Bon apetite

This class has taught me a lot of awareness about food. Food is the most important element to human life. It's something people in this country may sometimes take for granted. When I told someone I was taking an Anthropology of Food course, they looked at me kind of funny and said, "What good is that? Food is food, you just eat it." Even if that person was being sarcastic they only knew. Michel Pollan's book for was one of the most important things we read in the class. He creates awareness about food that is much needed in this society, yet doesn't pressure you to make a certain decision. He simply states that there are more than just one decision to make, and here are the facts, make your own decision. I've been taken some of his advice before and after I read the book. One overall concept is to try to know what you are eating. I've been trying to to that. Yesterday I stopped in pretty late at night to the QFC in Queen Ann. I wanted a healthy snack and walked into the organic produce section. There were quite a few options and I decided to go with an organic red apple. When I got home I washed and was about to peal off the sticker, but decided to read what the sticker said. It had the Plu code numbers which were 94173 but it also said "New Zealand Royal Gala. Certified Organic. Bio Gro" What was Bio Gro". I decided to look up Bio Gro and see what it meant. I googled Bio Gro and found out that it is a New Zealand organic certificate agency, which means it' a company that decides whether or not something is organic. You can go to the website and read about Bio Gro, and there standars for organic. Here is a link. http://www.biogro.co.nz/main.php?page=230

Taking this class ha given me the motivation to self inform my self. Be skeptical about what eat and try to change the standards of how we eat and purchase food. We must spread the word through the internet and make our own ethical food choices.

Viva la community garden.

Last class we visited some local P- patches in the U-district. I've been attending the U.W. for two years now and had no idea about these community gardens. The one on University way I've passed several times with out noticing. Reading about the Seattle's history of the P-Patch by David Hess and how P-patches are really geared toward the benefit of lower-income communities makes me less cynical of the future of our countries food distribution and production. In fact, to go along with the articles we read last week, an article I read in a more recent Adbusters, has a short story titled "The People's Grocery." West Oakland is an area that has 53 liqueur stores and not one grocery store. There is know way to get fresh produce with out a significant amount of travel. Most people of the lower income area lack the resources to travel and therefore have to eat less nutritious foods. Foods high in fat are sold more expensive at local convenience stores. The area is high in drugs, and gun violence; however, the number one cause of death is said to be heart disease. Places like west Oakland are "primes examples of food injustice" says Adbusters. Poor areas are being denied access to healthy food. What happens in situations like this? The people take charge. In 2002, the Peoples Grocery was founded. It's a program that is helping West Oakland become more educated and most importantly, more self-reliant about food. Urban gardens began to sprawl up around the area. Micro-farms also providing jobs. The program plans to open a store in the local area with foods "grown by the people and for the people." There is a food crisis that will most likely expand in the coming years. It's good to see that solutions are already being created. With stories like this and the benefits of P-Patches, it's a reaction that is practical and kind of coming up the rear. Most people probably don't know about community gardens and their benefits, but I believe in the coming years they will. They will have too. We are not going to stand around and look at each other when there are no trucks coming to Safeway with Wonder Bread. We are going to take action. Stories like this show that and give me hope. We will not need the IMF and NAFTA to tell us what to pay for food. It will be more like a big "fuck you, we're going to grow it ourselves."

To meat or not to meat, that is the question.

I was a vegetarian for a small amount of time in my life. It pretty much was because of reading books and looking into the workings of a factory farm that persuaded my decision at the the time. Not only did I discover the meat was actually unhealthy for my body due to hormones and chemicals used in the food, but I also discovered how eating meat was harmful for the environment. A couple of authors including, John Robbins author of The Food Revolution, and son of the founder of Baskin Robbins ice cream, and I believe Michel Pollan in his newer book, In Defense of Food, both said that it takes about 10 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of meat. We have to grow a lot of extra grain to produce a decent amount of beef. To grow this grain requires water, and since there isn't enough rain to grow the grain irrigation was developed. Now under ground aquifers are almost gone and rivers like the Colorado river are practically dries up because they are being used to irrigate crops. The environmental impact of eating meat turns out to be pretty vast. In Omnivore's Dilemm, Pollan talks about how eating grain fed meat is still new for are biological bodies and that it is healthier to eat grass fed animals. Pollan writes, on page 267, "As it turns out, the fats created in the flesh of grass eaters are the best kind for us to eat.... Animals raised outdoors on grass have a diet much more like that of the wild animals humans have been eating at least since the Paleolithic era than that of the grain-fed animals we only recently began to eat."
After being vegetarian for a little while, I gradually started eating meat again. I definatly eat a lot less meat and try to treat it as a delicacy or little treat in my diet.I never eat fast food and never will. If I do eat meat I try to stick t local, free range and or grass fed meats. Because of the price it cost to eat this quality meat, another reason why I try not to eat it often. Reading these books and making these personal decisions I believe has benefited my health for the years to come.

