Finally, this four hundred and eleven page book is finished! I tackeled it all, so let me now reflect on it.
Overall, the story was quite interesting. Pollan takes a simple topic that is familiar to us all and analyzes it on a whole different level. I am very appreciative that I got to read about his story, but I am not sure that the book itself was a teriffic read. The Omnivore's Dilemma was a bit drawn out, 400 pages was way too much for this story. There were too many words and stories that subtracted from the overall message, which, I imagine, probably detered many readers. In fact, if this wasn't a school project, I probably would have stopped reading after the first five chapters and looked up a summary online or abandoned the book all together. That said, I still recommend this book to anyone who is interested in what they eat, which should be everyone. The message he sends (even if I don't always agree with him--refer back to my blogs on the vegetarian chapter) is one of much value. Our nation should really take into account our national eating disorder, and do something about it. Personally, I was not shocked by any of the information he gave (okay, so the corn chapters freaked me out somewhat), but that is due to the amount of research I have had to do because I am a vegetarian. I imagine most people would be astonished at the facts in this book.
Thank you, Michael Pollan, for writing a book that gives the nation insight on its own eating behavior, and hoping for change!
Monday, October 24, 2011
Chapter Twenty: The Perfect Meal
1. PLANNING THE MENU
"Perfect?! A dangerous boast, you must be thinking. And, in truth, there was much about my personally hunted, gathered, and grown meal that tended more toward the ridiculous than the sublime." From grit to over-cooked food, and toxic salt, Pollans guests didn't boast that this meal from nature was at all perfect. The Wild Californian pig was the main course. Pollan set himself six guidelines for the meal that went along the lines of he must hunt, gather, grow and cook everything by himself. Each edible kingdom must be represented. No money should be spent (items in the pantry could be used); all food items should be fresh and in season. Pollan had troubles with both the mineral, salt, part, and the seasonality rule. His experience hunting sea-dwelling abalone was also a failure. His meal also included some pasta and pate by Angelo, as well as a braised pork leg and brined loin. An egg fettuccine, wild east bay yeast levanin, garden salad, cherry galette, chamomile tea and some of Angelo's wine topped off his meal. "Reversing the historical trajectory of human eating, for this meal the forest would be feeding us again."
2. IN THE KITCHEN
Pollan continued to catch yeast (a rather interesting process that involved leaving out a tray of water and flour and waiting for bubbles and a beer-like smell) and making broth for the meal. At Angelo's, he had his first taste of the pig, something he was actually able to eat, and he liked it. Pollan's saturday night was quite packed with things to cook for his dinner at seven. His day seemed to go by less than perfect, and he often found himself questioning his idea to make this extremely ambitious meal all by himself. But her realized he needed to fulfill this; to show off, to honor his guests and over everything, ". . .to honor the things we're eating, the animals and plants and fungi that have been sacrificed to gratify our needs and desires, as well as the places and the people that produced them." Suddenly, Pollan felt alot more satisfied.
3. AT THE TABLE
As Pollan (with Angelo's help) finished his meal, his guests, most of them strangers, were getting along quite well. A simple toast started the dinner, and Pollan thanked everyone for his or her contribution. His gratitude towards the foods was not voiced, for fear that it would come off too corny and ruin the meal. But much of the dinner conversation was about food: from specific plants, to animal species and even places to find fungi. "It occured to me that the making of this meal, by acquainting me with these particular people, landscapes, and species, had succeeded in attaching me to Northern California, its nature and its culture both, as nothing I'd done before or since. Eating's not a bad way to get to know a place." Welcome to the neighborhood!
Pollan ends his book by reflecting upon the two ends of the omnivore's spectrum: the fast food, and the ritual meal he just ate. "Let us stipulate that both of these meals are equally unreal and equally unsustainable." We must find a balance, somewhere in the local farm and organic way of life. Pollan wants us to learn what we are eating, and go beyond. "What it is we're eating. Where it came from. How it found its way to our table. And what, in a true accounting, it really cost."
And so it is, the omnivore's dilemma!
 |
| A neighboring cherry tree: the source of Pollan's dessert. |
2. IN THE KITCHEN
Pollan continued to catch yeast (a rather interesting process that involved leaving out a tray of water and flour and waiting for bubbles and a beer-like smell) and making broth for the meal. At Angelo's, he had his first taste of the pig, something he was actually able to eat, and he liked it. Pollan's saturday night was quite packed with things to cook for his dinner at seven. His day seemed to go by less than perfect, and he often found himself questioning his idea to make this extremely ambitious meal all by himself. But her realized he needed to fulfill this; to show off, to honor his guests and over everything, ". . .to honor the things we're eating, the animals and plants and fungi that have been sacrificed to gratify our needs and desires, as well as the places and the people that produced them." Suddenly, Pollan felt alot more satisfied.
3. AT THE TABLE
As Pollan (with Angelo's help) finished his meal, his guests, most of them strangers, were getting along quite well. A simple toast started the dinner, and Pollan thanked everyone for his or her contribution. His gratitude towards the foods was not voiced, for fear that it would come off too corny and ruin the meal. But much of the dinner conversation was about food: from specific plants, to animal species and even places to find fungi. "It occured to me that the making of this meal, by acquainting me with these particular people, landscapes, and species, had succeeded in attaching me to Northern California, its nature and its culture both, as nothing I'd done before or since. Eating's not a bad way to get to know a place." Welcome to the neighborhood!
Pollan ends his book by reflecting upon the two ends of the omnivore's spectrum: the fast food, and the ritual meal he just ate. "Let us stipulate that both of these meals are equally unreal and equally unsustainable." We must find a balance, somewhere in the local farm and organic way of life. Pollan wants us to learn what we are eating, and go beyond. "What it is we're eating. Where it came from. How it found its way to our table. And what, in a true accounting, it really cost."
And so it is, the omnivore's dilemma!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Chapter Nineteen: Gathering: The Fungi
1. (NO TITLE)
"The mysteries of germination and flowering and fruiting engaged me from an early age, and the fact that by planting and working an ordinary patch of dirt you could in a few months' time harvest things of taste and value was, for me, nature's most enduring astonishment. It still is." So gardening is more for Pollan than hunting. The two problems with mushroom farming? You can get lost (not a problem in a garden) and you can pick and eat something that could kill you (I don't think there are killer tomatos).
1. FIVE CHANTERELLES
"Mushroom hunters are famously protective of their "spots," and a good chanterelle spot is a precious personal possession." Which is why Pollan was surprised when Angelo, whom he barely knew at this time, offered to bring him mushroom hunting. Bio: "The chanterelle is a mycorrhizal species, which means it lives in association with the roots of plants, oak trees, in the chanterelle's case, and usually oak trees of a venerable age." And so that is where they went mushroom hunting, near oak trees. Pollan found and cooked five of these mushrooms, which seemed to pop out at him. And while there was a fear behind him that these mushrooms were of the poisonous kind, he dismissed it. Books have failed Pollan, but Angelo has not. Perhaps it is because of the transaction, these written words have no emotion or experience. After this experience, Pollan has come to love mushrooms. ". . .I'll recognize the next one without a moment's hesitation. At least in the case of this one species, my mycophobic instinct has been stilled, allowing me to enjoy. It's not every day you aquire such a sturdy piece of knowledge."
2. MUSHROOMS ARE MYSTERIOUS
The week after Pollan went mushroom hunting, he found chanterelles in his own yard. This led him to ask dozens of questions about the toxins, location and timing of mushrooms. But he soon found out that we don't know the most basic things about mushrooms. They are difficult to observe. They have an unknown syntax. Bio (we learned this week!): We know they lack chlorophyll and cannot manufacture food energy from the sun. They feed on organic mattter made by plants and plant eaters (either saprophytically--by composing dead vegetable matter--or mycorrhizally--by associating with the roots of plants). Mycorrhizal fungi, like the chanterelles, have coevolved with trees to create a mutually beneficial relationship. The hyphae surrounds the plants roots, providing them with elements for a steady diet in return for synthesized sugars. "They stand on the threshold between the living and the dead, breaking the dead down into food for the living, a process on which no one likes to dwell." Even if we wanted to dwell, we don't have the tools to measure the powers of mushrooms.
3. WORKING THE BURN
Next up, Pollan went mushroom hunting with Anthony Tassinello who was willing to have extra help collecting "burn mushrooms." He prepared for a long hike to the place where, a year ago, a raging fire burned these woods. Mushrooms behave unpredictably, so Pollan was warned to go by TPITP: The Proof Is in the Pudding," stick with whatever seems to be working. Pollan noticed that the "pop-out effect" was working for him. He goes on to explain the theory for why there were so many mushrooms, they were branching out from the burnt forest. "Mushrooms are hinges in nature, now turning toward death, now turning new life." Finally, Pollan feels gratitude. It's hard work hunting and gathering, but he realizes that he didn't really have anything to do with the life of these animals and fungi. He got no achievement, like he did in his garden, where he cultivated, grew and harvested the plants. "No, this felt more like something for nothing, a wondrous and unaccountable gift." When he went home he was "filthy and exhausted, but felt rich as kings." Within an hour of his hunting, all the wild mushrooms had been sold!
"The mysteries of germination and flowering and fruiting engaged me from an early age, and the fact that by planting and working an ordinary patch of dirt you could in a few months' time harvest things of taste and value was, for me, nature's most enduring astonishment. It still is." So gardening is more for Pollan than hunting. The two problems with mushroom farming? You can get lost (not a problem in a garden) and you can pick and eat something that could kill you (I don't think there are killer tomatos).
