...Isabelle Gaylor Mrs. Vermillion AP 11 English 02 November 2015 The Omnivore’s Dilemma Summary The Omnivore’s Dilemma was written by Michael Pollan, a journalist, who had no prior knowledge of where his food came from and how it was made. This book goes through each step and learning process Pollan went through on his journey of “food enlightenment”. In the first chapter, Pollan brings up a very true and slightly terrifying point almost right away. Everything we eat has something to do with corn. Chips made from corn flour, beef from corn fed steers, and even sodas are made sugary with corn syrup. There is virtually no escape from the circle of corn that makes up our diets. Corn is also made into fertilizer both by being mashed into the ground by wandering cattle and through the feces of chickens, cows, etc… In the third chapter, Pollan explores the heart of the industrial food chain. Bombs from World War II hold a large amount of ammonium nitrate. Ammonium nitrate also happens to be a great supplier of nitrogen which is used to grow plants. Although Hybrid corns eat up a lot of nitrogen, it is still way more than they can take. The excess nitrogen seeps into the ground and eventually becomes run-off, that causes major nitrogen pollution....
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...Michael Pollan's claim in Chapter 7 of "The Omnivores Dilemma " is clearly developed by the three topics discussed in this chapter, including America's obesity problem, HFCS, and super sizing. The claim is that Michael Pollan feels that Americans obesity problem is due to the low cost of HFCS and super sizing, and the lack of physical activity with an intake of calories. The three topics lead into this claim because the cheaper HFCS is the more it is used over cane sugar, so companies can super size without losing money the more Americans eat it and the more calories they get. According to the text, when "... food is abundant and cheap, people will eat more of it. Since 1977, in Americans average daily intake of calories has jumped up by more...
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...Like most of the citizens of the modern world, Pollen admits at the beginning of his book, Omnivore’s Dilemma, that he neither cared nor had any idea where his food originates. It was not until a research opportunity about genetically modified food in 1998 that prompts Pollen to reconsider the modern food chain. As a food detective, Pollen traces our daily meal from field to table. Chapter 1 tells the story of corn. The evolution of corn shows that human selected corn for its fat kernels, and corn subsequently dominated the food chain. From a whole corn-on-a-cob to animal feeds, corn is presented everywhere. An investigation of an average American meal and his/her carbon level in the cell reveal that our world can basically all be reduced...
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...A Defense of the American Food Culture When Michael Pollan published Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals in 2006, he was both angry and concerned with status of American cuisine. According to Pollan, the United States had no definitive food culture and therefore turned to advice from fad diets and the government when deciding what to eat. Omnivore's Dilemma claims that the "melting pot" synonymous with American culture has fragmented the nation's culinary identity. Others, however, argue that the U.S.'s cultural diversity has led to regional cuisine that both encourages unity within smaller subcultures in the United States and promotes the exchange of ideas about our food. The reality of today’s American cuisine is likely a combination of the two—the rise of processed fast food and the surge of chain restaurants have become homemade meals’ biggest competitors, but the American culinary community has fought to keep national and regional fare alive. Pollan began his inquiry into America’s food culture when the Atkins diet again rose to prominence in the early 2000s. The American people...
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...The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan talks about the food chains that keep America sustained and the effects that we have made on the environment. Pollan tries to convey that the good treatment of animals and their environments is beneficial to the quality and taste of the food. My favorite part of the book was when Pollan went to Polyface farm and learned about grass farming. The farmer at Polyface wanted his farm to mimic a natural ecosystem where all the animals and plants would live mutualistically to better the environment around them. The biggest takeaway from this book was that every single thing in the food chain has an effect on the food on our plates. How the animals or plants are grown, killed, and shipped all matter to the...
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...Samuel Benson Mrs.Vermillion AP L+C 19 February 2018 Omnivore’s Dilemma Summary Michael Pollan, an average American journalist, paid no attention to where his food came from as everyone else did prior to the writing of his book, Omnivore’s Dilemma. That was until he was sent out to cover a story on genetically modified foods and was surprised to see how complicated and contrived the food manufacturing system was. His findings prompted Pollan to set out on his own quest to discover what he really was putting in his mouth. His journey carried him all across America and taught him the importance quality food has on all other aspects of life. Pollan started out uncovering the modern farming machine and how it ticks. All of agribusiness is run...
