Reflections

     I think that one of the most interesting things that I learned in this class was different aspect in the way that food can affect a persons life. The readings that we read were informative and were always interesting- even if they were long. Through writing the essays in this class, it helped to identify research tools that can be used in order to better support and fill an essay.
     I think all of this is important because it will help to be able to make persuasive topics later in my life. The food aspect makes me realize the multidimensional idea about what food is and has become. It should help me be more knowledgeable about things in life that can help me.
     In life I usually always do look out for the healthiest option that I can get at a market. This course has made me realize that things like farmers markets can help with that as well. Also, there are many things that I can do to make me live a healthier life and feel good while doing it, that is what this class has taught me.

Ways to Live a Healthy Life

            Probably one of the most influential documentary movie in my life was “Supersize Me” done by Morgan Spurlock. He made a challenge to eat nothing but McDonald’s as his only meal for thirty days. There were many disturbing things in this movie, especially the results that Spurlock found. At the end of the thirty days, Spurlock had gained a significant amount of weight, and had a lot of health concerns to go with it. We in America recognize that fast food chains are not healthy for us, yet we continue to eat meals like that anyway. Both Pollan and Dupuis try to give a reason for this happening and a cure for how to handle it.

            In the article by Dupuis, he talks about the food dietary value in America and how they have changed throughout the ages. One of the first faux dietary pioneers was John Smith who was the same person that wrote the book of Mormon. Smith gave “recommendations for a healthy living” which included not having “tea, coffee, and alcohol.” These things were later changed into new dietary restrictions. People like Benjamin Rush and Sylvester Graham introduced new ideas that were trying to allow people to have a healthy life. Dupuis talks about how people earlier in history are claiming that there was divine right involved in the dietary restrictions, but there was no physical proof. Now in days, there are doctors that tell us about things that also cannot be seen like nutrients and vitamins. Dupuis argues that there is still a false science in food and we really cannot know what to eat. Dupuis tells us that it is better to just eat what we want and not think about it because there is no real solution.

            Pollan has a bit more suggestions about what to do in the face of this dietary problem. Polland explains that there are a couple things to keep in mind when buying food to eat. One thing is to “eat food” that is not the “industrial foods” that we all think of. By doing this, we can make sure to know what we are eating and wont be eating more than “five” ingredients in total. Also, taking the time to cook our meals ourselves as well as check where each ingredient comes from will help to limit the bad ingredients from being eaten. Another thing Pollan suggests is that we should “eat less.” People in France live a healthy lifestyle and it is mainly about the portion size there. They do not go back for seconds and limit how much they eat at a time. This will help to give moderate portions and lead us back onto a healthy style of living.

Interesting Food Facts

In Katie's blog, she talks about how about 12% of people skip breakfast every morning. There has recently been a push for breakfast to be eaten so that people can have energy to get through the day. This really is interesting because it is close to what I do since I dont usually eat breakfast in the morning. Dani's blog is interesting because it talks about yogurt and the healthy choice in a snack option. This is different than soda as an option because it give the body nutrients and doesnt block them.

Soda the Healthy Choice?

            When moving through our everyday lives, we always think about the food choices that we make before a meal, but do we think about what we drink as well? One of the things I noticed out of all our class logs is that the choice of a soda was made quite often. We all have heard many health concerns about soda and its relation to obesity and diabetes, yet we continue to choose soda as a drink option. I recently cut soda out of my diet in order to get away from all of the artificial flavors that are found in soda products, but I know people that have it multiple times a day. Soda is something that can be had on occasion but should be avoided if it can.

            Many doctors and health professionals have found that there are multiple factors that soda has that negatively affect the body. In a study that forms opinions by looking at other works, there were four effects that were looked at. The first is energy consumption. It was found that energy consumption “was greater than what could be explained by consumption of the beverages alone” showing that soda is increasing the energy consumption, which makes appetite and hunger go up (Vartanian et. al 667). By having this increased amount of energy, it makes people hungrier and want to eat more, helping to contribute to the obesity problem. The second thing studied was body weight. Body weight factors were hard to study because there were many different definitions of body weight in the different studies drawn upon. When that body weights were averaged, there was still found to be an increase in body weight across the studies but many “outcomes varied” with the changing body weight (Vartanian et. al 669). The third outcome studied was the intake of milk and calcium. What was found is that there are “lower intakes of milk and dairy products” (Vartanian et. al 670). Drinking soda is causing less of an intake of milk, which results in less calcium intake that should be making our bones healthier. Soda is causing weaker bones in people, which should really be healthy. The fourth thing that was studied was the absorption of other nutrients and the relation to soda consumption. In the study, it was found that there was sufficient lack in things like protein, fruit, and riboflavin, to name a few (Vartanian et. al 671). The soda that we consume is blocking vital foods that are needed for our bodies. This study shows that we shouldn’t be making the choice to drink soda at meal times because it is not the healthy choice for our bodies.