Ahh Raman

Diet coke and Ramen noddle, is there any combination better? Last week in class we had diet coke with Ramen noodles. The flavor of the Ramen was chicken; however, I chose not to use the flavor packet on account for all the mysterious ingredients and high amount of sodium. After pouring a cup of hot water into the Ramen, is was like eating a hot cup of rubber bands. They were kind of chewy with a rubbery texture. As I observed the steam flow out of the cup, I was aware of the aroma which for some odd reason smelled like soggy popcorn to me. Strange. Ramen seems to be the symbol of a college students diet. So much so that my first day of college , there was a 12 pack of complimentary Ramen lying on my dorm room bed.
As for diet coke, I don't drink much soda anymore, but as kid I did. I rember my dad use to take me to Rutgers college basket ball games where my discovery of junk food began. I usually didn't eat much junk food, but at these basketball games I would. My dad would too. He would always get popcorn and a diet coke. I would get regular coke. My perception was that diet was for grown-ups, and regular was for kids. I would usually take a few sips of my dad's diet coke and thought it tasted better for some reason. It felt more thirst quenching. I don't know why. It could be that burning sensation that we talked about in class. Pretty soon I would start asking for diet coke instead of regular coke at basketball games. As I grew older I switched to water for the most part. Drinking diet coke this past week brought me back to when I use to drink soda more often. It still tastes the same.

Fome Zero

This past class we talked about an article by Raj Patel and the current food crisis. Patel mentions due to members of the world bank and WTO, there have been no agricultural support policies that create a buffer zone between rising prices, and hungry poor world citizens.
However; things have been going on in other countries that might get less attention. For example, the creation of Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) in Brazil. Here is a link to the film "Silent Killer" which talks about Fome Zero in a little more depth. Fome Zero's purpose is to rid Brazil of hunger and poverty and was founded by president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in 2003. It provides free healthy nutritious foods to children in schools. It allows local farmers to sell directly to the consumer in urban areas with out a middle man. This an example of a government trying to do something to feed the hungry. There are practical solutions, we just can't let them be controlled by people like Robert Zoellick of the World Bank.

http://www.silentkillerfilm.org/interview_aranha.html

GMO's and food info links

This past class we discussed a lot about genetically modified foods. One of the elements we discussed is that it is not mandatory to label these GMO's in the grocery store. This is an absolute outrage. GMO's are not welcomed in other countries, yet we don't even have to label them here. More awareness has to be created about GMO foods. If our own government isn't going to do it, we have to step up as self informed citizens. We should not make any more optimistic assumptions about the food we eat. We should not allow companies such as Monsanto to patten seeds. I explored other blogs and came upon one that states that the Public Patten foundation has rejected four of Monsanto's
patents.

http://www.sustain360.org/index.php?s=f9c0613ba5696334a48ab40eae3c34b2&showtopic=483

A small step forward.
Also on the topic of the future of food, i cam across a documentary from PBS about the empty oceans. Its titled "Empty Oceans empty Nets." http://www.pbs.org/emptyoceans/

It has numerous information about the worlds sea life. Which fish you can eat, and which are endangered. It also provides information on companies who fish responsibly. Using the internet and bloggs I believe is a good start and tool for creating this awareness I mentioned earlier. We must keep fighting the good fight.

Ritz

Memory is about dealing with the past, and Proust writes in his article, "The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object(in the sensation that material object will give us) which we do not suspect."
Ironically, in the past week, I had an experience with eating food that triggered some childhood memories. That food was a Ritz cracker. It must of been years since I ate a Ritz cracker, because as soon as the taste hit my tongue and went through my nasal passage, it was so familiar. It was like running in to an old friend I haven't seen in years. The taste brought me back to kindergarten and snack time. I remember always getting hungry in the late afternoon in class. We would learn vales in the early morning, have lunch at noon, and then wait till about 4:30 for our parents to pick us up. I remember going out on the playground after lunch or later in the day and becoming so hungry again. In the late afternoon we would have snack time. Come snack time I was salivating. 99% of the time my snack was always Ritz cracker. When I would eat the Ritz a sudden wind of relief would come over me, kind of like "Yes, I made it too snack time."
I would even giggle after I put the cracker in my mouth I was so happy. I would eat each cracker in a different way. I would place one entire cracker in my mouth and squeeze my lips together to break it apart. Another I would take tiny almost microscopic bites. My favorite way to eat a Ritz was to place the salty side faced down on my tongue and absorbed the salty taste until the cracker would almost melt in my mouth. The salt on a Ritz was always just right.
As I grew older, snack time in school disappeared, and so the the Ritz in my life. Sure I would run in to the Ritz at summer parties or something like that, but she was always with someone else, like cheese or salami. I haven't had a plain Ritz cracker all to my self until this past week. I ran into a box of plain Ritz and didn't realize the amount of memory the Ritz carried for me until I ate it. Ritz and I wear sharing old times as I placed the salty side down on my tongue.