Food Autobiography: "I am What I Eat"
When discussing the impact that various aspects of everyday life have had on the history of the world, many people may overlook the significance of food. For as long as living creatures have inhabited this planet, eating food has been the most essential means of survival and has shaped the way species have evolved over time. And while countless people still struggle to obtain adequate food to survive, eating food has developed into its own culture. The foods that I have eaten and the culture that I have experienced involving food has had an enormous impact on my life and the way I eat today.
Growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey, I was largely exposed to the industrial food and fast food systems. Very few people went to the butcher for their meat or the baker for their bread, and even fewer grew their own food. My neighbors were an exception to this local mainstream, as they grew their own vegetables and fruits. I remember how shocked my friends were when my neighbor walked across the street while we were playing on the front lawn and asked me, “May I please pick the weeds by your mailbox for dinner?” What was most likely a normal practice a century ago was the strangest idea in the world to us nine-year-old boys. We felt this way because our families purchased everything they needed for the week at supermarkets. I often went with my mother to the supermarket to purchase foodstuffs and helped her as she would make our meals at night. There, we saw aisles and aisles of colorful, delicious looking foods wrapped in plastic and enclosed in artistic or creative boxes. The choices were endless! We didn’t know where this food had come from or how it was made, we simply loved the taste and the convenience of picking it up at a store five minutes away from our house!
About once or twice a week, we would go out as a family to eat at a restaurant or pick up take-out from a fast food chain. One restaurant that my friends, family, and I loved to eat at was the diner. The diner was our favorite place to eat simply because you could get almost anything that you wanted at a great price! My favorite diner meal was always a cheddar cheese and broccoli omelet with French fries. The omelet was always so fluffy with thick, creamy cheddar cheese that would ooze out of the egg at every piercing of my fork. The diner fries, always the perfect balance of crispy brown coating and fluffy potato filling, went well with any meal and left me completely satisfied. Whether I was choosing from an enormous diner menu or helping my mother pick out foods at the supermarket, I became accustomed to thinking that I was able to consume whatever kind of food that I desired whenever I pleased. I may not have grown up extremely wealthy or affluent but having the ability to choose what I wanted to eat based on what I was in the mood for afforded me a luxury that a large portion of the world population has never experienced. |
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Although it may seem that I was able to eat anything that I pleased as a child, I was slightly limited in what I could consume due to religious restrictions. I grew up in a conservative Jewish household, which involved observing traditions and customs that have been in my family for generations. While I enjoyed many of the customs we practiced, one custom I was not pleased to follow was the keeping of a “kosher” household, which meant that our family could not eat specific food groups like pork, shellfish, and foods that combined dairy and meat products. For the first decade of my life, I had no issue with the custom as it was simply the way my family ate. But as I grew up and began to go out to eat with friends that did not keep kosher, I realized that I was missing out on what seemed to be some very delicious food. The one food that tantalized me everywhere I went was BACON. Bacon was my forbidden fruit, and whenever my friends would order it I became exceedingly jealous. As I got older, I constantly questioned my father about why it was so important for us to keep a kosher diet, and every time I asked I grew angrier with each of his confusing biblical replies. I eventually decided to confront him about my contrary beliefs about keeping kosher, and he allowed me to eat as I pleased outside of his house so long as I agreed to respect his desire to keep his house kosher. Since this experience, I have always loved to try new and exciting foods and have developed a respect for the diet choices of others. Some of my favorite meals today are non-kosher, including shrimp scampi, chicken alfredo, and of course, anything with bacon.
Another significant impact that food has had on my life is its effect on my health. I was not always the healthiest consumer growing up, and I often ate many sugary snacks and desserts. Because of my eating patterns, I was a rather heavy child who frequently became the target of malicious comments from bullies. One event that occurred in the seventh grade permanently changed the way I ate and lived. After demolishing a few slices of creamy cheese pizza, I was excited to join my friends in the pool on a hot summer’s day. As I removed my shirt to get ready to jump in the water, I felt my friends staring at me with expressions of pity and even amusement. I felt so embarrassed that I decided I no longer wanted to swim and went home. Having recovered from the embarrassment, I decided that I would start to moderate the amount and kinds of food that I ate, making sure to consume healthier foods and cut back on snacks. In combination with exercise, my new diet helped me get into a more athletic shape, and I have continued to maintain this well-balanced diet to this day. I currently do not eat many snacks, and center my diet around vegetables, proteins, and a limited amount of carbohydrates and fats. On special occasions I allow myself to indulge in my favorite unhealthy foods, which include soft pretzels and cake-batter ice cream!