            When we analyze the results from this study, we find that soda is really not the healthy choice for us to make when we sit down to eat. While having a soda on occasion would not hurt you as much, it should not be an everyday occurrence. In our eating habits, we should be making not only the healthy salad, but also the good choice in our drinks as well. Things like water and tea are not bad for you and can help us live an even healthier lifestyle. By cutting out soda, our bodies will be able to process milk and other foods better, making the correct nutrients work the first time. Part of the blocking of nutrients makes us need to eat more to get the same amount; a reduction in soda will get us to that point.

Bibliography

Lenny R. Vartanian, Marlene B. Schwartz, and Kelly D. Brownell.  Effects of Soft Drink Consumption on Nutrition and Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. American Journal of Public Health: April 2007, Vol. 97, No. 4, pp. 667-675.

Food Blog Ideas

A lot of the meals that I have found are things from the dinning halls. Also, the difference between drinking water and drinking some type of soda is really pronounced. Also, there are a lot of people that snack during the day and don’t wait for proper meal times.

Menu for Three

THURSDAY
11- Water, Chicken Cordon Bleu
6- Chicken Ceaser Burrito, Lemonade

FRIDAY
12- Beef/Mushroom Saute, Lemonade, Oatmeal Raisin Cookie
2:30- Jalapeno Chips
6- Chicken falarma (rice, chicken, falafel, humus, pickles, Tahini sauce, cilantro sauce), pomegranate Lemonade

SATURDAY
11- Pretzel, Water
2-Pizza w/ Sausage, Lemonade
5:30- Pasta w/ Marinara, Meatballs, Garlic Bread

Chocolate and its Making

            Nothing can beat the sweet taste of Cadbury milk chocolate as you take a bite and it slowly melts in your mouth. Savoring the sweet flavor, we feel like all chocolate was made to be this way. Of course what we don’t realize is that chocolate did not just come prepared this way. A football shaped pod from the Theobroma cacao tree, also known as the cacao tree, is where this story to the chocolate bar begins.

            First we should learn about the climate for the cacao tree. The Theobroma cacao tree originated in the Mesoamerican growing region, which spans from Latin America down to the northern part of South America. While the exact origins of the cacao tree are unknown, it has been discovered that the Olmec people, “who lived along the Gulf of Mexico as early as 1500 B.C.” were the first people to cultivate the cacao tree and grow it in small gardens of their own (Lopez 14). The only place suitable for the cacao tree is in the hot, humid environment of the tropical rainforest. The rainforest has a unique ecosystem that remains hot and humid year round and continually has an average temperature of eighty degrees Fahrenheit (Lopez). The rainforest also has about “eighty to four hundred inches of rainfall annually” (Lopez 9). These growing conditions are very specific to the rainforest and are hard to reproduce in other areas of the world. One of the benefits of the rainforest is that they have trees of varying heights, which help to shade the cacao trees from some of the sunrays, as well as help to keep it a humid environment. The trees also keep most of the sun blocked off of the ground, which creates a rich environment for “decaying vegetation” like dead trees and fallen leaves where insects, fungi, and other creatures thrive (Lopez 10). This environment enriches the soil, which helps the cacao tree grow.

We never think about chocolate ever becoming a rare commodity, but at the rate of deforestation, this could become a very real possibility. We know that it is hard for the cacao tree to be grown anywhere else but the rainforest, because of the difficult environment to reproduce, so by destroying the rainforest, we risk the loss of chocolate and a whole host of other food items in the process. It is predicted that at the current rate of deforestation, the rainforest will be gone within forty years (Lopez). While this may have nothing to do with chocolate directly, the importance of the rainforest in chocolate production is key to giving it optimal conditions to grow. Knowing this is eye opening to what is going on with our food production. We can sit by and let the rainforest be destroyed, but in doing so, we let our common commodity in every house become not so common. Things like advocating for the stopping of cutting down the rainforest can help to keep our beloved chocolate stay ours.