1. FIVE CHANTERELLES
 |
| The mycorrhizal chanterelle |
2. MUSHROOMS ARE MYSTERIOUS
The week after Pollan went mushroom hunting, he found chanterelles in his own yard. This led him to ask dozens of questions about the toxins, location and timing of mushrooms. But he soon found out that we don't know the most basic things about mushrooms. They are difficult to observe. They have an unknown syntax. Bio (we learned this week!): We know they lack chlorophyll and cannot manufacture food energy from the sun. They feed on organic mattter made by plants and plant eaters (either saprophytically--by composing dead vegetable matter--or mycorrhizally--by associating with the roots of plants). Mycorrhizal fungi, like the chanterelles, have coevolved with trees to create a mutually beneficial relationship. The hyphae surrounds the plants roots, providing them with elements for a steady diet in return for synthesized sugars. "They stand on the threshold between the living and the dead, breaking the dead down into food for the living, a process on which no one likes to dwell." Even if we wanted to dwell, we don't have the tools to measure the powers of mushrooms.
3. WORKING THE BURN
 |
| Anthony and some of his prized fungi. |
Chapter Eighteen: Hunting: The Meat
1. A WALK IN THE WOODS
"Walking with a loaded rifle in an unfamiliar forest bristling with the signs of your prey is thrilling." The more I read this book, the more I realize that Pollan and I are on completely different wave-lenghts. While Angelo has taught Pollan to notice the signs of animals, from poop to soil and clear water, Pollan has been able to look for food, and with more success. Since Pollan must wait for the pig to cross tracks with his own, his energy goes into his excitement, boosting up the "drama of the hunt." Pollan goes on to tell of an amusing story about himself writing "hunter porn" which confuses me for a while. He goes on to describe the irony that I cannot seem to get and describe what it is like to be considered a hunter. And right here is when Pollan dissapoints me. "I enjoyed shooting a pig a whole lot more than I ever thought I should have." The irony here is that Pollan doesn't realize that he represents the same people he feel are contributing to America's eating disorder.
2. A CANNABINOID MOMENT
Before going hunting, Pollan had second thoughts. Hunting boar in Sonoma County would be to finally face his fears. He was hunting a vicious pig not even native to that part of California, the "dog ripper." Pollan does some more rationalizing here, says that these pigs are growing out of control without predators and are threatening the ecosystem. So just kill them all, good idea. But Pollan really liked his meat, I'm not surprised his vegetarian phased didn't last long. Pollan found himself alone in the woods, tuned into nature, overanalyzing every movement. "Later it occured to me that this mental state, which I quite liked, in many ways resembled the one induced by smoking marijuana: the way one's senses feel especially acute and the mind seems to forget everything outside the scope of its present focus, including physical discomfort and the passing of time." The hunt is "authentic", and to many people pleasing. Even if I don't agree with it.
3. READY, OR NOT.
Pollan had not shot an animal on his first trip, although his companions did. He describes how it feels to pull a dead pig across rocky ground. And shares stories of the hunt, including how Pollan had a chance at a pig, but gave it away because his gun wasn't ready. He goes on to tell how he felt obliged to kill a pig so he could tell a better story and join a cult of hunters. He had his meat, and his experience. No he wanted to kill for a story and popularity. Sick.
4. MY PIG
The second time Pollan went hunting, it was just him and Angelo. After waiting some time, Pollan spotted some pigs, and waited some more until Angelo told him it was time. And so he killed a pig. The details are all here if you really want to read them, about confusion and death. And Pollan stated that he was, above all else, happy and proud. He even took a picture with his poor dead pig. And, he wasn't even disgusted. Just interested, and overwhelmed.
5. MAKING MEAT
"The sense of elation didn't last. Less than an hour later I found myself in a much less heroic role, embracing the pig's hanging carcass from behind to steady it so Angelo could reach in and pull out its viscera." Next, Pollan had to clean and prepare this 190lb pig. The awkward body had to be dressed and shaved, skinned and more. Angelo even removed the bullet to give to Pollan as a souveneir. Pollan first felt disgust when Angelo was butchering the pig and talking about delicious food at the same time. There wasn't a separation between animals and food like the one most people believe in. "Since it was my plan to cook, serve and eat this animal, the revulsion at its sight and smell that now consumed me was discouraging, to say the least. . . Disgust, I understood, is one of the tools humans have evolved to navigate the omnivore's dilemma." When Pollan went through the pictures, he is ashamed by his large grin next to a dead body. "This for many people is what is most offensive about hunting--to some, disgusting: that it encourages, or allows, us not only to kill but to take a certain pleasure in killing." And yet, in one of the pictures, Pollan found a sense of history, there in that picture "sun-soil-oak-pig-human" was a food chain that helped sustain life on Earth for thousands of years.
"Walking with a loaded rifle in an unfamiliar forest bristling with the signs of your prey is thrilling." The more I read this book, the more I realize that Pollan and I are on completely different wave-lenghts. While Angelo has taught Pollan to notice the signs of animals, from poop to soil and clear water, Pollan has been able to look for food, and with more success. Since Pollan must wait for the pig to cross tracks with his own, his energy goes into his excitement, boosting up the "drama of the hunt." Pollan goes on to tell of an amusing story about himself writing "hunter porn" which confuses me for a while. He goes on to describe the irony that I cannot seem to get and describe what it is like to be considered a hunter. And right here is when Pollan dissapoints me. "I enjoyed shooting a pig a whole lot more than I ever thought I should have." The irony here is that Pollan doesn't realize that he represents the same people he feel are contributing to America's eating disorder.
2. A CANNABINOID MOMENT
 |
| Hunting in the Californian woods: similar to smoking marijuana? |
3. READY, OR NOT.
Pollan had not shot an animal on his first trip, although his companions did. He describes how it feels to pull a dead pig across rocky ground. And shares stories of the hunt, including how Pollan had a chance at a pig, but gave it away because his gun wasn't ready. He goes on to tell how he felt obliged to kill a pig so he could tell a better story and join a cult of hunters. He had his meat, and his experience. No he wanted to kill for a story and popularity. Sick.
4. MY PIG
The second time Pollan went hunting, it was just him and Angelo. After waiting some time, Pollan spotted some pigs, and waited some more until Angelo told him it was time. And so he killed a pig. The details are all here if you really want to read them, about confusion and death. And Pollan stated that he was, above all else, happy and proud. He even took a picture with his poor dead pig. And, he wasn't even disgusted. Just interested, and overwhelmed.
5. MAKING MEAT
"The sense of elation didn't last. Less than an hour later I found myself in a much less heroic role, embracing the pig's hanging carcass from behind to steady it so Angelo could reach in and pull out its viscera." Next, Pollan had to clean and prepare this 190lb pig. The awkward body had to be dressed and shaved, skinned and more. Angelo even removed the bullet to give to Pollan as a souveneir. Pollan first felt disgust when Angelo was butchering the pig and talking about delicious food at the same time. There wasn't a separation between animals and food like the one most people believe in. "Since it was my plan to cook, serve and eat this animal, the revulsion at its sight and smell that now consumed me was discouraging, to say the least. . . Disgust, I understood, is one of the tools humans have evolved to navigate the omnivore's dilemma." When Pollan went through the pictures, he is ashamed by his large grin next to a dead body. "This for many people is what is most offensive about hunting--to some, disgusting: that it encourages, or allows, us not only to kill but to take a certain pleasure in killing." And yet, in one of the pictures, Pollan found a sense of history, there in that picture "sun-soil-oak-pig-human" was a food chain that helped sustain life on Earth for thousands of years.
Chapter Seventeen: The Ethics of Eating Animals
1. THE STEAKHOUSE DIALOGUES
At the time that Pollan was writing this book he was still a meat eater. But after owning a steer, helping to kill chickens and reading up on PETA, his omnivourous nature was in question. While our culture has been telling us it is good to eat meat, some medical researchers (and organizations like PETA) have been telling us otherwise. With this comes the removal of animals from our sight, our meat is meant to be as far removed from us as possible. "Nowadays it seems we either look away or become vegetarians." Pollan did not look away, was he about to become a vegetarian? Animal Liberation was one of the things that helped convert Pollan, from "speciest" (racism based on species) to the works of Reagan, Rachels, Wise, Williams and Scully. And so Pollan begins a new challenge, the challenge of becoming a vegetarian--at this time in history, it is possible to live without eating meat so why not? "So on a September Sunday, after dining on a delicious barbecued tenderloin of pork, I became a reluctant and, I fervently hoped, temporary vegetarian."
2. THE VEGETARIAN'S DILEMMA (ooh this is for me!)
"A month or so into the experiment and I'm still feeling reluctant about it." Making vegetarian meals requires more thought and work, and is less convenient. It is less sociable (a minority, 10 million Americans, are vegetarian) and quite alienating. People must now accomodate Pollan, and the awkward situation he is put in can be seen in some places as bad manners. To Pollan, meat eating is a part of our culture, a part of our identity. We sacrifice our animality, something Pollan fears more than I do. Meat eating is something I believe trivial to our identity, Pollan does not feel the same way. "Rather, our meat eating is something very deep indeed."
3. ANIMAL SUFFERING
"In a certain sense it is impossible to know what goes on in the mind of a cow or pig or ape." So how do we know if the animals we kill to eat suffer? Since pain is part of our evolution, many writers believe animals also have pain. "Pain? Suffering? Madness?" Thats what many animals (fed the wrong foods, put in small and awful living spaces, filled with disease and killed) feel. "It all sounds very much like our worst nightmares of confinement and torture, and it is that, but it is also real life for the billions of animals unlucky enough to have been born beneath those grim sheet-metal roofs into the brief, pitiless life of a production unit in the days before a suffering gene was found." Exactly why I don't eat animals.
4. ANIMAL HAPPINESS
And then there are Polyface farms, where happy animals grow and live and die. And while I can't argue that those animals live a much better life, they still await death and represent such a small proportion of farms in America that they almost don't count. For Pollan to put so much weight on this, and the relationship that humans and these animals made--where the animals are produced by the millions (just to be killed for human food) by humans--seems a bad argument to me. For some people (I am included in this group) it is better for an animal not to have lived than to have lived a short painful life and die suffering. It almost seems to me that Pollan is unsure of where he stands on this. So we continue reading to see where Pollan ultimately ends up.
