...In the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, the author Michael Pollan talks about fast food in the chapter “The Meal: Fast Food.” Pollan not only talks about fast food, but, dissects what is actually inside of fast food by seeing how much corn is in the food and how it leads into obesity, Type II diabetes, and heart disease. However, before we can analyze what the chapter is saying about fast food we need to examine the author as well. Is he creditable? Are his sources creditable? Is this another person on a soapbox telling us how unhealthy fast food is for us? Is he understandable to the average reader? These are the types of questions that need to be asked when reading this chapter. Looking at this we can determine that Pollan is a creditable source,...
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...The Omnivore's Dilemma According to Pollan, the omnivore’s dilemma is that we don’t know what to eat because Americans have no food culture. One way to prove we have no food culture is in chapter 8 when Pollan states “There are still lots of countries where people eat the old fashioned way. They eat traditional foods, following customs that haven’t changed for hundreds of years. And amazingly, in those countries where people pick food based on custom and taste, the people are actually healthier than we are”(94). Other countries eat foods that they and their ancestors have been eating for hundreds of years. Americans however, have no food culture, so when dinner comes the Chinese have chicken, Japanese have fish, Mexicans have tacos, and...
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...Book Review: The Omnivore’s Dilemma Candace Casillo Devry University Professor Johnson 11/09/2012 In part one, Chapters one, two, and three of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan takes an in depth look of the history and sources of corn, a family farm in Iowa, and the economic pressures that influence farming and food policies. Part one showcases a captivating enlightening history with many descriptive qualities. Chapters one, two, and three are a perfect start to The Omnivore’s Dilemma, in that they set up the re-occurring theme in the book: the conflict between the way farming should be done, and how economic survival dictates how it is typically done. However, this book might not be as appealing to others as it was to me. The first chapter is a about a particular piece of produce that is all around us: corn. Pollan reveals that on the forty-five thousand items in a supermarket, more than a quarter of them now contain corn in their ingredients. Through some historical analysis of how corn was first used by the Mayans, Pollan explains why corn is such a commanding crop and how its use was transferred to the surrounding colonists. In chapter two, Pollan shares his experience on a family corn farm in Iowa and how corn has changed farming and the landscape in the area. Chapter three is about the grain elevator and how this lowers the value of this particular vegetable, which was once highly praised by the Mayans. Next, we learn that large companies such as Cargill...
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...The Omnivore’s Dilemma Part III: Personal Charles F. Nelson DeVry University The Omnivore’s Dilemma Part III: Personal The book, The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollen, is a much more tangled and thought provoking treatise on American cuisine, than the title even begins to suggest. In chapters 15-17, Pollan skillfully brings us along as he explores the good, bad, risk, and reward of our choice to eat as a Hunter-gatherer. He delves into relationships of this choice that are normally unimagined by the vast majority. He paints the emotion mental turmoil of this decision with illuminating facts and masterful language in a way that exposes somewhat humorous paradox’s that keep us hungering for more of this insightful and exhilarating book. In these chapters Pollan explores the dilemmas facing us through his own experiences in choosing to eat as a Hunter-gatherer. Using poignant language that unfolds naturally he depicts the risks of gathering or hunting foods from various perspectives. His flowing logic in making his choice is laced generously with support from sources such as Walden, Thoreau, Leopold, Shepard, and others, thus giving credence to the entire process. This thorough, well supported reasoning frequently gives rise to subtle ironies making the American dilemma of eating somewhat laughable and the book all the more fascinating. Pollan keeps the reader mentally...
