Reymateu Johnson Writing 231 Reading Response #3 November 20, 2014 Reading Response #3 In Omnivores Dilemma: Corn Conquest, Michael Pollan states that most of the industrial food we eat, basically all processed food we find in our supermarkets, can be traced back to corn. Seems and odd concept but scientifically it’s true. The C-4 trick helps explain the corn plant’s success in this competition: Few plants can manufacture quite as much organic matter (and calories) from the same quantities of sunlight and water and basic elements as corn. I found the information in this essay quite interesting. I was surprised to learn that my body had been fundamentally altered by the prevalence of corn.
In the essay, “The Pleasures of Eating” by Wendell Berry, he states that the society lacks the knowledge of the making of their food and whether the food is healthy or unhealthy. He goes on and explains that the food industry attracts the customers trying to make them buy their products that has been treated with drugs and chemicals but looks as good as if it was freshly and naturally produced. Berry claims that the food industry will do anything to get people to buy. It would be difficult to know what to cook for a cultural food critic like Berry. One type of food I would serve to Berry is home grown or local farms vegetables.
Corn: Production, Distribution, Consumption The history of corn is focused primarily around building an agrarian society. Corn was used to build families, communities and ultimately a country. Since then, corn’s place in society has changed dramatically. Corn is no longer a small operation owned by family farms in America. The change is undeniable.
Pollan begins with an exploration of the food-production system from which the vast majority of American meals are derived. This industrial food chain is largely based on corn, whether it is eaten directly, fed to livestock, or processed into chemicals such as glucose and ethanol. Pollan discusses how the humble corn plant came to dominate the American diet through a combination of biological, cultural, and political factors. Pollan admits that he is surprised to discover that at the beginning of the food chain; almost regardless of the food being eaten was corn. Corn feeds the animals we eat, which lay the eggs we
In order to live off the land, the Sumerians needed to keep their irrigation systems up and running to prevent flooding or drought by the surrounding rivers. “The rich soil produced abundant crops of barley, emmer (a kind of wheat), beans, olives, grapes, and flax” (Hollar, 2011, p. 20). For the first time in history, the Sumerians were able to feed everybody on the land. “This great change in living habits brought about civilization— defined as a city-based society held together by economic enterprises” (Hollar, 2011, p.20). Eventually, the plow was invented which made farming easier for the Sumerians.
Locavores also want to support local farmers and small businesses. Local farms are more likely to use natural and organic methods. They believe that earing local grown food helps the environment by reducing soil, air, and water pollution. Eating food that is produced and grown locally conserves fuel and cuts greenhouse gas emission into global warming and other climate changes as opposed to buy food that is shipped from long distances. A cause of the trend of being a locavore is caused by people realizing how much energy is used in the production and transportation of store bought food.
Biology Report on Global Food Shortage and Farming 1) Intensive farming is a type of farming that requires a lot of input into the production to produce a higher amount of food for the growing population. This type of farming uses lots more mechanical machinery and has many processes to it. It is also the reason (mostly in developing countries) that there has been a reduction in the farming population. High-tech machinery: High-tech machinery plays a major role in intensive farming, mostly because intensive farming requires fast and accurate food production which machines provide. The use of machines allows easy distribution of fertilizers and pesticides among crops and quick harvests, all doing it in a shorter time period.
However, the scientific community is hard at work finding new methods of agriculture that are being practiced and that focus equal attention to both environmental health and food production. One model, permaculture, is quickly attracting attention across the globe due to its proposal- that intelligent and ecologically sensitive designs of agricultural systems should be more efficient and productive than the ecologically destructive systems we conventionally use. There are many problems with conventional industrialized agriculture. Jackson feels that the geological impact of agriculture "surely stands as the most significant and explosive event on the face of the earth." He claims that though other geological processes have changed the physical qualities of the earth, the changes
Several studies made by universities, independent organizations, and the government blame the high fructose corn syrup for the condition. I do not agree 100 percent with that position. I think HFCS is necessary in our food chain, and will benefit us (the consumers) if we control the daily intake of food with high concentrations of fructose derivate from corn. Less soda, chips, alcoholic beverages and increasing the intake of water, fruits, vegetables, and exercise to stimulate the chemical process of the body will help the pancreas to increase the segregation of insulin, which is in charge of processing any type of fructose, or sugar. Making small adjustments to our daily habits could significantly improve overall human health, and reduce diabetes cases.
Bt toxin and Glyphosate Paragraph 1: Soybean is known for the benefits of our health and it contains 43 percent of protein. So soybean needs to be produced in the amount of population in the world. To do this, the yield will needs to be maximized to grow and produce more soybean. However, according to the WWF, by “the rapid expansion of soybean cultivation, it threatens wildlife and biodiversity. Also damaging water reserves and soil quality.” In the world, scientists try to find the ways of Biotechnology for an harvesting more soybean, with not maximizing yield that causes bad influences to the environments.