5. THE VEGAN UTOPIA
"If our concern is for the health of nature--rather than, say, the internal consistency of our moral code or the condition of our souls--than eating animals may sometimes be the most ethical thing to do." I think Pollan is rationalizing his desire to eat meat, something that I find many people doing. So the billions of pounds of pollution that comes from eating meat is good for the environment? I think not. Sure, animals are good for the environment, it doesn't mean we have to kill and eat them. And yes, some people would be forced to import food, but we already do that. After some more rationalizing, including the "benefits" that animals get from us eating them, Pollan dropped his vegetarianism and said, "All of which was making me feel pretty good about eating meat again and going hunting. . ." I sighed.
6. A CLEAN KILL
Pollan was never showed the kill room at the steer plant, the place where steer 534 was stunned and killed. Before Temple Grandin, the animal-handling expert who designed the killing machinery for National Beef, stories of animals being painfully shot with a stun gun but not actually stunned and then waking up for a painful skinning were often times true. Now, Grandin says, the animal goes through a shoot where it can only see the animal ahead of it. A conveyor below seperates the animal until it's off of the ground and it is being carried that way (a false floor is implemented to make sure the cow is not scared that he is off the ground, like he doesn't know). Grandin claims they have no idea they are going to get slaughtered. The stunner, from above, shoots a seven inch bolt into the forehead of the animal to kill it, if done correctly, on the first shot. The animals feet are then wrapped and he is hung upside down by one leg. The bleeder cuts the throat of the animal to have it bleed out. People think the animals are still alive because of reflex kicking. Only a non-dead head is proof of an alive animal, which is why additional stunners are needed in the bleed area (sounds to me like the process is still far from perfect). "I found Temple Grandin's account both reassuring and troubling. Reassuring, because the system sounds humane, and yet I realize I'm relying on the accound of its designer. Troubling, because I can't help dwelling on all those times "you've got a live one on the rail." Mistakes are inevitable on an assembly line that is slaughtering four hundred head of cattle every hour (McDonald's tolerates a 5% 'error rate.')." I don't find it reassuring at all. I can't even see how it is possible to slaughter animals on an industrial scale without causing them to suffer.
Taking a life is momentous and people have been justifying, rationalizing the killing of animals for thousands of years. Salatin says he can kill chickens because they "don't have souls." Religions, rituals and customs have all helped with this part. Now, we are breaking down these traditions. Pollan believes that all feelings about eating meat would be clarified with clear glass walls in slaughter houses that allow people to see, the right to look. Although I can't say how many people would volunteer to do this. And when this would happen? "Yes, meat would get more expensive. We'd probably eat a lot less of it, too, but maybe when we did eat animals we'd eat them with consciousness, ceremony, and the respect they deserve." Maybe you could, Pollan, but I certainly couldn't.
At the time that Pollan was writing this book he was still a meat eater. But after owning a steer, helping to kill chickens and reading up on PETA, his omnivourous nature was in question. While our culture has been telling us it is good to eat meat, some medical researchers (and organizations like PETA) have been telling us otherwise. With this comes the removal of animals from our sight, our meat is meant to be as far removed from us as possible. "Nowadays it seems we either look away or become vegetarians." Pollan did not look away, was he about to become a vegetarian? Animal Liberation was one of the things that helped convert Pollan, from "speciest" (racism based on species) to the works of Reagan, Rachels, Wise, Williams and Scully. And so Pollan begins a new challenge, the challenge of becoming a vegetarian--at this time in history, it is possible to live without eating meat so why not? "So on a September Sunday, after dining on a delicious barbecued tenderloin of pork, I became a reluctant and, I fervently hoped, temporary vegetarian."
 |
| No suffering animals in sight! |
"A month or so into the experiment and I'm still feeling reluctant about it." Making vegetarian meals requires more thought and work, and is less convenient. It is less sociable (a minority, 10 million Americans, are vegetarian) and quite alienating. People must now accomodate Pollan, and the awkward situation he is put in can be seen in some places as bad manners. To Pollan, meat eating is a part of our culture, a part of our identity. We sacrifice our animality, something Pollan fears more than I do. Meat eating is something I believe trivial to our identity, Pollan does not feel the same way. "Rather, our meat eating is something very deep indeed."
3. ANIMAL SUFFERING
"In a certain sense it is impossible to know what goes on in the mind of a cow or pig or ape." So how do we know if the animals we kill to eat suffer? Since pain is part of our evolution, many writers believe animals also have pain. "Pain? Suffering? Madness?" Thats what many animals (fed the wrong foods, put in small and awful living spaces, filled with disease and killed) feel. "It all sounds very much like our worst nightmares of confinement and torture, and it is that, but it is also real life for the billions of animals unlucky enough to have been born beneath those grim sheet-metal roofs into the brief, pitiless life of a production unit in the days before a suffering gene was found." Exactly why I don't eat animals.
4. ANIMAL HAPPINESS
 |
| Unfotunately, these happy pigs are few and far between. |
5. THE VEGAN UTOPIA
"If our concern is for the health of nature--rather than, say, the internal consistency of our moral code or the condition of our souls--than eating animals may sometimes be the most ethical thing to do." I think Pollan is rationalizing his desire to eat meat, something that I find many people doing. So the billions of pounds of pollution that comes from eating meat is good for the environment? I think not. Sure, animals are good for the environment, it doesn't mean we have to kill and eat them. And yes, some people would be forced to import food, but we already do that. After some more rationalizing, including the "benefits" that animals get from us eating them, Pollan dropped his vegetarianism and said, "All of which was making me feel pretty good about eating meat again and going hunting. . ." I sighed.
6. A CLEAN KILL
Pollan was never showed the kill room at the steer plant, the place where steer 534 was stunned and killed. Before Temple Grandin, the animal-handling expert who designed the killing machinery for National Beef, stories of animals being painfully shot with a stun gun but not actually stunned and then waking up for a painful skinning were often times true. Now, Grandin says, the animal goes through a shoot where it can only see the animal ahead of it. A conveyor below seperates the animal until it's off of the ground and it is being carried that way (a false floor is implemented to make sure the cow is not scared that he is off the ground, like he doesn't know). Grandin claims they have no idea they are going to get slaughtered. The stunner, from above, shoots a seven inch bolt into the forehead of the animal to kill it, if done correctly, on the first shot. The animals feet are then wrapped and he is hung upside down by one leg. The bleeder cuts the throat of the animal to have it bleed out. People think the animals are still alive because of reflex kicking. Only a non-dead head is proof of an alive animal, which is why additional stunners are needed in the bleed area (sounds to me like the process is still far from perfect). "I found Temple Grandin's account both reassuring and troubling. Reassuring, because the system sounds humane, and yet I realize I'm relying on the accound of its designer. Troubling, because I can't help dwelling on all those times "you've got a live one on the rail." Mistakes are inevitable on an assembly line that is slaughtering four hundred head of cattle every hour (McDonald's tolerates a 5% 'error rate.')." I don't find it reassuring at all. I can't even see how it is possible to slaughter animals on an industrial scale without causing them to suffer.
Taking a life is momentous and people have been justifying, rationalizing the killing of animals for thousands of years. Salatin says he can kill chickens because they "don't have souls." Religions, rituals and customs have all helped with this part. Now, we are breaking down these traditions. Pollan believes that all feelings about eating meat would be clarified with clear glass walls in slaughter houses that allow people to see, the right to look. Although I can't say how many people would volunteer to do this. And when this would happen? "Yes, meat would get more expensive. We'd probably eat a lot less of it, too, but maybe when we did eat animals we'd eat them with consciousness, ceremony, and the respect they deserve." Maybe you could, Pollan, but I certainly couldn't.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Chapter Sixteen: The Omnivore's Dilemma
1. GOOD TO EAT, GOOD TO THINK
"The blessings of the omnivore is that he can eat a great many different things in nature. The curse of the omnivore is that when it comes to figuring out which of those things are safe to eat, he's pretty much on his own." Cyanide, oxalic acid, toxic alkaloids and glucosides are just some of the poisons that line the plants and fungi available for us to eat. For other species who eat only specialized foods, like monarch butterflies, they view one thing (milkweed) as food, and everything else as poison. There is no thought going into nutrition or poisons. The butterflies eat the milkweed safely, and that's it. But what about omnivores? "Whenever they encounter a potential new food they find themselves torn between two conflicting emotions unknown to the specialist eater, each with its own biological rationale: neophobia, a sensible fear of ingesting anything new, and neophilia, a risky but necessary openness to new tastes." Most species, like rats, use their digestive tract as a laboratory, in which a small amount of the new food is tested. But humans don't really do that anymore, we rely on outside information. And so the omnivore's dilemma happens everytime we reach for a new food, from a wild mushroom to a new organic TV dinner. And for some (like me), it extends to "determining whether or not it is ethically defensible to eat meat--that is, whether meat, or any other of these things [mushrooms, TV dinners], is not only good to eat, but good to think as well."
2. HOMO OMNIVOROUS
Natural selection has equipped our bodies to handle a remarkably wide-ranging diet. Our omnicompetent teeth can both tear animal flesh and grind plants (our jaws are similar). Our stomachs can break down the meat protein elastin with a specific enzyme it produces. Our varied diets stem from our need for a wide variety of chemical compounds to keep our metabolism healthy--from plant compounds such as vitamin C to animal proteins like vitamin B-12. This differs from nature's specialists, who often have highly specialized digestive systems that need nutrients from less sources. To go along with this, small brains go with small guts and big brains go with big guts--ominivores needed a brain to store which foods were good, and which were bad to eat. The price of dietary flexibility is much more complex and metabolically expensive brain circuitry. When simplified, bitter taste is a warning for poison, where as sweet is often a good sign (sugar = carbs = energy). But now, cooking, one of the omnivore's greatest tools, has obened up more edible foods available. And as our energy and food source grew (besides fruits and grasses, many plants had evolved so as to not get eaten, cooking helped us get around this), so did our brains. So cooking and food opened up our "cognitive niche." Thanks, food.