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...Industrial Contamination of Livestock and Its Effects on Food Safety Abstract This research paper will examine the government’s attempt to reduce the manufacturing contamination of the nation’s meat supply. Federal, state and local agencies work together in order to create a source, reason, actions necessary to control and prevent foodborne illnesses from reoccurring. Increase in the number of food related illnesses have people wondering if meat and processed food will ever be safe to eat. Cattle contaminated with bacteria such as E-Coli get their way to grocery stores due to improper management of the food production system. Change in food safety policies and assessment guidelines prompted state and local health officials to inform Americans on the dangers of contaminated meat products and other foods. President Obama has proposed new guidelines in the Food Safety Act; more stringent measures taken in the investigation of meat production, factory farming and facilities by the USDA and the FDA. Opposing entities dispute that animals need protection from parasites and bacteria as well also and should be proven that antibiotic use in animals is harmful to humans. There is not enough concrete evidence to prove that use of antibiotics or hormones in meat products are a threat to humans if consumed. So enlighten by the present debate the government has permitted use of chemicals, and other substances in production and processing of meat and processed foods, not for just...
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...Service Operations Strategies Final Exam Please answer all three questions fully. Take your time. Think about your responses and ‘try out’ some of these responses. They may look ‘better’ or ….not as complete a day or two after you initially write them. As such, your response , often, requires some iteration and refining. Question 1 You’ve visited Biscuits & Bath, America’s largest ( ! ) full-service , chain dog care business. You have B&B’s service fee schedule. Please note the below NYT article about “The High Cost of Animal Ownership.” One couple featured in the article spends upwards of $15,000/yr to care for their dog. ( at least they don’t have to pay for college costs ) B&B is a premier and premium-priced service. They make no bones about this. Our visit highlighted the detailed research B&B ( and , in particular, Scott Smith, his partner , and Scott’s wife, Julie …..did in terms of service, operations, health care, and legal issues ) did and continues to do to constantly improve their service and operations. I, also, point out Maersk Lines . Maersk is the world’s largest container shipping service. They provide “womb-to-tomb” service to transport a customer’s goods. A more accurate characterization of Maersk’s service might be point-to-point. Maersk will deliver a container to your location, wait for you to load the container, pick up the container, load it onto a Maersk freight ship, and deliver the container to its destination. You can’t get...
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...The Local Food Movement Benefits Farms, Food Production, Environment The Local Food Movement, 2010 Pallavi Gogoi is a writer for BusinessWeek Online. She frequently writes on retailing. Just as small family-run, sustainable farms were losing their ability to compete in the food marketplace, the local food movement stepped in with a growing consumer demand for locally grown, organic, fresh produce. In addition to supermarket giants following the trend toward locally grown food and devoting shelf space to such items, local foods are also finding their way into schools, office cafeterias, and even prisons. Although the trend toward organic foods has not waned, consumers are increasingly aware of the environmental impact caused when organic foods must travel to find their way to the local grocery store shelf. For this and other reasons, consumers are opting instead for locally grown counterparts, choosing to eat what is available in each season in their areas rather than purchasing food that must be shipped from other regions. Drive through the rolling foothills of the Appalachian range in southwestern Virginia and you'll come across Abingdon, one of the oldest towns west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. If it happens to be a Saturday morning, you might think there's a party going on—every week between 7 a.m. and noon, more than 1,000 people gather in the parking lot on Main Street, next to the police station. This is Abingdon's farmers' market. "For folks here, this is part of the Saturday...
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...and Culture: The Influence of Zea mays across Cultural and Historical Boundaries Faculty Mentor: Kathleen Kane Second Faculty Reader: David Moore Corn's status as a critical food crop, and its location within indigenous new world cosmographies, illustrate the important sociocultural role the plant has played for millennia. However, modern society has elevated Zea mays far above the status of mere plant, fashioning it into a commodity intimately connected to systems of control and capitalism. Consequently, corn has played an essential role in colonization, industrialization, and the advent of overproduction. The beliefs and literature of numerous new world cultures, along with the literatures of modern Western cultures, offer a striking analysis of corn's current position in western society. The far-reaching impacts that corn has on our socioeconomic and subsistence systems reveal a great deal about globalization, commodification, and dominance. This paper examines corn through a cultural studies lens, documenting the influence of this iconic foodstuff and analyzing its effects over historical and cultural boundaries. 2 Corn has long been located at the center of indigenous new world cultures, as well as at the center of modern Western society, and its presence spans and transcends boundaries between cultures and time periods. Corn’s genesis as a foodstuff, and its ascension to the status of...