            Some of the most interesting things that I found, besides where cacao trees are grown and the threatening extinction of chocolate, is the way that cacao beans are transformed into the chocolate bar we think of today. The first step is to harvest the cacao pods from the trees and bring them back to where they will be processed. This process is very labor intensive and there are no machines that can do it, unless they might rupture the pod. The pods are then split in two and the pulp and seeds are put into water, in order to allow for the fermentation process to go underway (Lopez). After the fermentation process, the seeds are left out to dry (Lopez). From the drying stage, the beans are then roasted, which helps to determine the different flavors of chocolate and the different types of chocolate (Lopez). The husks on the outer part of the cacao bean are removed after roasting, which are then discarded, and the cacao nibs are then ground up into a paste (Lopez). This paste is made into chunks, which can then be shipped to countries around the world and processed (Lopez). From here, the big brand name companies like Lindt, Cadbury, and Hershey’s all essentially add sugar to the paste to make it creamy and sugary like we know it. This makes the smooth chocolate bar that melts in our mouths as we take a bite.

            We really do not realize how fortunate we are to have a thousand different types of chocolate. One of the longest lasting arguments that I have heard in relation to chocolate is whether or not European or American chocolate is better. Many American’s think that the American chocolate is better, and many Europeans think their chocolate is better. While doing research about chocolate, I found a man named David Lebovitz who posted about this argument. He is an author of cookbooks about baking and chocolate and comments that it is not the “industrial chocolates” that interest him but in fact the “chocolatiers” that are doing “quality work” (Lebovitz). Lebovitz has an interesting position about the argument because it is more about the specialized chocolate than the industry chocolate we think of. I know now that there can be many places to look for things like chocolate (unless the rate of deforestation destroys it all). We need to be more open about our food choices and more willing to try new things.

Works Cited

 

Lebovitz, David. "Chocolatiers and Chocolate-Makers." David Lebovitz: Living the Sweet Life in Paris. 14 Jan. 2007. Web. 09 May 2012. <http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2007/01/chocolatiers-an-1/>.

Lopez, Ruth. Chocolate the Nature of Indulgence. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2002. Print.

What is Food?

            In our country, we are very far removed from our food. We do not see every little thing that comes to us in nice, neat packages; we do not see the chicken that was grown in darkness all of its life; we do not see its life ended and made through a processing plant. We as consumers are ignorant to the making of what we call food today.

            There has been a rise in people wanting to know the origin of where their food comes from. Many famous critics like Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan have come out and informed the public about what they are really eating. A man named Christopher Cook tells about how there are plant workers with “upper-body disorders” that are not treated because the companies do not extend the benefits they should. The productions of things like chicken is not a clean business in the slightest. Also, things like tomatoes are picked when green and have gas used to make them ripe, meaning that they become tasteless to the public.

            We as a public cannot let things like the production of our food become what it is today. There are too many things that we do not know in our food production that we should fight to change that. These companies keep these secrets from us because what we want is cheap food, nothing else. If we can stand having slightly more expensive food for something of better quality, then we can improve our standard of living ever so slightly. I think that we as a public should take action for the process for the food that we eat.

The Real American Diet (or Not)

“The American way of dietary life undergoes yet another change.” Pollan makes an interesting point that we do not have a set cultural value in Amercia that makes our dietary values stable. Any “lone crackpot with a medical degree can alter this nations diet overnight,” according to Pollan. We can really see through Pollan’s argument that America is as whimsical as a child. One day we eat our vegetables, the next day we don’t and eat something else. The dietary values in our country are not as stable as a country such as France. Pollan explains a study about how people in France are more likely to associate pleasure to food where American’s will not. In France, when asked about chocolate cake, they think “celebration” where as American’s think “guilt.” This shows the cultural identity of America and how we shun everything that is thought of as being bad for us.

            I really like the tone of Pollan’s essay. He is highly satirical and very sarcastic about the values of American culture. The tone is really communicated through the word choice like gorging, quackish, and crackpot. These all are very detailed negative words that are used to show just how bad the American dietary values are. I also really like the point that he makes because it is somewhat similar to my essay that I just wrote. I talked about the value of needing a healthy choice while really just indulging in the same chocolate cake that is always in the house.

            When I was reading this I found a lot of things to ring true. There are times that meals are eaten on the go and not really enjoyed, but I also think there are people that enjoy food. Many of my friends have called me a foodie, and I would say I fit that description well. My family takes the time to prepare each meal before it is made and then enjoy it around the dinner table. We enjoy the food that we make because it has some value since we just spent the time making it. I would say that I like to enjoy food because it can be a good social bonding experience. Not every person is simply jumping into the fat-free diet because its said to be good, but of course, not everyone is staying away from it. In our culture, we have an interesting mix of people that do all different types of things, not just what Pollan says we do.