3. THE ANXIETY OF EATING
"Being an omnivore occupying a cognitive niche in nature is both a boon and a challenge, a source of tremendous power as well as anxiety." Humans are able to survive all over the world, on different foods, because they (we) are omnivores. But although our senses help us determine what is good to eat and what is bad, we mainly rely on culture and our brains. Cuisines, like Asian fermented soy and rice, or meso-American corn, lime and beans are all food rules that not only make biological sense, but are healthy. "Anthropologists marvel at just how much cultural energy goes into managing the food problem." I don't; if you can't eat a healthy, unpoisonous meal, then you not only die, but you are evolutionarily unsuccessful. Besides, we aren't guided by natural instinct, and we have lost touch with much of nature. What's stopping us from eating poisonous mushrooms or other human omnivores. It must be the customs, taboos, rituals, culinary conventions, table manners and traditions found all over the world. It makes sense to me.
4. AMERICA'S NATIONAL EATING DISORDER
"Perhaps because we have no such culture of food in America almost every question about eating is up for grabs. Fats or carbs? Three squares or continous grazing? Raw or cooked? Organic or industrial? Veg or vegan? Meat or mock meat?" Because we are a relatively young country, we don't have food customs to guide our eating choices and lead us in the healthy decision when it comes to food (okay so we have McDonalds, I don't think that's what Pollan was talking about). Sure this suits the food industry, but it doesn't suit me, or Pollan. And then we each have our own diets. Pollan has his own example, but I'm going to use my family. A typical dinner will find me eating some vegetarian version of the same meal or a frozen dinner, my littlest sister eating a lettuce-less salad and pizza, my mom eating a smaller version of the meal my dad has, and my middle sister eating a different meal, because she doesn't like what we're having. Five meals for five people, that is our family dinner. "So we find ourselves as a species almost back to where we started: anxious omnivores struggling once again to figure out what it is wise to eat."
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| Monarch butterflies don't have to deal with the omnivore's dilemma. |
2. HOMO OMNIVOROUS
Natural selection has equipped our bodies to handle a remarkably wide-ranging diet. Our omnicompetent teeth can both tear animal flesh and grind plants (our jaws are similar). Our stomachs can break down the meat protein elastin with a specific enzyme it produces. Our varied diets stem from our need for a wide variety of chemical compounds to keep our metabolism healthy--from plant compounds such as vitamin C to animal proteins like vitamin B-12. This differs from nature's specialists, who often have highly specialized digestive systems that need nutrients from less sources. To go along with this, small brains go with small guts and big brains go with big guts--ominivores needed a brain to store which foods were good, and which were bad to eat. The price of dietary flexibility is much more complex and metabolically expensive brain circuitry. When simplified, bitter taste is a warning for poison, where as sweet is often a good sign (sugar = carbs = energy). But now, cooking, one of the omnivore's greatest tools, has obened up more edible foods available. And as our energy and food source grew (besides fruits and grasses, many plants had evolved so as to not get eaten, cooking helped us get around this), so did our brains. So cooking and food opened up our "cognitive niche." Thanks, food.
3. THE ANXIETY OF EATING
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| The danger of raw fish is minimized when eaten with wasabi, an anti- microbial. |
4. AMERICA'S NATIONAL EATING DISORDER
"Perhaps because we have no such culture of food in America almost every question about eating is up for grabs. Fats or carbs? Three squares or continous grazing? Raw or cooked? Organic or industrial? Veg or vegan? Meat or mock meat?" Because we are a relatively young country, we don't have food customs to guide our eating choices and lead us in the healthy decision when it comes to food (okay so we have McDonalds, I don't think that's what Pollan was talking about). Sure this suits the food industry, but it doesn't suit me, or Pollan. And then we each have our own diets. Pollan has his own example, but I'm going to use my family. A typical dinner will find me eating some vegetarian version of the same meal or a frozen dinner, my littlest sister eating a lettuce-less salad and pizza, my mom eating a smaller version of the meal my dad has, and my middle sister eating a different meal, because she doesn't like what we're having. Five meals for five people, that is our family dinner. "So we find ourselves as a species almost back to where we started: anxious omnivores struggling once again to figure out what it is wise to eat."
Chapter Fifteen: The Forager
1. SERIOUS PLAY
Pollan was quite scared to go hunting for the meat and gathering the fungi for his last meal. He was a novice hunter and was raised on the idea that natural berries and mushrooms were poisonous. But why go through all the trouble, especially since the forager food chain represents a viable way for us to eat at this point in time. It's a wonder we ever left the healthy lifestyle of hunting and gathering for backbreaking agricultural work--that led to both blessings and consequences (it is estimated that typical hunter gatherers worked less, were healthier and lived longer thein agriculturalists). But Pollan wanted this meal, especially so he could take a more direct responsibility for the killing of animals (boo). "And this, I suppose, points to what I was really after in taking up hunting and gathering: to see what it'd be like to prepare and eat a meal in full consciousness of what was involved." Pollan wanted to feel closer to the Earth, and to our history, which I completely understand. The killing of animals, not so much.
2. MY FORAGER VIRGIL
"What I needed, I realized, was my own personal foraging Virgil, a fellow not only skilled in the arts of hunting and gathering (and butchering), but also well versed in the flora, fauna and fungi of Northern California, about which I knew approximately nothing." And Pollan found his Virgil, a burly Italian named Angelo Garro with the obsession of getting and preparing food. And he (somewhat skeptically) said he would help Pollan. All he needed was his license and to learn how to shoot. Already he felt in over his head.
3. HUNTER ED.
After several months, Pollan finally had his hunter's license. But the long months of wait changed Pollan; every walk in the woods was viewed as a grocery store full of potential food. He noticed the wild mustard and the miner's lettuce that lined the forest floor. Blackberries, quail and flowers filled his view. But when it came to mushrooms, Pollan was still quite unsure. The first chanterelle, a big, yellow, vase-shaped mushroom made Pollan question himself. Was he sure enough that this was edible and not poisonous. But the desire to test himself was not as great as his anxiety. "I didn't realize it at the time, but I had impaled myself that afternoon on the horns of the omnivore's dilemma."
Pollan was quite scared to go hunting for the meat and gathering the fungi for his last meal. He was a novice hunter and was raised on the idea that natural berries and mushrooms were poisonous. But why go through all the trouble, especially since the forager food chain represents a viable way for us to eat at this point in time. It's a wonder we ever left the healthy lifestyle of hunting and gathering for backbreaking agricultural work--that led to both blessings and consequences (it is estimated that typical hunter gatherers worked less, were healthier and lived longer thein agriculturalists). But Pollan wanted this meal, especially so he could take a more direct responsibility for the killing of animals (boo). "And this, I suppose, points to what I was really after in taking up hunting and gathering: to see what it'd be like to prepare and eat a meal in full consciousness of what was involved." Pollan wanted to feel closer to the Earth, and to our history, which I completely understand. The killing of animals, not so much.
2. MY FORAGER VIRGIL
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| Meet Angelo, Pollan's Forager Virgil |
3. HUNTER ED.
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| A chanterelle? |
Sunday, October 16, 2011
SECTION THREE: PERSONAL: THE FOREST
After Joel's sublime locally grown meal, it seems hard to believe that there was any other food system closer to nature, older and, possibly, tastier. But here it is, the fourth and final meal: a meal made up of foraged goods and hunted meat. This is the personal meal: grown and collected in the forest. I hope one day I will get to eat a meal like this, local, clean and--hopefully--delicious!
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| Ah the forest, a place of. . . food. |
Chapter Fourteen: The Meal: Grass Fed
The third meal: Grass fed. After a week on the Salatin farm, Pollan will get his grass-fed chicken that Joel so politely refused to Fed-Ex him a month before. Taking two chickens, a dozen eggs, and a dozen ears of sweet corn. Stopping in Charlottesville, he picked up other local produce including rocket for a salad and a $25 Virginia wine. Okay, so he picked up some Belgian chocolate--since it is not produced locally, it's alright to buy globally. So roasted chicken, a side of sweet corn, salad and a chocolate suffle it was! And Pollan and his guests (children included) found it delicious! And although Pollan made that same meal at home before, it was with industrial chicken, pale yolk eggs and corn and salad grown far, far away. Those meals never came close to being as good as the one made locally. Now for some science. Evolutionarily speaking, humans have had about ten thousand years to adjust their bodies to agricultural food. And now we have to adjust to industrial agricultural food, a diet based on a small handful of basic grains, think corn, that is still a biological novelty. Not only are we eating these grains, but the animals we are eating eat these grains. According to evolution, pasture fed animals are better for us because they more closely resemble wild game. There is less fat, less saturated fat, more CLA (a fatty acid that helps to reduce weight and prevent cancer) and more omega-3s in pasture raised animals. Not to mention other nutrients and vitamins, and flavor. "When chickens get to live like chickens, they'll taste like chickens, too."
And so Pollan got to eat his tasty meal, free from the thoughts of killing chickens, all the while he knew exactly where his food came from: ". . . the early morning pasture, there in the grass where this sublime bite began."
And so Pollan got to eat his tasty meal, free from the thoughts of killing chickens, all the while he knew exactly where his food came from: ". . . the early morning pasture, there in the grass where this sublime bite began."
Chapter Thirteen: The Market: "Greetings from the Non-Barcode People"
1. WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON"It didn't surprise me to read that the typical item of food on an American's plate travels some fifteen hundred miles to get there, and is frequently better traveled and more worldly than it's eater." Following the corn-based industrial food chain took Pollan thousands of miles, but the Virginian grass-baded food chain is remarkably short for it's complexity. All that remained was to trace this food chain along the various links between Joel's pastures and his customers' plates. Polyface does not sell to supermarkets, ship long distances or wholesale its food. Which is where the "greetings from the non-Barcode people" saying came into existence. Four hundred local people reserve a chicken every Wednesday, from schoolteaachers, to mechanics, opera singers, young moms, furniture makers, retirees and twins. Although more expensive, and more of a hassle to get, these chickens tasted better and added to the "relationship marketing" of the community businesses, among other things. Joel also sells to EcoFriendly Foods (a one man operation that sells Polyface meat and eggs at local farmers markets) and local restaraunts.