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...to transcend nature” (Mcguire 4). This is why Ecofeminists are committed to challenging all hierarchies, oppressions, and dualistic thinking that empowers patriarchy, and deems “Otherness” as inferior. It is through this feminist theory I would like to analyze the destructive power of Monsanto, the largest agricultural corporation in the United States, has in the Unites States particularly in the farm industry, the effect they created in the food supply, and their effect as a global corporation. In order to analyze the impact of Monsanto, a feminist lens of intersectionality is needed to see how the genetically modified seeds created by Monsanto lead to their domination of the nature and humans. According to Kimberle Crenshaw, “...any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner” (58). Crenshaw argues that an experience is greater than a sum of two factors, and instead that the experience is unique due to these factors. In the case of Monsanto, I will analyze the unique effects this corporation has created in their quest to maximize their profits. Capitalism drives our patriarchal society to do what those in charge deem necessary to gain profit. Gloria Anzaldua states, “White America has only attended to the body of the earth in order to exploit it, never to succor it or to be nurtured in it” (90). She shows that the White Americans who are at the head of the patriarchy exploit the land for their own gains to...
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...The Future of Food Production The process that food consumed in America goes through to make its way to our mouths is like a Rube Goldberg contraption. The seemingly straightforward process of growing, raising, harvesting, and slaughtering goes on every day, completely hidden from consumers. Very few Americans are aware of the highly complicated, mechanized, and convoluted journey that any given bite of food takes from its origins in nature (or some manipulated approximation of it) to its destination on our plates. Although some people criticize the state of our food system, it is clear that it grew to be the international machine that it is because of demand. More than 300 million Americans want lots of food, meat especially, and they want it cheap. So like every other production process in this country, our food system has been industrialized to produce maximum food calories for the American people at minimum cost. This industrialization of our food system has allowed for population increase and higher standards of living. But there are significant problems with the industrial food system. Caught up in a drive to maximize production and profit, the industrial food system has grown to an unsustainable size. As food production has become increasingly industrialized, concern for the environment and the animals we eat has taken a backseat to expansion. Specialization, rather than integration, has become Forman 2 the hallmark of America’s farms. Rather...
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...Microcultures in Canada A Comparative Approach Introduction Every society contains both a mainstream culture and many different subcultures. The mainstream culture is how one is identified as. However, microcultures consist of how we identify ourselves within the global mainstream culture. There are multitudes of ways to participate in a microculture. It could be along ethnic, religious lines, or even lifestyle. All these factors come into play with regards to the different aspects of microcultures. This paper will delve into all three types of microcultures; it will look at Vietnamese, Jewish, and Vegan cultures and compare them to mainstream Canadian culture. The subsequent comparative analysis aims at finding differences in an attempt to better understand and communicate more effectively, by clarifying the common misunderstandings that arise when communicating with different microcultures, whether in business or everyday life. Vietnamese Background/History/Evolution Representing one of the largest non-European sub-cultures in Canada, the Vietnamese community ranks 5th in terms of size and comprises just over 150,000 individuals. Concentrated in metropolitan areas, close to 60% of the population resides in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or Calgary (Statistics Canada see Appendix B). Despite currently being a sizable group, this sub-culture was virtually non-existent prior to the Vietnamese war that took place between 1964 and 1975. It wasn't until the conflict arose...