Completing this paper has helped me to realize how enormous an impact food has had on the way I live my life. Moreover, I now have a deeper understanding of the fact that not all people on this earth have equal access to food and other resources, and this has motivated me to become involved in philanthropic and community-service oriented organizations. Having overcome religious dietary restrictions, I now have a new perspective on forming my own beliefs, accepting the values of others, and trying new things. I now eat a healthy, well-balanced diet that helps me maintain confidence in myself and my body. So while you may confine the impact that food has on your life to simply be what you see on your kitchen table, I encourage you to more carefully examine the significant roles that food has had on shaping who you are today.
Another significant impact that food has had on my life is its effect on my health. I was not always the healthiest consumer growing up, and I often ate many sugary snacks and desserts. Because of my eating patterns, I was a rather heavy child who frequently became the target of malicious comments from bullies. One event that occurred in the seventh grade permanently changed the way I ate and lived. After demolishing a few slices of creamy cheese pizza, I was excited to join my friends in the pool on a hot summer’s day. As I removed my shirt to get ready to jump in the water, I felt my friends staring at me with expressions of pity and even amusement. I felt so embarrassed that I decided I no longer wanted to swim and went home. Having recovered from the embarrassment, I decided that I would start to moderate the amount and kinds of food that I ate, making sure to consume healthier foods and cut back on snacks. In combination with exercise, my new diet helped me get into a more athletic shape, and I have continued to maintain this well-balanced diet to this day. I currently do not eat many snacks, and center my diet around vegetables, proteins, and a limited amount of carbohydrates and fats. On special occasions I allow myself to indulge in my favorite unhealthy foods, which include soft pretzels and cake-batter ice cream!
Completing this paper has helped me to realize how enormous an impact food has had on the way I live my life. Moreover, I now have a deeper understanding of the fact that not all people on this earth have equal access to food and other resources, and this has motivated me to become involved in philanthropic and community-service oriented organizations. Having overcome religious dietary restrictions, I now have a new perspective on forming my own beliefs, accepting the values of others, and trying new things. I now eat a healthy, well-balanced diet that helps me maintain confidence in myself and my body. So while you may confine the impact that food has on your life to simply be what you see on your kitchen table, I encourage you to more carefully examine the significant roles that food has had on shaping who you are today.
Revised Food Autobiography
I HOPE I AM NOT WHAT I EAT
Earlier in the semester, I was tasked with writing a “Food Autobiography,” in which I described how food and the activities involved with consumption contributed to my development as an individual. In this assignment, I explained the ways in which religion, body-image, and fast food culture influenced the way I felt about food and about my own values. After almost completing this course, many of the perceptions and attitudes I have formed about food have changed and have made me think more about my decisions as a consumer.
Earlier in the semester, I was tasked with writing a “Food Autobiography,” in which I described how food and the activities involved with consumption contributed to my development as an individual. In this assignment, I explained the ways in which religion, body-image, and fast food culture influenced the way I felt about food and about my own values. After almost completing this course, many of the perceptions and attitudes I have formed about food have changed and have made me think more about my decisions as a consumer.
One topic that I touched upon in my original assignment was my body image and self-esteem. As a young male teenager, it was difficult to build my own self confidence when I constantly believed that my peers were looking down on me. I knew I was out of shape and felt that my friends and classmates overtly agreed with me after I noticed their smirks at the pool or their comments about my panting during sporting events. This feeling certainly didn’t do me any favors socially, as I felt nervous interacting with girls and new people. While consuming popular foods, like pizza, French fries, and hamburgers was always a cultural expectation growing up, so was being skinny. In our country, those who are skinny or physically fit are deemed attractive, and associate with others that share the qualities of an attractive person. When forced to choose between continuing to follow the cultural norm of eating comfort food and changing my diet to conform to society's notion of attractiveness, I chose the latter. I was determined to change my look, and as a result I changed the way I ate. I traded ice cream for protein bars, chips for veggies, and French fries for brown rice. I began to eat a healthy, balanced diet and started to exercise more intensely. I soon saw amazing results and have continued to eat and train this way. I am now confident in the way I look, have a stable social life and feel fantastic! However, I have begun to question some of products that I use to gain muscle, such as protein bars and protein powder. In this class, I learned a lot about the level of uncertainty that consumers have about the products they put into their bodies. While companies provide the names of the many preservatives and chemicals that go into their products, people do not have enough information about the safety of many of these compounds. In Pandora’s Lunchbox, author Melanie Warner writes about Harvey Wiley, a chemist who pushed for restrictions on many compounds used in food. One compound, sodium benzoate, was continued to be used in production as a preservative even though Wiley stated it was “‘highly objectionable and produced a very serious disturbance of the metabolic functions, attended with injury to digestion and health’” (Warner 30). My protein powder contains compounds such as Lecithin, Sucralose Acesulfame and Velositol. I have no idea whether any of these compounds have any adverse effects on the human body! This class has made me a more careful consumer and has made me contemplate whether using these products will really benefit my health in the long run.