Food is exempt from it's history. A car must tell of its make, model, where it was produced and with what parts from where. But food is built on the wall of ignorance. Joel would rather build local economies, with "relationship marketing," and completely destroy the need for barcodes. Personally, that seems highly unlikely considering so many people live in cities far removed from places where food is grown. Then again, Joel doesn't believe that New York City has a use, and although I disagree, I don't like NYC either.
2. THURSDAY MORNING
Thursday is delivery day; Joel's brother Art loads his truck with Polyface goods and delivers them to local restaurants. His truck says "ON DELIVERY FROM POLYFACE INC. FOLLOW ME TO THE BEST RESTAURANTS IN TOWN." And many of Charlottesville's best restaurants do buy from Polyface. The chefs praise the high quality goods, especially the eggs. His egg yolk demonstration usually books new customers--the huge, thick, "muscle-toned," orangey-yellow yolks land him the sale almost every time. Besides price, many customers have problems with the seasonality of local foods. There is no such thing as winter chicken or spring lamb for Polyface. For Tyson, sure, but he doesn't make "chickenier chicken." Too bad. But the relationship between Joel, art and their chefs is of the deepest respect. From Chef Appreciation Day, to the seldom arguing of price and pride in "Polyface Farm Chicken" has brought this local food economy into a tight bond. Hopefully (for me and you and Joel Salatin) one day the food system will change to include more tight knit local food communities and less Perdue and Tyson chicken. I personally cannot wait.
Food is exempt from it's history. A car must tell of its make, model, where it was produced and with what parts from where. But food is built on the wall of ignorance. Joel would rather build local economies, with "relationship marketing," and completely destroy the need for barcodes. Personally, that seems highly unlikely considering so many people live in cities far removed from places where food is grown. Then again, Joel doesn't believe that New York City has a use, and although I disagree, I don't like NYC either.
2. THURSDAY MORNING
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| You can find "Polyface chicken" on many local restaurant menus. |
Chapter Twelve: Slaughter: In a Glass Abattoir
1. (Oddly enough, there's actually only one subsection to this chapter, but it was labeled one anyways. Pollan must have been as excited about wednesday as I was about looking for 2. Wednesday Afternoon, which doesn't come until the next chapter!) WEDNESDAY
Today was the day Pollan was going to kill a chicken, well several chickens actually. Today was slaughter day, and the killing area was set up outside. Several neighbors walked over to help with the killings. Technically, farms like Polyface shouldn't be slaughtering their food (thats why Joel has to (unhappily) send his cows and pigs to a nearby slaughterhouse) due to USDA regulations that make it hard for non-industrial farms to comply. But Salatin says he is selling his product as live to the customers and then preparing it for them (so it's not in that order, but it is still clever). I would rather a chicken be killed outside by the people who raised it rather than in a cold, metal building by people who take satisfaction in the death of a chicken. Although, personally I would still rather the chicken wasn't murdered at all, poor thing. Anyways, the details of the killing made me squirmish so I'd rather not tell them to you. Honestly I'm not sure why anyone would want to read about this stuff. Basically you catch a chicken, lock it into place, kill it, put it in a spinner to de-feather it, and butcher it. I didn't want the added information about the spasms the chickens had, or the stink of the blood clumps, intestines and feathers in the compost pile. Yuck. When it's all said and done, the compost adds nitrogen to the grass, the chickens feed happy customers, and I am glad to be a vegetarian.
(I thought it would be appropriate to not add a picture to describe this chapter)
Today was the day Pollan was going to kill a chicken, well several chickens actually. Today was slaughter day, and the killing area was set up outside. Several neighbors walked over to help with the killings. Technically, farms like Polyface shouldn't be slaughtering their food (thats why Joel has to (unhappily) send his cows and pigs to a nearby slaughterhouse) due to USDA regulations that make it hard for non-industrial farms to comply. But Salatin says he is selling his product as live to the customers and then preparing it for them (so it's not in that order, but it is still clever). I would rather a chicken be killed outside by the people who raised it rather than in a cold, metal building by people who take satisfaction in the death of a chicken. Although, personally I would still rather the chicken wasn't murdered at all, poor thing. Anyways, the details of the killing made me squirmish so I'd rather not tell them to you. Honestly I'm not sure why anyone would want to read about this stuff. Basically you catch a chicken, lock it into place, kill it, put it in a spinner to de-feather it, and butcher it. I didn't want the added information about the spasms the chickens had, or the stink of the blood clumps, intestines and feathers in the compost pile. Yuck. When it's all said and done, the compost adds nitrogen to the grass, the chickens feed happy customers, and I am glad to be a vegetarian.
(I thought it would be appropriate to not add a picture to describe this chapter)
Chapter Eleven: The Animals: Practicing Complexity
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| "The sanitation crew" |
The relationship on Joel's farm is so different from any industrial farm that Pollan has a hard time describing it. It is not a this, then that, now this line. It's a loop, a series of cycles. And Joel says that this is the distinction between biological and industrial systems. "It's all connected. this farm is more like an organism than a machine, and like any organism it has its proper scale. . . Farming is not adapted to large-scale operations because of the following reasons: Farming is concerned with plants and animals that live, grow, and die." And if Salatin is not efficient because he cannot just bump up the production of eggs by tenfold, he is efficient in a different way. Diseases cancel, every organism gets fed the right food, there is a low polution rate, and food that exits his farm tastes good. ". . . in a world where grass can eat sunlight and food animals can eat grass, there is indeed a free lunch."
2. TUESDAY AFTERNOON
The animals do most of the work on Joel's farm, but there is still plenty of work for Joel and his interns. While Naylor works his farm 50 days a year, Joel is out there almost every day of the year, for most of the day. But they relish it, it varies day to day and is quite beneficial. In a season, Polyface produces: 30,000 dozen eggs, 12,000 broilers, 800 stewing hens, 50 beeves (representing 25,000 pounds of beef), 250 hogs (50,000 pounds of pork), 800 turkeys and 500 rabbits. That is a truly astonishing amound of food from only 100 acres of grass. But Joel said that he forgot to count in the 400 acres of woodland that prevent erosion, hold moisture, shady and cool for pigs, biodiversity to control predators. "One of the greatest assets of a farm is the sheer ecstasy of life."
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Chapter Ten: Grass: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pasture
1. MONDAY"Maybe we're just too big to see what's going on down there in any detail." Grass. A gorgeous sea of green. And for most of us, that's where it ends. But for farmers like Joel, grass is glorious. It's a forest of different species: from white clover, to fescue and sweet grass. Dozens of grass species line the ground of the Salatin farm. And his whole farm revolves around the idea of grass. No wonder he is a grass farmer--the whole food chain revolves around grass (okay, okay--so it's technically the sun). His management is intensive to make sure cows don't get a "second bite" before the grass recuperates and to make sure the grass isn't being underutilized. There is a perfect balance between under- and over- grazing, and Salatin has perfected this. But if this was the way nature intended, it sure wasn't the method nature would use. "It might not look that way, but this is all information-age stuff we're doing here. Polyface Farm is a postindustrial enterprise. You'll see." I can't wait!
2. MONDAY EVENING
Joel Salatin frequently moves his cows with the help of a moveable electric fence he helped design. This is to make sure they get fresh grass, at the right time, to optimize their nutrients. Plus, disease is extremely decreased (no need for antibiotics) thanks to the fact that cows no longer live with their poop (actually, the chicken's do--the Eggmobile follows the cow rotation to clean up after the cows and eat fly larvae in the manure; they then spread it out to return nutrients to the soil). Joel's cattle even knew the drill by now. "The animals fanned out in the new paddock and lowered their great
heads, and the evening air filled with muffled sounds of smacking lips, tearing grass, and the low snuffling of contented cows." What a difference from the life and diet of steer 534. This bonus diversity is a gift to all involved: it allows the land to capture the maximum amount of solar energy which helps the rest of the farm grow and thrive. This productivity helps remove thousands of pounds of carbon from the atmosphere every year, storing it as humus. Which is way different from the thousands of pounds of carbon that industrial farms put into the atmosphere each year. So why did we ever turn away from this "free lunch" for a biologically ruinous meal based on corn? Why did we take ruminants off the frass? Why does food based on gas and corn cost less than one made by grass and sunlight? It turns out that more food energy is produced on an acre of pasture than an acre of corn. But it is corn and other grains that can be accumulated, traded, stored, easily grown and cheap to maintain. Plus, the government subsidizes corn, not, unfortunately, grass. So, the "logic of the industry" had decided that corn is king. Although Salatin, Pollan, and now I, believe this to be completely false. Grass is king!
3. MONDAY SUPPER
After settling the cows, a tired Pollan took to the dinner table to eat the most local meal he had ever eaten at this point. Almost everything was off of the farm; to the Salatin family, people who didn't live this way, but lived the "Wall Street" way, were crazy. And Pollan could see why. Their self-contained world was Jeffersonian in a way. And it was just 50 years ago that it was started. Joel's father William (who helped design/patent the first walking sprinkler, "shademobile," portable chicken coup and the electric fencing used on the cows) had bought this abused, eroded and nutrient-free land. And the Salatin family has been working to heal the land ever since--it obviously has worked. With grass and mobility, the farm is one of the best there is. "Oh, how proud he would be to see this place now."