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...Genetically Modified Organisms Group B: Erica Grigg, Kaneka Jackson, Gene Kim, Kathryn Lynn Content Introduction/Description (Kathryn Lynn)………………………….………...………… 2 Historical Development (Kathryn Lynn)….….……….………….….…….…………… 4 Political/Legal Influences (Kaneka Jackson)………………….….……..…….……….. 11 Economic Questions (Erica Grigg)…….…….……..….….….….…..…..…..…….……15 Psychological Considerations (Erica Grigg)…………………….…………………....... 19 Cultural/Media Influence (Kaneka Jackson)………………………….…..…………….. 24 Environmental Implications (Gene Kim)……..….….…..….….……….……………..... Moral/Ethical Implications (Gene Kim)………………..….…….….…….………....... References…..….…..…….…….…….…….…..…….……..…..….…..…….…….…. Introduction The world is forever changing. New technologies are being introduced and discovered as generations grow and the need for basic food items is increased. Technology is involved in every facet of our lives. It is used continuously every day whether it be waking up to an alarm clock, watching TV that you recorded on a digital video recorder, brushing your teeth with a mechanical toothbrush, or using your GPS navigation system when going to your latest vacation destination. The latest technology has made it possible for people to communicate with others all over the world in both audio and video formats. Scientists are continuously looking for ways to make living easier and more productive. They are looking for solutions to world hunger, new medical advances to...
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...Mobilizing Codes in the Movement for Grass-fed Meat and Dairy Products Klaus Weber Northwestern University Kathryn L Heinze Northwestern University Michaela DeSoucey Northwestern University This study illuminates how new markets emerge and how social movements can effect cultural change through market creation. We suggest that social movements can fuel solutions to three challenges in creating new market segments: entrepreneurial production, the creation of collective producer identities, and the establishment of regular exchange between producers and consumers. We use qualitative data on the grassroots coalition movement that has spurred a market for grass-fed meat and dairy products in the United States since the early 1990s. Our analysis shows that the movement’s participants mobilized broad cultural codes and that these codes motivated producers to enter and persist in a nascent market, shaped their choices about production and exchange technologies, enabled a collective identity, and formed the basis of the products’ exchange value.• The creation of new markets is an important engine of economic and cultural change. But new markets do not emerge naturally; rather, they often arise from collective projects that mobilize the necessary economic, cultural, and socio-political resources (Fligstein, 1996; Swedberg, 2005). A growing body of research suggests that social movements can play a central role in fueling such projects (Carroll and Swaminathan, 2000; Rao, Morrill, and...
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...reinforces policy inaction. Here, for the first time, we construct a dynamic model that quantitatively agrees with food prices. The results show that the dominant causes of price increases are investor speculation and ethanol conversion. Models that just treat supply and demand are not consistent with the actual price dynamics. The two sharp peaks in 2007/2008 and 2010/2011 are specifically due to investor speculation, while an underlying upward trend is due to increasing demand from ethanol conversion. The model includes investor trend following as well as shifting between commodities, equities and bonds to take advantage of increased expected returns. Claims that speculators cannot influence grain prices are shown to be invalid by direct analysis of price setting practices of granaries. Both...
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...Collapse- book is about a history topic about how societies choose to fail or survive. The main characters are historical people and unknown kings of Mayan cities or Easter Island villages. Jared Diamond tells the story of the Viking explorer Erik the Red, who discovered Greeland and Vinland (Terranova, in Canada). Another character is captain Olafsson, a norse sailor who wrote the last news about Greenland in 1410. Another main character is Christopher Columbus, who arrived at Hispaniola in 1492, but now this island is two countries, the Dominican Republic and the Haiti. Diamond studied the politics of two presidents. the dominican Rafael Trujillo, who protected the enviroment and the dictator François, Papa Doc, Duvalier, who decided on politics of deforestatation of his country, Haiti. The author considered the bad politics of another main character, king George II, who was interested in sending merinosheeps from Spain to Australia, an idea which was succesful from 1820 to 1950 but then the farmers understood their lands lost fertility. Another main character is Tokuwaga Jeayasu, a shogun of Japan in 1600, who prohibited Christianity in 1600 and protected his country againt deforestation. The book takes us to a lot of places around the globe: Mayan cities, Rwanda, Viking colonies of Vinland or Greenland, Haiti and Dominican Republic, Easter Island and Polynesian colonies in Pacific, and the Chaco villages in New Mexico (United States). The time period was from 800 AC, when...
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