An issue that I had related to food consumption growing up was that my father forced me to eat a Kosher diet due to his strong religious beliefs. This diet, which restricts followers from eating pork, shellfish, or meals containing both meat and diary products, has been passed down through generations of Jewish people. As a child, I was skeptical of the importance of this diet and grew angry with my father for preventing me from trying new things. I was so jealous of my friends when they would order crispy bacon, sizzling shrimp and juicy cheeseburgers. It felt unfair to me that my father made my decisions regarding food consumption, even though I did not believe there was a logical reason to keep Kosher. Ultimately my father let me eat as I pleased outside of our house, and I respected his values and kept kosher in our house. I grew from this experience, learning to respect the beliefs of others while standing up for what I believed in.
And while I have stood by my beliefs ever since this experience with my father, recently reading Eating Animals by Jonathon Safran Foer has opened my eyes to the horrible treatment of livestock in modern food production. Foer explains the awful conditions that the chickens were living in on a farm he snuck into. He saw countless dead chickens, others with broken beaks and sores, and noted that they all lived in tight spaces with no room to walk around. “C,” or the activist who accompanied Foer in the farm, said, “These factory farmers calculate how close to death they can keep the animals without killing them. That’s the business model. How quickly can they be made to grow, how tightly can they be packed, how much or little can they eat, how sick can they get without dying” (Foer 92-93). It became clearer to me after reading this book that current food production companies treat animals more like products and less like living creatures. It was only then that I realized that keeping Kosher had much more than a “logical” explanation. Jews that choose to follow this custom not only have faith in God’s will but place considerable value in the ethical treatment of animals. Animals used to produce kosher meat are raised and slaughtered in the most painless way possible and are blessed by a Rabbi. I didn’t think about this when I persistently argued with my father about how illogical and unreasonable it was to keep kosher. Now, I regret being so one-sided in my protest of the custom. While I still eat pork and shellfish, I now eat kosher chicken and turkey if it is available, as it is important to me that the animals I consume are killed in an ethical way. Beyond consumption, reflecting on my change of heart about keeping Kosher has taught me a valuable lesson about jumping to conclusions. I plan on taking more time in my life to consider that many religious customs and social trends have their pros and cons, and to not be so quick to make simplistic judgements.
And while I have stood by my beliefs ever since this experience with my father, recently reading Eating Animals by Jonathon Safran Foer has opened my eyes to the horrible treatment of livestock in modern food production. Foer explains the awful conditions that the chickens were living in on a farm he snuck into. He saw countless dead chickens, others with broken beaks and sores, and noted that they all lived in tight spaces with no room to walk around. “C,” or the activist who accompanied Foer in the farm, said, “These factory farmers calculate how close to death they can keep the animals without killing them. That’s the business model. How quickly can they be made to grow, how tightly can they be packed, how much or little can they eat, how sick can they get without dying” (Foer 92-93). It became clearer to me after reading this book that current food production companies treat animals more like products and less like living creatures. It was only then that I realized that keeping Kosher had much more than a “logical” explanation. Jews that choose to follow this custom not only have faith in God’s will but place considerable value in the ethical treatment of animals. Animals used to produce kosher meat are raised and slaughtered in the most painless way possible and are blessed by a Rabbi. I didn’t think about this when I persistently argued with my father about how illogical and unreasonable it was to keep kosher. Now, I regret being so one-sided in my protest of the custom. While I still eat pork and shellfish, I now eat kosher chicken and turkey if it is available, as it is important to me that the animals I consume are killed in an ethical way. Beyond consumption, reflecting on my change of heart about keeping Kosher has taught me a valuable lesson about jumping to conclusions. I plan on taking more time in my life to consider that many religious customs and social trends have their pros and cons, and to not be so quick to make simplistic judgements.