2. MONDAY EVENING
Joel Salatin frequently moves his cows with the help of a moveable electric fence he helped design. This is to make sure they get fresh grass, at the right time, to optimize their nutrients. Plus, disease is extremely decreased (no need for antibiotics) thanks to the fact that cows no longer live with their poop (actually, the chicken's do--the Eggmobile follows the cow rotation to clean up after the cows and eat fly larvae in the manure; they then spread it out to return nutrients to the soil). Joel's cattle even knew the drill by now. "The animals fanned out in the new paddock and lowered their great
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| Grass should be king. |
heads, and the evening air filled with muffled sounds of smacking lips, tearing grass, and the low snuffling of contented cows." What a difference from the life and diet of steer 534. This bonus diversity is a gift to all involved: it allows the land to capture the maximum amount of solar energy which helps the rest of the farm grow and thrive. This productivity helps remove thousands of pounds of carbon from the atmosphere every year, storing it as humus. Which is way different from the thousands of pounds of carbon that industrial farms put into the atmosphere each year. So why did we ever turn away from this "free lunch" for a biologically ruinous meal based on corn? Why did we take ruminants off the frass? Why does food based on gas and corn cost less than one made by grass and sunlight? It turns out that more food energy is produced on an acre of pasture than an acre of corn. But it is corn and other grains that can be accumulated, traded, stored, easily grown and cheap to maintain. Plus, the government subsidizes corn, not, unfortunately, grass. So, the "logic of the industry" had decided that corn is king. Although Salatin, Pollan, and now I, believe this to be completely false. Grass is king!
3. MONDAY SUPPER
After settling the cows, a tired Pollan took to the dinner table to eat the most local meal he had ever eaten at this point. Almost everything was off of the farm; to the Salatin family, people who didn't live this way, but lived the "Wall Street" way, were crazy. And Pollan could see why. Their self-contained world was Jeffersonian in a way. And it was just 50 years ago that it was started. Joel's father William (who helped design/patent the first walking sprinkler, "shademobile," portable chicken coup and the electric fencing used on the cows) had bought this abused, eroded and nutrient-free land. And the Salatin family has been working to heal the land ever since--it obviously has worked. With grass and mobility, the farm is one of the best there is. "Oh, how proud he would be to see this place now."
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Chapter Nine: Big Organic
1. SUPERMARKET PASTORAL
"Cage free," "humanely raised," "free range," "ultra pasteurized," "certified organic" "free from unnecessary fear and distress." These terms are just a few of the many seen on supermarket shelves these days, no wonder it is so confusing to shop these days. Yet, somehow price is the main think consumers take away from a product. And yet, the organic industry is now the fastest growing sector of the food economy--and it's worth $11 billion! So what is organic? Is it a farm like Joel's? Or just another industrial food plant with a new name? And how do you marry the pastoral ideas of past farming and the industrialization needed for profit? Maybe these questions all lead up to Pollan's conclusion that "organic" doesn't necessarily mean, well, organic. It is the industrial beast--the "organic empire." Some organic milk comes from factory farms (no grass or space) and is ultra pasturized so it can travel hundreds of miles to reach a consumer. That certainly doesn't seem organic. And neither do some of the "organic" TV dinners, which contain synthetic food additives, among other things. And Rosie the chicken? She sure doesn't live on any farm like Joel's.
2. FROM PEOPLE'S PARK TO PETALUMA POULTRY
Born April 20, 1969 was People's Park: a vacant University of California lot seized by the Robin Hood Commission and turned into a garden. These "agrarian reformers" wanted to grow their own uncontaminated food--they were influenced by 17th century England Diggers--and it was going to be organic. This movement brought attention also to the Organic Gardening and Farming magazine. And so the countercuisine, the "anti-white bread" and the anticaptitalist food co-ops all began.
Perhaps two of the greatest influences to the organic movement were Gene Kahn, founder of the Cascadian Farm, and Sir Albert Howard, an agronomist. Their thinking, of going back to the land and being chemical free (that means N-P-K fertilizer (but what about humus, the organic material created by the dead as equally as the living that is in the healthiest of soil?) as well as pesticides) is the reason we have organic food today. They stated that we should once again reverse our way of thinking: from simple quantities back to complex qualities; from chemistry back to biology; from monoculture back to polyculture.
And yet, Cascadian Farms was eventually sold out to Welch's and General Mills. And Big Organic fought Little Organic. As the definition of organic was being questioned by the USDA, so was the prospect of a real organic industry. And so we get: "Supermarket Pastoral."
3. DOWN ON THE INDUSTRIAL ORGANIC FARM
...And yet for every organic acre is an acre free from pesticides and harsh chemicals.
The view Pollan took on an organic farm was a small, family farm. That is, until he visited California. In fact, except for the containers of chemicals, organic farms look exactly like any other conventional industrial farm (many conventional megafarms own these large organic farms). One of these farms was Greenways Organic; then Earthbound followed. "Inputs and outputs: a much greener machine, but a machine nevertheless." Crop rotation and diversification take the place of chemical fertilizers and pest controls--the way nature (sort of) intended. This is still a problem in large organic companies: and let's face it, supermarkets want to buy from large farms that can steadily produce a lot. And that's why small farm stand businesses like Earthbound turned into hundred acres of organic lettuce selling to chains such as Costco and Wal-Mart. And that is how organic turned into food grown on large farms and factories minus the chemicals. I wonder if the small organic farm will ever come back into existence. Or if organic will one day mean what I used to think it meant.
4. MEET ROSIE, THE ORGANIC FREE-RANGE CHICKEN
Pollan stopped at Petaluma in California to visit the Petaluma Poultry headquarters, where he hoped to find Rosie, the free-range chicken Pollan had bought at Whole Foods. What made this chicken any different from other industrial chickens? Pollan sure didn't find any farmhouses, red barns or pastures of roaming chickens. Actually, he found a building that looked more like a huge warehouse. And in here the chickens roamed. Actually, they never actually went outside. They had to stay inside until they were old enough, and by the time the small door to the outside world was opened, the chickens had no desire to go outside (they are killed two weeks later). The only thing that made them organic was that they were fed certified organic feed (corn and soy grown without pesticides and chemical fertilizer), didn't have antibiotics, and were killed younger (to make up for the expensive price, and to guard against diseases they had the possibility of getting). The processing facility was fully automated, and, as if a joke, the empty chicken-house lawn is maintained. But does the organic chicken taste any different?
5. MY ORGANIC INDUSTRIAL MEAL
After shopping at Whole Foods, Pollan decided on Rosie the chicken roast, Cal-Organic roasted vegetables (yellow potatoes, purple kale, and red winter squash), steamed asparagus (from Argentina) and an Earthbound Farm spring salad mix. To top it off, Stonyfield Farm organic ice cream and Mexican organic blackberries would be the desert. But is all the gas (money, environmental damage) needed to ship out of season asparagus all the way from Argentina or blackberries from Mexico? As good as a food tastes out of season, Pollan decides it's not worth it. Especially when he could be supporting local farms that sell vegetables that don't taste like wet cardboard. And as good as the chicken and vegetables were (not to mention the added benefits of chemical-free food), they still lost some of their appeal after a cross-country truck ride. So although organic industrial is better than an industrial meal, it is much more expensive, and there are still two more meals to outshine it. "And so, today, the organic food industry finds itself in a most unexpected, uncomfortable, and, yes, unsustainable position: floating on a sinking sea of petroleum.
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| What makes this TV dinner organic? |
2. FROM PEOPLE'S PARK TO PETALUMA POULTRY
Born April 20, 1969 was People's Park: a vacant University of California lot seized by the Robin Hood Commission and turned into a garden. These "agrarian reformers" wanted to grow their own uncontaminated food--they were influenced by 17th century England Diggers--and it was going to be organic. This movement brought attention also to the Organic Gardening and Farming magazine. And so the countercuisine, the "anti-white bread" and the anticaptitalist food co-ops all began.
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| A leader in Supermarket Pastoral. |
And yet, Cascadian Farms was eventually sold out to Welch's and General Mills. And Big Organic fought Little Organic. As the definition of organic was being questioned by the USDA, so was the prospect of a real organic industry. And so we get: "Supermarket Pastoral."
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| A farm stand turned organic-industrial giant. |
...And yet for every organic acre is an acre free from pesticides and harsh chemicals.
The view Pollan took on an organic farm was a small, family farm. That is, until he visited California. In fact, except for the containers of chemicals, organic farms look exactly like any other conventional industrial farm (many conventional megafarms own these large organic farms). One of these farms was Greenways Organic; then Earthbound followed. "Inputs and outputs: a much greener machine, but a machine nevertheless." Crop rotation and diversification take the place of chemical fertilizers and pest controls--the way nature (sort of) intended. This is still a problem in large organic companies: and let's face it, supermarkets want to buy from large farms that can steadily produce a lot. And that's why small farm stand businesses like Earthbound turned into hundred acres of organic lettuce selling to chains such as Costco and Wal-Mart. And that is how organic turned into food grown on large farms and factories minus the chemicals. I wonder if the small organic farm will ever come back into existence. Or if organic will one day mean what I used to think it meant.
4. MEET ROSIE, THE ORGANIC FREE-RANGE CHICKEN
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| No, sadly Petaluma farms don't actually look like this. |
5. MY ORGANIC INDUSTRIAL MEAL
After shopping at Whole Foods, Pollan decided on Rosie the chicken roast, Cal-Organic roasted vegetables (yellow potatoes, purple kale, and red winter squash), steamed asparagus (from Argentina) and an Earthbound Farm spring salad mix. To top it off, Stonyfield Farm organic ice cream and Mexican organic blackberries would be the desert. But is all the gas (money, environmental damage) needed to ship out of season asparagus all the way from Argentina or blackberries from Mexico? As good as a food tastes out of season, Pollan decides it's not worth it. Especially when he could be supporting local farms that sell vegetables that don't taste like wet cardboard. And as good as the chicken and vegetables were (not to mention the added benefits of chemical-free food), they still lost some of their appeal after a cross-country truck ride. So although organic industrial is better than an industrial meal, it is much more expensive, and there are still two more meals to outshine it. "And so, today, the organic food industry finds itself in a most unexpected, uncomfortable, and, yes, unsustainable position: floating on a sinking sea of petroleum.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Chapter Eight: All Flesh Is Grass
1. GREEN ACRES
Pollan found himself on Joel Salatin's farm on the first day of summer, along with Daniel Salatin (his son) and two helpers. Unlike the genetically-modified corn farm Pollan had visited, the Salatin farm in the Shenandoah Valley wasn't a monoculture, it didn't have the roar of farm machinery, and its place in society is still a question. "I'd come here . . . to see whether such a farm, and the alternative food chain it is part of, belonged to the past or the future." The pastoral beauty was dotted with happy animals, a brook, woods and a grassy pasture. This wonder, this beauty that survived the industrial farms, proves that "the old pastoral idea is alive and, if not well exactly, still useful, perhaps even necessary."
