speed, in a word, or, in the industry's preferred term, 'efficiency'....Fast food, indeed" Page 71
Thoughts:
- Right now were in a stalemate. We can't go back to having cows eating grass on farms because all the farms are gone. The corn is so unhealthy for cows we need to stop feeding them it. We have no solution.
-What happens when there's no corn to feed our beef? When petroleum runs out?
Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma, Chapter 5-
Summary:
Corn is currently the most important part of our food chain. It is broken up and we use every part of the kernel. When it is processed, it is broken up into different parts. It is basically taken apart and put back together in food. Which is a long and energy consuming process. But it works, as corn can be turned into many different ingredients.
"Gems": From Lucas London"s blog: "There's money in food, unless you're trying to grow it." (Pollan 95)
Thoughts:
-Basically corn can be turned into anything. It is able to be broken up so small and has so many different properties, it works to put in all our food.
-How hard would it be to live without corn in your diet?
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