In my original Food Autobiography, I also addressed the effect that modern food culture had on developing my attitudes towards food and wealth. Growing up in the suburbs in New Jersey, I often accompanied my family members to industrial food markets, fast-food chains and restaurants. It was uncommon for families to grow their own produce or purchase meat from a family farm. Frequently going to restaurants and shopping at supermarkets caused me to grow accustomed to purchasing whatever kind of food I wanted whenever I wanted it. The thought of growing my own food or struggling to provide for my own meals was foreign to me. Food was always just there, always available and never too expensive. I realized in my early teenage years that I was taking for granted how fortunate I was, and that billions of other people on this planet did not even have the luxury of eating a nutritious meal each day (let alone ordering from a Diner menu). Ever since that realization I have tried to purchase fewer industrialized products and eat at fewer restaurants, but despite my best efforts, I became more comfortable participating in modern food culture over time. It is often very difficult to be a college student while consuming conservatively. I still eat at chain restaurants, like Panera and Jimmy Johns, and still shop at supermarkets like Walmart. With time constraints set by jobs, class, and social gatherings, these locations are logical options. Often times I will go out to eat with friends even though I have dinner waiting for me at home, as I like to spend time with friends and honestly enjoy the taste of industrial food.
And although I have continued to participate in the modern food industry, learning about the negative impacts that food production and consumption have on our environment and our society has caused the largest change in me this semester. Most dramatically, I learned that most of the issues with current consumption are caused by the food industry, which continues to knowingly abuse livestock, the environment, workers, and even its consumers to make money. I learned that meat production accounts for about a third of carbon emissions on the planet, significantly contributes to the negative effects of Climate Change and is utilizing about a quarter of the earth’s surface to produce grain for livestock feed. These abundant plant resources and available land should be used to feed our growing population, not to drive profits for the meat industry. Meat has always been an important part of my diet, but now I constantly feel like a hypocrite while taking a bite of grilled chicken because I know that we need to reduce our meat consumption! Plant agriculture is not free of flaws either. In the movie we watched in class titled, The Harvest, we saw poor migrant farmers suffering from poverty, obesity, and other health problems related to their harsh living and working conditions. Workers, including children, would struggle all day in the fields only to bring home several dollars. Their wages are so meager because large corporations only pay farmers, the migrants’ employers, so little. Now I want to eat less meat and more vegetables to reduce my carbon footprint, but I know that eating bagged produce from name brands contributes to human suffering too! Should I stick to processed foods because they cause less harm to animals and workers? NO! Production companies deliberately create foods that are cheap, unhealthy and addictive to rake in profits. Corporations increase the demand for these products and consequently increase the price of healthier products, like fresh vegetables. For this reason, food deserts evolve in impoverished neighborhoods because businesses know better than to market these healthy and expensive items to those that cannot pay for them. This results in the less fortunate members of our society gaining massive amounts of weight, developing health problems and living shorter lives. After learning about the food industry and all its vices, I have a hard time eating the way I used to. Thoughts of being a part of this flawed system continue to fill my mind as each bite fills my stomach.
Overall, this class has motivated me to change several of my consumer behaviors and has profoundly altered my attitudes towards food. My previous autobiography was titled, “I am What I Eat.” After learning so much this semester, I seriously hope that is not the case. I have grown to hate being a part of a system that profits from waste and pollution and neglects the needs of billions of people on this planet. But rather than feeling hopeless, I am determined to make a difference in any way that I can. Since the start of the semester, I have stopped eating red meat and continue to educate my peers about my concerns with food production. And even though I may not grow up to be an advocate for the reform of the food system, I now know where my priorities lie regarding future food policy as I become an effective, voting member of society.
Pandora's Lunchbox Email
Dear Mom,
I am writing to you today to tell you about a book I read in my ISS class. This book, by Melanie Warner, is titled, “Pandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food took over the American Meal,” and it speaks about the many uncertainties and drawbacks of the industrial food system. Warner defines a “processed food” as “something that could not be made, with the same ingredients, in a home kitchen." In other words, these foods go through many physical and chemical processes which involve many different compounds that the average home cook would be unable to utilize. Warner gives an in-depth report on many of these processed food items, and sheds light on the negative effects that mass-production processes and added ingredients have on the health and well-being of the public.
