After reading “Calling Home” written by Barbara Kingsolver, Steven
L. Hopp, and Camille Kingsolver, I have gained a different perspective on America’s food culture and farming. I always felt that farming was just raising animals so that they could be sold off to processing plants so we can have our next piece of steak or chicken. In my opinion, when the authors of the book discuss “oily food” they mean the oil and gas that it takes to consume our food, whether it be the oil in our food or the oil and gas that it takes in order to produce of food. In the reading, the authors point out that not only does our refrigerator use the same amount of gas that we put in our car, but also in processing our food (i.e. tractors, irrigation, equipment). Not only does it take a lot of oil and gas in processing our food but also in generating our food (i.e. pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers). The authors continue on stating that if we grew our food in our back yard that we can tremendously reduce the amount of gas and oil to one-fifth of the total oil consumed.
I agree with the arguments the authors make about our food culture. Living in American for the last 15 years, I don’t seem to see our country having much of a genuine American diet. It often consist a lot of different cultures food or fast food, which often includes a super-sized burgers and a side of fries. Although I have lived in America for the majority of my life, I do not take part of their food culture as much as I do with my country’s food culture. My mother knew that American food contains a lot of “added calories” and unnecessary oil so my mother opted to cook our country’s authentic food. I grew up eating lots of vegetables, rice, home-made soups, noodles, etc. My diet at home mainly consisted of authentic homemade Vietnamese dishes, rarely any take outs or fast food meals. The only contributing