Book Club Journal #3

Journal for 3/7 Book Club Meeting #3 Text: The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Quotation 1:  “While the surgeon general is raising alarms over the epidemic of obesity, the president is signing farm bills designed to keep the river of cheap corn flowing, guaranteeing that the cheapest calories in the supermarket will continue to be the unhealthiest. (108,  ¶2)	Response:    Paraphrase:  In this chapter, Michael Pollan made a discussion concerning the obesity problem in America.  He gave a variety of evidences proofing that corn is a main source in the production of processed food, which much of the fat added to these food are from corn. Reflection:  I was a bit shocked after reading this chapter.  I have never thought of the broad usage of corn in food, and the consequences of using corn in food processing, such as much higher calories resulted than using the original food in making the final product.  Pollan’s conclusion makes me think that the people who kept producing excessive corns are very irresponsible, what they only concern is profit, and have never thought of the how it negatively affect people’s health. Questions:  (Before) What does it mean by cheapest calories? How does it relate to corn? (After)  Who are responsible in resulting this phenomenon that almost everyone are suffering from the bad sides of using corns?
Discussion Notes:
Quotation 2:  “In the industrial food economy, virtually the only information that travels along the food chain linking producer and consumer is price. … The bare-bones information travels in both directions, of course, and farmers who get the message that consumers care only about price will themselves care only about the yield. This is how a cheap food economy reinforces itself.” (136,  ¶2)	Paraphrase:  Pollan means that both sellers and consumers only focus on the price of the food, they do not care about any other things, like the disadvantages of using a certain kind of pesticides etc.  Since then, a grey loop is produced, which no one cares anymore about the nature of food and effects to the human.  This grey loop of production becomes a very unhealthy phenomenon that we are now living under. Reflection: I agree with Pollan’s point of view.  I think that he pointed out the current food economy situation that most of us ignored and neglected the consequence of having such an unhealthy food trading and production practice.  Though we are not the food producer, we can put our efforts in trying to improve the current situation by not buying those products, which its manufacturer does not have social responsibility and only focuses on its profits. Questions: (Before) How does a food label related or even have the power to affect the functioning of the food economy?  (After) What other information should be included in the food labels in order to become a “well-written” label to consumers?
Discussion Notes: (etc)
Quotation 3: “When we mistake what we can know for all these is to know, a healthy appreciation of one’s ignorance in the face of a mystery like soil fertility gives way to the hubris that we can treat nature as a machine.  Once that leap has been made, one input follows another, so that when the synthetic nitrogen fed to plants makes them more attractive to insects and vulnerable to disease, as we have discovered, the farmer turns to chemical pesticides to fix his broken machine.” (148,  ¶1)	Paraphrase:  Pollan mainly talks about the use and effect of NPK (the three letters correspond to the three-digit designation printed on every bag of fertilizer.)  He mentions that using NPK in agriculture has helped cuing the earthworms and humus in the soil in a short term.  However, in the long term, these “useful” tools might become harm to both the crops and human after they eat the food.  Reflection:  I think that Pollan’s paragraph reminds the readers that how pesticides are not good in food growing.  It does not only affect the natural environment, but also affecting the food chain seriously.  In a short term, the NPK might benefit us (farmers) in crop growing, however, in the long term, these chemicals will become a harmful substance, which creates even more problems. Questions: (Before) How does soil fertility affects the food chain, most importantly, human’s health? (After) Other than using chemicals, are there any methods to substitute the usage of chemicals in the farming process?
Discussion Notes: (etc)