One issue that Warner tackles in her exposé is the trade-off of the nutritional value of certain foods for efficiency in production and profitability. Many of the foods that Warner researched once contained many natural, healthy ingredients. However, cost-efficient factory processes and chemical modifications have led to an increasing amount of affordable unhealthy foods. Warner heavily researched common breakfast cereals, which are examples of foods that once contained large amounts of fiber, vitamins and whole-grains and now consist mainly of artificial vitamins, additives, and lots of sugars. Older cereal production processes involved time consuming and hands-on crafting, which was great for nutrient content but not for efficiency and shelf-life. "Gun-puffing," a technology brought to market by Quaker Oats in 1904, made cereal appear about eight times larger than it truly was and decreased the amount of nutrients in each bite. Later technologies, like extrusion steaming machines, slashed the time it took to produce cereal while severely diminishing vitamin content. People now believe that these cereals are like many of the so called, “healthy” processed foods that Warner talks about later in her book, which people feel they can continue to eat without any consequences. And while it is possible to mass-produce healthier cereals with a gentler steaming process that would not make vitamins and nutrients vulnerable, cost-efficient methods of mass-producing sugary cereals generate such high profits that many companies wouldn’t even think about making the switch. The continued production of unhealthy foods driven by corporate greed relates to another article I read in class by Michael Moss, titled, “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food.” Moss writes, “What I found … was a conscious effort – taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles – to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive." He too sees the negative effects that companies are having on the health of the consumer population by mass producing unhealthy and addictive foods, and like Warner wants consumers and food corporations to shift their focus towards healthier options.
Another issue that Warner analyzes is the lack of transparency in the industrial food system regarding what ingredients are added to our foods and the safety of those ingredients. One food that Warner focuses on is Subway’s bread, which is made up of many more ingredients than consumers are aware of. Subway’s dough is mass-produced and as a result is infused with many strange ingredients that Warner refers to as “dough conditioners,” such as sodium stearoyl lactylate. Another kind of chemical used in Subway’s white and sourdough breads is called azodicarbonamide, which gives each loaf of bread a distinct and perfect look. This chemical, as Warner writes, “has probably been used to make the soles of your shoes and the floor mats you walk on at the gym." Mom, were you aware that the same chemical used to create the floor mats at Crunch Fitness was used to make the Subway sandwiches we ate for so many years? According to Warner, neither were most people. And we have no idea what kinds of effects these chemicals have on our bodies! Now you might be wondering, 'If food companies aren't aware of the potential harms that certain chemical compounds could have on our health, why would they add such chemicals to our food?' The reason that these chemicals are added to our foods relates back to the efficiency and profitability of mass-production. It is entirely possible for Subway's employees to simply bake bread from flour, salt, water and yeast. But here's the catch, Mom; Receiving pre-made, preserved dough from a large distributor allows Subway to minimize the amount of time needed to prepare their bread for purchase, to ensure that all loaves meet specific visual and textural standards, and to maximize productivity. Baking bread from scratch in stores could take hours, and loaves could easily be burned or flattened. So let me ask you, Mom, would you rather wait on a longer line to take a gamble on whether Subway burned your bread or be in-and-out of Subway in five minutes while taking a gamble on your health? This is the kind of question that Warner encourages us to ask ourselves, and I urge you to start thinking about the safety of your food when you are eating out or shopping at a supermarket.
Overall, I agree with Warner in that the current industrial food system does not have the best interest of the consumer at heart. Therefore, it is up to us, Mom, as consumers to make the right choices about what foods to purchase and consume based on nutritional value. While I do think that Warner may overemphasize the danger of the many food additives she listed with long chemical names, I do believe that we have the right to be informed about what is added to our food regardless of the possible threats to company profits. Federal agencies, like the Food and Drug Association (FDA), have not done a great job of monitoring the additives that are introduced to our foods because they want to allow the food industry to continue to make money. As a result, the FDA provides no incentive for companies to self-regulate their food-additives, and it is nearly impossible to know if the thousands of additives that food production companies use are safe for us to eat. I believe stricter regulations are necessary to ensure the health of all consumers. I also feel that many of the products available to us today are unnatural and nowhere near as nutritious as organic, non-processed foods. In her final chapter, Warner relates to the common consumer and expresses that she too would often resort to ready-made foods for her family when times were tight. But she thinks that if we put just a little more of our time and money into to cooking primarily at home, we would do wonders for our bodies. Chelsea Fagan, the author of “The Financial Diet: A total Beginner’s Guide to Getting Good with Money,” sees the financial, nutritional, and personal value of cooking for oneself. She, like Warner, believes that cooking at home is possible, and lays out lists of cooking advice, tools, and healthy ingredients that anyone can use to make delicious, affordable, and nutritious food for themselves.
