HW 10 - Food, Inc. Response

Similar to my reading group book, "Omnivore's Dilemma", the movie "Food Inc." was a way to show the public a behind the scenes look of what goes on within food industries and how they go about producing the food that we currently eat on a daily basis. This film took a look at different stories from people whose lives were strongly affected in a negative way by food. For example, a financially struggling family finds it hard to eat healthy when better foods are more expensive than that of junky, fast food. Another story comes from a woman who lost her young child due to tainted hamburger meat.

Other points of view that are shared within the story are people within the food industry, such as farmers. I found one farmers thoughts and ideas to be very interesting. Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farm, an organic food market, had a lot to say defending his ways of preparing food the right way. Although animals get slaughtered either way, i have to agree with Joel Salatin when he says his way of going about slaughtering animals the "right way". His slaughterhouse is outdoors, exposed to fresh air. His animals get to run around in fresh, open space, opposed to cramped, crowded, stuffy slaughterhouses. I figure if the animals are going to be killed anyways, you might as well be humane about it and treat them good leading up to their death.

This whole situation about food really opened my eyes a lot more to what is going on behind the industry of food. I would've never really put serious thought about it before seeing this film. As far as the actual problems are concerned, I agreed with a person in the movie who compared the dilemma of food to that of the problem that used to exist with the Tobacco industry. Being that the tobacco industry no longer has a sick hold over buyers of productions like they used to, the same can happen with food after a fight takes place.

Did this film affect me in a big way? Yes, it did MENTALLY. Did it make me think about possibly changing my eating habits? No, because being that i have eaten the same basic way for my 18 years of life, why would I let other people's opinions within a film affect me in any way? I do however appreciate the goal this film had, which was to let people know what is really going on behind the scenes in food companies and how we the people could make positive change, like we did in the dilemma of the Tabacco industry.

HW 9 - Freakonomics Response

Watching the movie "Freakonomics", i didn't reallyknow what to expect out of the film. After watching it, I found it interesting that topics that seem irrelevant to the topic at hand actually connect to it altogether.

I really enjoyed the part of the movie where the film focused on the art of sumo wrestling. First off, I learned some new things in sumo itself. For example, I never knew that the referee's attire was religiously symbolic to the sumo wrestlers so that they would not cheat or do anything to disgrace the sport. This connects to the agenda of trying to find the truth of social practices because with these kind of rituals taking place daily in sumo matches, one would wonder if that would complelty stop the possibility of cheating or fixed matches.

Other examples that connected to finding the truth was offering to pay high school kids if they were able to get their grades up. As good a deal as this would seem to be, the test subjects still weren't able to maintain their side of the deal and still being lazy.

This movie really just opened my eyes to alot of topics that all connect to finding out the truth about everything. How do we know what is right or what is wrong? Is there really such thing as a cause and effect? We'll never really know, but its good to be able to think and discuss it.

HW 8 - Growing Our Own Food

I didn't personally take part in growing my own sprouts but looked on as my classmates did it. The mini project itself is actually quite interesting because it gives you a hands/eyes on experience in growing ones own food. Because our food comes from several middle men processed, its nice to grow your own food every once in a while because unlike the rest of the stuff we consume, we actually know where the sprouts have been. This was a pretty simple project and I'd be more than willing to participate in a similar experience in the future.

ODYR Reading Responses

CHAPTER 3

This chapter discussed the basic process of growing foods, transporting them, etc. They had a simple diagram that saw foods being grown from Photosynthesis, from rain and/or animal waste. Then it discussed being taken to factories to be officially processed and sent out to stores for the public to purchase and consume.This is interesting because it shows step by step how some foods are first grown, picked, transported, processed, sent out and eventually eaten by us. Something that happens 24/7, but not really thought about daily.

CHAPTER 4

Although I never knew it beforehand, it now makes sense why corn is so important and is demanded alot. Corn has its own way of being kept in its own area of process and it tends to be used for a lot of different reasons including for our own consumption, animal concumption, fuel, among other uses.

CHAPTER 5

This chapter was very interesting because it showed how corn was a big deal in the making of our MEAT. The author also discussed his own personal side project of purchasing a young calf so that he could follow it through the process of it being grown, grazing, bulked up, and eventually slaughtered and processed for its meat.That would be an interesting experience in my mind because this author got that actual opportunity to go along with his calf in the step by step process from when it's born to when a part of it is served on a plate in a restaurant. It truly is a "behind the scenes" experience.