2. THE GENIUS OF THE PLACE
"I'm a grass farmer." Polyface farm (the one Salatin maintains) is 550 acres of chickens, cows, turkeys, rabbits, pigs, tomatoes, sweet corn, berries, and forests. But Salatin isn't a chicken farmer, or a corn farmer--nope, he's a grass farmer. Grass is the foundation for the food chain so delicately assembled at Polyface, which has led to its position as one of the "most productive and influential alternative farms in America." But why grass? Grass takes up the natural energy of the sun and, through photosynthesis, converts carbon dioxide and water into sugars, which is essentially energy. These grasses (of which there are dozens of species: from orchard grass, to red clover, the dandelion, Queen Anne's lace, foxtail, bluegrass...) are all food for the roaming cattle and other large animals, who eat the grass, digest it, obtain nutrients and poop out the waste. The chickens, in their Eggmobile, clean up after herbivores, eating the grubs and larvae out of the poop. They spread the manure to give nutrients back to the grasses, eliminate parasites and eat nutrients that lead to tasty eggs. There is no need for parasiticides when there are chickens, and no need for antibacterial drugs when the cows eat
grass diets (the bacteria in their stomach cannot survive the pH of the grass in the stomach, but thrive in the corn diet of the stomach). These costs,and health problems are eliminated. Besides the animals, the forest helps the soil from eroding and blowing away, and the stream provides water to the pasture. Even the bugs and fungi below the surface help to put back nutrients into the grass, then the cow, then the chicken then the egg. It's the perfect ecological circle--and Salatin is just there to direct it, and make sure nature's course runs smoothly. Humans have co-evolved with grasses: from our hunter-gatherer stage to our agriculture stage. It's a wonder we have left this miracle and replaced it with corn. *If you read just one chapter in this section--I recommend this one. I was in awe at how flawless this whole cycle is. I'm amazed and saddened that more people don't farm like this.*
3. INDUSTRIAL ORGANIC
Naylor Farm: Industrial, annual species, monoculture, fossil fuels, global market, specialized, mechanical, imported fertility, myriad inputs
Polyface Farm: Pastoral, perennial species, polyculture, solar energy, local market, diversified, biological, local fertility, chicken feed
Salatin, an "organic" farmer in Virginia, actually doesn't care for the federal government's new organic standards. So what is more "organic?" Salatin's food or an imported good at the grocery store that says organic? Are organic flowers from Peru really better than locally grown ones that don't match exactly to federal specifications? Salatin, like many other people, believe the answer is no. "We never called ourselves organic--we call ourselves 'beyond organic.' Why dumb down to a lesser level than we are?" In this section, Pollan is begin to question the term "industrial organic," and decides to take a trip touring the organic empire.
 |
| Meet Joel and his grass fed cows. |
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| Everyone benefits from Salatin's grasses. |
"I'm a grass farmer." Polyface farm (the one Salatin maintains) is 550 acres of chickens, cows, turkeys, rabbits, pigs, tomatoes, sweet corn, berries, and forests. But Salatin isn't a chicken farmer, or a corn farmer--nope, he's a grass farmer. Grass is the foundation for the food chain so delicately assembled at Polyface, which has led to its position as one of the "most productive and influential alternative farms in America." But why grass? Grass takes up the natural energy of the sun and, through photosynthesis, converts carbon dioxide and water into sugars, which is essentially energy. These grasses (of which there are dozens of species: from orchard grass, to red clover, the dandelion, Queen Anne's lace, foxtail, bluegrass...) are all food for the roaming cattle and other large animals, who eat the grass, digest it, obtain nutrients and poop out the waste. The chickens, in their Eggmobile, clean up after herbivores, eating the grubs and larvae out of the poop. They spread the manure to give nutrients back to the grasses, eliminate parasites and eat nutrients that lead to tasty eggs. There is no need for parasiticides when there are chickens, and no need for antibacterial drugs when the cows eat
 |
| The Eggmobile: just one part of Salatin's amazing farming cycle. |
grass diets (the bacteria in their stomach cannot survive the pH of the grass in the stomach, but thrive in the corn diet of the stomach). These costs,and health problems are eliminated. Besides the animals, the forest helps the soil from eroding and blowing away, and the stream provides water to the pasture. Even the bugs and fungi below the surface help to put back nutrients into the grass, then the cow, then the chicken then the egg. It's the perfect ecological circle--and Salatin is just there to direct it, and make sure nature's course runs smoothly. Humans have co-evolved with grasses: from our hunter-gatherer stage to our agriculture stage. It's a wonder we have left this miracle and replaced it with corn. *If you read just one chapter in this section--I recommend this one. I was in awe at how flawless this whole cycle is. I'm amazed and saddened that more people don't farm like this.*
3. INDUSTRIAL ORGANIC
Naylor Farm: Industrial, annual species, monoculture, fossil fuels, global market, specialized, mechanical, imported fertility, myriad inputs
Polyface Farm: Pastoral, perennial species, polyculture, solar energy, local market, diversified, biological, local fertility, chicken feed
Salatin, an "organic" farmer in Virginia, actually doesn't care for the federal government's new organic standards. So what is more "organic?" Salatin's food or an imported good at the grocery store that says organic? Are organic flowers from Peru really better than locally grown ones that don't match exactly to federal specifications? Salatin, like many other people, believe the answer is no. "We never called ourselves organic--we call ourselves 'beyond organic.' Why dumb down to a lesser level than we are?" In this section, Pollan is begin to question the term "industrial organic," and decides to take a trip touring the organic empire.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
SECTION TWO: PASTORAL GRASS
We just finished section one, and meal one: the industrial food Americans have grown to love, especially in fast food form. Now we begin the next two meals, the "organic" and the locally grown.
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| What makes this salad organic? |
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| Meet Joel Salatin and his hens. |
Chapter Seven: The Meal (Fast Food)
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| I'm lovin' it? |
Long story short, the meal Pollan and his family ate contained numerous traces of corn--from the bun, to the salad dressing, to the vanilla shake. Not to mention the burger, the corn-fried fries and the soda. And his food contained traces of TBHQ (lighter fluid, a trace amount allowed by the FDA) and dimethylpolysiloxene (a carcinogen and mutagen). Overall, their meal was created thanks to more than six pounds of corn (actually, Pollan gave up after calculating six pounds, all the corn-created ingredients were too much for one person). The proportions of corn in Pollan's food were measured and ranged from 100% (soda) to 52% (cheeseburger) and filled in between: 78% milkshake, 56% chicken nuggets... "But then, this is what the industrial eater has become: corn's koala."
Oil was another factor, about 1.3 gallons of oil took to grow and process those 4,510 food calories, not to mention the gas the car was using while Pollan and his family devoured those calories. So fast food is bad right? Not necessarily: for many poorer people, these cheap calories, that taste good are a blessing. So do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? I'm not yet convinced, let's continue on Pollan's journey of four meals!
Chapter Six: The Consumer: A Republic of Fat
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| HFCS |
Chapter Five: The Processing Plant: Making Complex Foods (18,000 Kernels)
1. TAKING THE KERNEL APART: THE MILL
Most of the corn we eat enters our bodies as broken down, simple compounds that have been heavily processed. What isn't eaten directly as corn, or as meat that ate corn, goes through wet mills--1/5 of it. The process in wet mills is very complex: first, the yellow skin is processed into vitamins and nutrient supplements; the germ is crushed for oil; the endosperm is turned into complex carbohydrates. Chemists have learned how to take those starches and turn them into numerous amounts of organic compounds, including acids, sugars, starches, and alcohols (remember the citric acid, fructose, maltodextrin, glucose, lactic acid, sorbitol, ethanol, unmodified starches, xanthan gum, mannitol, MSG, dextrins...?) Pollan was able to watch the wet mill at the Center for Crops Utilization Research at Iowa State University and described in great detail the huge and various contraptions it took to process corn. He reveals that corn takes a thirty six hour acid bath, and that five gallons of water is needed to process just one bushel of corn. But it's not how corn is broken into all these compounds that is the question--no, the question is how do we end up eating them all? Humans, we are "the eater of processed food."
2. PUTTING IT BACK TOGETHER AGAIN: PROCESSED FOODS
"The dream of liberating food from nature is as old as eating." If you look at the label of any number of processed foods, corn will probably turn out to be a key constituent of many processed foods. Corn makes up the sugars and starches, and the fat in a processed good. Companies like General Mills now call processed food a "food system" because of its complexity--and the fact that many people have begun to shy away from processed foods. And corn as food is simple economics: if we can grow the materials cheaply and use them, then why not? Although both the farming end (only 40 cents on a dollar makes it to a farmers pocket, plus they can only grow so much with nature as the enemy) and the consuming end ("Try as we might, each of us can eat only about fifteen hundred pounds of food a year.") are less than perfect, they are still better, some think, than what we started with. But many businesses are trying to get around this:
"When fake sugars and fake fats are joined by fake starches, the food industry will at long last have overcome the dilemma of the fixed stomach: whole meals you can eat as often or as much of as you like, since this food will leave no trace. Meet the ultimate--the utterly elastic!--industrial eater."
 |
| A wet mill: where corn turns into... EVERYTHING |
2. PUTTING IT BACK TOGETHER AGAIN: PROCESSED FOODS
"The dream of liberating food from nature is as old as eating." If you look at the label of any number of processed foods, corn will probably turn out to be a key constituent of many processed foods. Corn makes up the sugars and starches, and the fat in a processed good. Companies like General Mills now call processed food a "food system" because of its complexity--and the fact that many people have begun to shy away from processed foods. And corn as food is simple economics: if we can grow the materials cheaply and use them, then why not? Although both the farming end (only 40 cents on a dollar makes it to a farmers pocket, plus they can only grow so much with nature as the enemy) and the consuming end ("Try as we might, each of us can eat only about fifteen hundred pounds of food a year.") are less than perfect, they are still better, some think, than what we started with. But many businesses are trying to get around this:
"When fake sugars and fake fats are joined by fake starches, the food industry will at long last have overcome the dilemma of the fixed stomach: whole meals you can eat as often or as much of as you like, since this food will leave no trace. Meet the ultimate--the utterly elastic!--industrial eater."