I hope this email has opened your eyes to the questionable actions of the food industry. So next time you are at the supermarket shopping, check the ingredients on a prepackaged meal and ask yourself, could I make this myself? And if the answer is yes, try to find fresh ingredients to make that dish! Chances are, it would hold much more nutritional value and contain fewer potentially harmful additives.
See you soon!
Love,
Zack
I am writing to you today to tell you about a book I read in my ISS class. This book, by Melanie Warner, is titled, “Pandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food took over the American Meal,” and it speaks about the many uncertainties and drawbacks of the industrial food system. Warner defines a “processed food” as “something that could not be made, with the same ingredients, in a home kitchen." In other words, these foods go through many physical and chemical processes which involve many different compounds that the average home cook would be unable to utilize. Warner gives an in-depth report on many of these processed food items, and sheds light on the negative effects that mass-production processes and added ingredients have on the health and well-being of the public.
One issue that Warner tackles in her exposé is the trade-off of the nutritional value of certain foods for efficiency in production and profitability. Many of the foods that Warner researched once contained many natural, healthy ingredients. However, cost-efficient factory processes and chemical modifications have led to an increasing amount of affordable unhealthy foods. Warner heavily researched common breakfast cereals, which are examples of foods that once contained large amounts of fiber, vitamins and whole-grains and now consist mainly of artificial vitamins, additives, and lots of sugars. Older cereal production processes involved time consuming and hands-on crafting, which was great for nutrient content but not for efficiency and shelf-life. "Gun-puffing," a technology brought to market by Quaker Oats in 1904, made cereal appear about eight times larger than it truly was and decreased the amount of nutrients in each bite. Later technologies, like extrusion steaming machines, slashed the time it took to produce cereal while severely diminishing vitamin content. People now believe that these cereals are like many of the so called, “healthy” processed foods that Warner talks about later in her book, which people feel they can continue to eat without any consequences. And while it is possible to mass-produce healthier cereals with a gentler steaming process that would not make vitamins and nutrients vulnerable, cost-efficient methods of mass-producing sugary cereals generate such high profits that many companies wouldn’t even think about making the switch. The continued production of unhealthy foods driven by corporate greed relates to another article I read in class by Michael Moss, titled, “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food.” Moss writes, “What I found … was a conscious effort – taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles – to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive." He too sees the negative effects that companies are having on the health of the consumer population by mass producing unhealthy and addictive foods, and like Warner wants consumers and food corporations to shift their focus towards healthier options.
Another issue that Warner analyzes is the lack of transparency in the industrial food system regarding what ingredients are added to our foods and the safety of those ingredients. One food that Warner focuses on is Subway’s bread, which is made up of many more ingredients than consumers are aware of. Subway’s dough is mass-produced and as a result is infused with many strange ingredients that Warner refers to as “dough conditioners,” such as sodium stearoyl lactylate. Another kind of chemical used in Subway’s white and sourdough breads is called azodicarbonamide, which gives each loaf of bread a distinct and perfect look. This chemical, as Warner writes, “has probably been used to make the soles of your shoes and the floor mats you walk on at the gym." Mom, were you aware that the same chemical used to create the floor mats at Crunch Fitness was used to make the Subway sandwiches we ate for so many years? According to Warner, neither were most people. And we have no idea what kinds of effects these chemicals have on our bodies! Now you might be wondering, 'If food companies aren't aware of the potential harms that certain chemical compounds could have on our health, why would they add such chemicals to our food?' The reason that these chemicals are added to our foods relates back to the efficiency and profitability of mass-production. It is entirely possible for Subway's employees to simply bake bread from flour, salt, water and yeast. But here's the catch, Mom; Receiving pre-made, preserved dough from a large distributor allows Subway to minimize the amount of time needed to prepare their bread for purchase, to ensure that all loaves meet specific visual and textural standards, and to maximize productivity. Baking bread from scratch in stores could take hours, and loaves could easily be burned or flattened. So let me ask you, Mom, would you rather wait on a longer line to take a gamble on whether Subway burned your bread or be in-and-out of Subway in five minutes while taking a gamble on your health? This is the kind of question that Warner encourages us to ask ourselves, and I urge you to start thinking about the safety of your food when you are eating out or shopping at a supermarket.