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...After reading the The Omnivore’s Dilemma CH 16 by Michael Pollan, he mainly talks about that the omnivore can have diversified food to eat and the problems of American eating style. I think that to be an omnivore is fortunate because we can eat lots kinds of different food, which sometimes make people hard to choose what to eat. However, people should distinguish the safe food from dangerous food, and people can use the wisdom of the culture to determine the quality of the food. Meanwhile, people usually use their taste and feelings to determine the quality of their food; there are many people choose to eat sweet food, which makes them feel safe and provides the pleasure of eating. I am full agree that cooking is one of the most significant...
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...In chapters 1-9 of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan discussed industrial farming. The section explained the ways that corn was used and how we are eating it about 80% of the time. His claim about industrial farming is that it is overused. Pollan organizes his ideas in problem/solution order, but it is ineffective, as he never really presents a solution to answer the problems he recognizes. Pollan organizes these chapters in problem/solution order. Problem/solution order is when an author present a problem that he wants express to his readers. Then he comes up with a solution the problem and explains it (“8 ways an author can organize text,” n.d.). First of all, Pollan states early in the section, “yet if you look a little closer,...
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...The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals Scrutinizing the ethical factors concerning the “eating of animals,” Michael Pollan asserts that “most domesticated animals cannot survive the wild” (Pollan 310) and “without us eating them, they simply wouldn’t exist at all.” (Pollan 310) Furthermore, he makes an attempt to refute Peter Singer’s cultural and philosophical affirmations about the “exploitation of non-humans,” (Pollan 309) especially when Singer endeavors to show the “speciest” mentality (as Pollan calls it) that our society has towards non-humans, thus raising the question on whether the “principle of equality” (Pollan 308) can be fairly utilized between humans and nonhumans. A vegetarian lifestyle is, by all means, no...
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...Add page numbers. HFCS: A sweetener with an unhealthy aftertaste Donna Hill-Spence Devry University High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has recently received considerable media attention for its negative impacts on consumers’ health. Most investigators and nutritionists believe that the increase in obesity in the United States has paralleled the increasing use of HFCS. Current soft drinks and many other foods are sweetened with this product because it is inexpensive and has useful manufacturing properties. All of these reasons directly benefits the food companies, but are causing body damage and metabolic diseases for the consumers. Even though the corn lobby is trying to prove that HFCS is nearly similar to regular sugar, this is not true. HFCS is high in fructose (55%-72% fructose and 45%-28% glucose) citation needed for these statistics. that is bad for our health. It is so ubiquitous in processed foods and so over-consumed by the average American that many experts believe our nation faces the prospect of an epidemic of metabolic disease in the future, related in significant degree to excess consumption of high-fructose corn syrup. The fact that HFCS is a highly and overly processed unhealthy sugar that is also linked to obesity and other cardiovascular diseases should cause great alarm in all American consumers. First of all, HFCS is very different from regular table sugar. It is a highly processed sweetener that is bad for our health. If you ever tasted cornstarch...
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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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...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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...The Food Crises: A quantitative model of food prices including speculators and ethanol conversion Marco Lagi, Yavni Bar-Yam, Karla Z. Bertrand and Yaneer Bar-Yam New England Complex Systems Institute 238 Main St. Suite 319 Cambridge MA 02142, USA reviewed by: C. Peter Timmer - Cabot Professor of Development Studies emeritus. Harvard University Jeffrey C. Fuhrer - Executive Vice President and Senior Policy Advisor. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Richard N. Cooper - Maurits C. Boas Professor of International Economics. Harvard University Thomas C. Schelling - Distinguished Professor of Economics emeritus. University of Maryland (Dated: September 21, 2011) Abstract Recent increases in basic food prices are severely impacting vulnerable populations worldwide. Proposed causes such as shortages of grain due to adverse weather, increasing meat consumption in China and India, conversion of corn to ethanol in the US, and investor speculation on commodity markets lead to widely differing implications for policy. A lack of clarity about which factors are responsible 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...
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