Friday, October 7, 2011
Chapter Four: The Feedlot: Making Meat (54,000 Kernels)
1. CATTLE METROPOLIS
Kansas: Imagine a state filled with dozens, even hundreds of feedlots, and you'll be able to imagine where that McDonald's hamburger came from (well, part of it at least). Pollan visits Poky Feeders, home to more than 37,000 cows. This CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) was at this time home to the cow that Pollan bought for nearly $600 when it was a calf. Now, paying Poky Feeders $1.60/day for room and board for his cow, Pollan has come back to see the new life it lives. That is, eating corn (cows eat grass!) on a tightly packed feedlot surrounded by chemical fertilizers and pollution--fun!
2. PASTORAL: VALE, SOUTH DAKOTA
Steer 534 was born on March 13, 2011 on the Blair Ranch in Sturgis, South Dakota. This ranch begins the first stage in hamburger production--and it is only one of many (which is very different from the four giant meatpacking companies--Tyson, Cargill, Swift & Company and National--which slaughter and market 4/5 of the cows in America.
Biology Connection: Cows and grass have coevolved; the grass can withstand grazing ruminants and benefit from the cows who prevent trees and shrubs from growing. Furthermore, cows spread, plant (hoof prints) and fertilize (manure) grass seeds. Likewise, cows are able to eat the grass because they have a highly evolved digestive organ, the rumen, that allows them to convert grass into food. And in their medicine ball-sized rumens, thousands of bacteria dine on the grass. What a wonderful cycle...
--VERSUS--
3. INDUSTRIAL: GARDEN CITY, KANSAS
It is quite unfortunate that the cows at Poky Feeders, and a majority of other feedlot cows haven't eaten a blade of grass since they were calves. Instead they are fed, you guessed it again, corn. Antibiotic-liquid fat (some from other cows)-protein supplement-synthetic estrogen-liquid vitamin-alfalfa hay-silage-filled genetically engineered corn mush. Really, what is better than feeding a bunch of grass-eating cows who make healthier, tastier meat when fed on grass, a bunch of surplus corn and some cow fat? It turns out that the FDA actually rewards businesses that feed their cows corn instead of grass. And anyways, calories are calories. Fat is fat. Food is food. Right? Wrong. This diet not only weakens the cows and makes them unhealthy, but a possibility for mad cow disease is increased. Plus, these cows stomachs are now the perfect breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And, these cows have more fat in them, and are much unhealthier for humans than grass-fed cows. Do the beneficial cost and "ease" really outweigh all the detriments: simplicity, nature, health...? I still think no, but the industry still says yes.
(Here, Pollan describes the home of a feedlot cow. Manure and dust filled dark pens crowded with no grass. "Not a bad little piece of real estate, all considered." Right.)
Lastly, Pollan explains how much petroleum goes into the food industry; 1/5 of America's gas consumption at this time went into producing and transporting food. One cow needs 35 gallons of oil to go from baby to hamburger. That's almost a barrel! So I guess that's us, "number 2 corn and oil."
 |
| Poky Feeders: Population 37,000 |
Kansas: Imagine a state filled with dozens, even hundreds of feedlots, and you'll be able to imagine where that McDonald's hamburger came from (well, part of it at least). Pollan visits Poky Feeders, home to more than 37,000 cows. This CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) was at this time home to the cow that Pollan bought for nearly $600 when it was a calf. Now, paying Poky Feeders $1.60/day for room and board for his cow, Pollan has come back to see the new life it lives. That is, eating corn (cows eat grass!) on a tightly packed feedlot surrounded by chemical fertilizers and pollution--fun!
2. PASTORAL: VALE, SOUTH DAKOTA
Steer 534 was born on March 13, 2011 on the Blair Ranch in Sturgis, South Dakota. This ranch begins the first stage in hamburger production--and it is only one of many (which is very different from the four giant meatpacking companies--Tyson, Cargill, Swift & Company and National--which slaughter and market 4/5 of the cows in America.
Biology Connection: Cows and grass have coevolved; the grass can withstand grazing ruminants and benefit from the cows who prevent trees and shrubs from growing. Furthermore, cows spread, plant (hoof prints) and fertilize (manure) grass seeds. Likewise, cows are able to eat the grass because they have a highly evolved digestive organ, the rumen, that allows them to convert grass into food. And in their medicine ball-sized rumens, thousands of bacteria dine on the grass. What a wonderful cycle...
--VERSUS--
 |
| The way nature intended. |
 |
| The way the FDA favors. |
3. INDUSTRIAL: GARDEN CITY, KANSAS
It is quite unfortunate that the cows at Poky Feeders, and a majority of other feedlot cows haven't eaten a blade of grass since they were calves. Instead they are fed, you guessed it again, corn. Antibiotic-liquid fat (some from other cows)-protein supplement-synthetic estrogen-liquid vitamin-alfalfa hay-silage-filled genetically engineered corn mush. Really, what is better than feeding a bunch of grass-eating cows who make healthier, tastier meat when fed on grass, a bunch of surplus corn and some cow fat? It turns out that the FDA actually rewards businesses that feed their cows corn instead of grass. And anyways, calories are calories. Fat is fat. Food is food. Right? Wrong. This diet not only weakens the cows and makes them unhealthy, but a possibility for mad cow disease is increased. Plus, these cows stomachs are now the perfect breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And, these cows have more fat in them, and are much unhealthier for humans than grass-fed cows. Do the beneficial cost and "ease" really outweigh all the detriments: simplicity, nature, health...? I still think no, but the industry still says yes.
(Here, Pollan describes the home of a feedlot cow. Manure and dust filled dark pens crowded with no grass. "Not a bad little piece of real estate, all considered." Right.)
Lastly, Pollan explains how much petroleum goes into the food industry; 1/5 of America's gas consumption at this time went into producing and transporting food. One cow needs 35 gallons of oil to go from baby to hamburger. That's almost a barrel! So I guess that's us, "number 2 corn and oil."
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Chapter Three: The Elevator
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| One of the many elevators one can find in Iowa. |
Pollan's hope of following Naylor's corn to his plate turned out to be nearly impossible, how was he supposed to pick out thousands of generic kernels from the millions they were mixed in with at the elevator? Figuring all genetically modified corn is the same, Pollan decided to follow the path that 3/5 of those kernels take: to the American factory farm. "Enter the corn-fed American steer."
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Chapter Two: The Farm
1. ONE FARMER, 129 EATERS
Yield is everything to farmers, the more they can grow in a small area, the more money they make. All this close-proximity growth has turned the once fertile soil of Iowa into dust. Today, less than 2 million Americans farm, and somehow they manage to feed all the rest of us.
2. PLANTING THE CITY OF CORN
Many times, soybeans are rotated with corn, as soy is the second leg supporting the industrial food system. Pollan describes sitting on a tractor going down miles of corn as monotonous, I can only imagine. He goes into detail of the seeds planted "an adaptable hybrid with solid agronomics and yield potential." Which is not the same as GMOs, genetically modified organisms. Many of Naylor's neighbors have a distrust of the seed, especially because of its cost. Did you know that one acre of corn produces 180 bushels of corn, which each holds 56 pounds of kernels? That's over 10,000lbs of food per acre! I agree with Pollan when he says that it's crazy to think that these plants, that grow so close together don't compete to the death for resources--its "the true socialist utopia."
Yield is everything to farmers, the more they can grow in a small area, the more money they make. All this close-proximity growth has turned the once fertile soil of Iowa into dust. Today, less than 2 million Americans farm, and somehow they manage to feed all the rest of us.
2. PLANTING THE CITY OF CORN
Many times, soybeans are rotated with corn, as soy is the second leg supporting the industrial food system. Pollan describes sitting on a tractor going down miles of corn as monotonous, I can only imagine. He goes into detail of the seeds planted "an adaptable hybrid with solid agronomics and yield potential." Which is not the same as GMOs, genetically modified organisms. Many of Naylor's neighbors have a distrust of the seed, especially because of its cost. Did you know that one acre of corn produces 180 bushels of corn, which each holds 56 pounds of kernels? That's over 10,000lbs of food per acre! I agree with Pollan when he says that it's crazy to think that these plants, that grow so close together don't compete to the death for resources--its "the true socialist utopia."
3. VANISHING SPECIES
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| You don't see this anymore |
The population of corn pushes out the animals, other plants and people that surround it. It constantly takes up more room and more resources than there are to provide for every specie around. The cows, chickens, apples, hay, potatoes, oats, cherries, wheat and grapes have disappeared from the modern farm. Even many farmers have left to make room for rows upon rows of golden corn. We can't blame it all on the corn though, it was the tractor after all that started the chain reaction of monotony. By the 1980s, "corn was king," and the farm towns became ghost towns.
4. THERE GOES THE SUN
Pollan explains why chemical fertilizer is also to be blamed for this corn explosion. The ammonium nitrate turned from the war effort to the peaceful home effort is consumed greedily by hybrid corn. Since nitrogen is recieved in this manner, rotating the crops with legumes is no longer needed. It was Fritz Haber who perfected this processes (oops--this helped Hitler to develop the gas used in concentration camps during WWII). It has been estimated that the Haber-Bosch process to fix nitrogen has allowed for two out of five humans alive today to be alive. It's crazy to think that by fixing a chemical that makes up 80% of our atmosphere could help all these people survive. The ugly twist? The synthetic nitrogen has immense waste that contributes to acid rain and global warming. Plus, it can be expensive. This invention has changed the diet of the world, as well as it's ecology--the biodiversity of the world is shrinking.
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