Overall, I agree with Warner in that the current industrial food system does not have the best interest of the consumer at heart. Therefore, it is up to us, Mom, as consumers to make the right choices about what foods to purchase and consume based on nutritional value. While I do think that Warner may overemphasize the danger of the many food additives she listed with long chemical names, I do believe that we have the right to be informed about what is added to our food regardless of the possible threats to company profits. Federal agencies, like the Food and Drug Association (FDA), have not done a great job of monitoring the additives that are introduced to our foods because they want to allow the food industry to continue to make money. As a result, the FDA provides no incentive for companies to self-regulate their food-additives, and it is nearly impossible to know if the thousands of additives that food production companies use are safe for us to eat. I believe stricter regulations are necessary to ensure the health of all consumers. I also feel that many of the products available to us today are unnatural and nowhere near as nutritious as organic, non-processed foods. In her final chapter, Warner relates to the common consumer and expresses that she too would often resort to ready-made foods for her family when times were tight. But she thinks that if we put just a little more of our time and money into to cooking primarily at home, we would do wonders for our bodies. Chelsea Fagan, the author of “The Financial Diet: A total Beginner’s Guide to Getting Good with Money,” sees the financial, nutritional, and personal value of cooking for oneself. She, like Warner, believes that cooking at home is possible, and lays out lists of cooking advice, tools, and healthy ingredients that anyone can use to make delicious, affordable, and nutritious food for themselves.
I hope this email has opened your eyes to the questionable actions of the food industry. So next time you are at the supermarket shopping, check the ingredients on a prepackaged meal and ask yourself, could I make this myself? And if the answer is yes, try to find fresh ingredients to make that dish! Chances are, it would hold much more nutritional value and contain fewer potentially harmful additives.
See you soon!
Love,
Zack
TOPIC EXPLORER PROJECT: Meat Production, Climate Change, and Population Growth
My topic: I am researching the impacts that the production of meat has on our world climate, how we can reduce these impacts, and why it is so important to alter our consumer behavior to sustain our world population in the future.\
Podcast:
The podcast I listened to was titled, “Eat less steak and ice cream,” and was featured on The Current from CBC Radio on October 11th, 2018. Anna Maria Tremonti, the host of the podcast, led an involved discussion with Evan Fraser, the director of the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph in Canada, Ron Bennet, the President of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and Samuel Meyers, the Director of the Planetary Health Alliance and a researcher at Harvard University, about the effects that production of meat has on climate and the impacts that climate change has on growing crops. When discussing the future of food production and climate, Fraser said that we will have to produce a lot more food when our population reaches about 9.7 billion people in 2050 and suggested that reducing the carbon footprint of animal agriculture and shifting consumer behavior toward plant-based protein sources would slow the rate of the rising global temperature. Bonnet was asked what was being done to reduce the climate impacts of meat production, and he responded that a lot is being done to reduce the carbon footprint of animal agriculture, including a system of rotational grazing that produces twice as much meat per acre than practices fifteen years ago. Tremonti and Meyers discussed the impacts of climate change on growing crops, which Meyers noted was worrisome. Meyers explained that rising levels of carbon dioxide have actually reduced the key nutrients in many staple crops and noted these reductions will lead to malnutrition and illness in the future as the world population will most likely have to shift toward a plant-based diet in order to remain sustainable. This podcast was very useful for my topic and gave me a lot of insight into the challenges that our population and agricultural sectors will face in this century. The podcast also enlightened me about effects of current climate change issues on crop production, which poses a problem to the solution of eating a plant-based diet as nutrients are being reduced.
Podcast:
The podcast I listened to was titled, “Eat less steak and ice cream,” and was featured on The Current from CBC Radio on October 11th, 2018. Anna Maria Tremonti, the host of the podcast, led an involved discussion with Evan Fraser, the director of the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph in Canada, Ron Bennet, the President of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and Samuel Meyers, the Director of the Planetary Health Alliance and a researcher at Harvard University, about the effects that production of meat has on climate and the impacts that climate change has on growing crops. When discussing the future of food production and climate, Fraser said that we will have to produce a lot more food when our population reaches about 9.7 billion people in 2050 and suggested that reducing the carbon footprint of animal agriculture and shifting consumer behavior toward plant-based protein sources would slow the rate of the rising global temperature. Bonnet was asked what was being done to reduce the climate impacts of meat production, and he responded that a lot is being done to reduce the carbon footprint of animal agriculture, including a system of rotational grazing that produces twice as much meat per acre than practices fifteen years ago. Tremonti and Meyers discussed the impacts of climate change on growing crops, which Meyers noted was worrisome. Meyers explained that rising levels of carbon dioxide have actually reduced the key nutrients in many staple crops and noted these reductions will lead to malnutrition and illness in the future as the world population will most likely have to shift toward a plant-based diet in order to remain sustainable. This podcast was very useful for my topic and gave me a lot of insight into the challenges that our population and agricultural sectors will face in this century. The podcast also enlightened me about effects of current climate change issues on crop production, which poses a problem to the solution of eating a plant-based diet as nutrients are being reduced.
Book: Agriculture, Climate Change and Food Security in the 21st Century by Lewis H. Ziska, 2017
In his introduction, Ziska explains the need for education and outreach in regards climate change and future food acquisition. Overall, the point of his introduction was that “the science of how we obtain our bread (food), without destroying the environment that provides it, is fundamental to whether civilization endures” (Ziska xii). In the third chapter of the fourth section of his book, called “Farm to Fork to Fill,” Ziska talks about the issues with our current trends in food consumption and the impacts of those trends on the climate. Eating a large quantity of processed foods and meat-based proteins requires a large amount of fossil fuels and involves clearcutting forests to create areas for plantations and grazing. Greenhouse gas emissions, including methane and nitrous oxide, are largely emitted from livestock and contributes to Global Warming Potential (GWP). Ziska wrote that instead of consuming so much meat and utilizing our resources to produce livestock, we should devote our resources to growing basic staple crops to feed the increasing population. He argues, “Yes, modern industrial agriculture, with its emphasis on CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), can allow you to raise about 250 pounds of beef on one acre – which is impressive – until you consider that you can grow 53,000 pounds of potatoes on that same acre. In simple math terms, one omnivorous meat-eating human requires 3 acres of land – land that can support 20 vegans” (Ziska 182). He suggests that to shift from consuming so much meat, we should eat fewer mammals, which produce far more methane than fish and fowl, and should avoid eating meat on certain days during the weak. He urges the world’s population to work together to reduce food waste, which would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve food security (Ziska 191). This book taught me a lot about the status of climate issues and how food production processes influence these issues. Additionally, this book provided many examples of ways we can begin to reduce the impacts that food production has on climate change.
News Articles
I read three recent news articles relating to my topic of meat production on climate change. The first, titled “Less Beef, Less Carbon” by Sujatha Jahagirdar, focused on the magnitude of climate pollutants that result from production of red meats, or meats from cows, sheep, goats and pigs. While Jahagirdar noted that beef consumption in America has slightly declined in recent years, we as a population still consume far more beef than is nutritionally recommended or necessary, resulting in consequences for global climate (Jahagirdar par 10). Jahagirdar suggests that our population focus on preparing “plant forward” meals, which center meals around plants and include meats as supporting flavors, and that meat industries should promote healthier diets and shift away from red meat-heavy menus (Jahagirdar par 11 and 12). The second article I read was titled, “Huge reduction in meat-eating ‘essential’ to avoid climate breakdown,” and the author, Damian Carrington, talks about a need for policy and action in changing the way that consumers eat and that food is produced. Carrington presents a multitude of figures about the effects of meat production on global warming. He writes that to keep global warming from exceeding a harmful level, the average person needs to significantly decrease their consumption of beef, pork, and eggs and increase their consumption of plants and nuts (Carrington par 9). He stresses that more government action, education, taxes, and subsidies are necessary to help shift the global diet to be more plant based. The final article I read, titled “The Giant Corporations Behind Your Burgers and Milk Have A Terrifying Climate Secret” by Tom Levitt focuses on the impacts that large food production industries have on climate change and the potential for them to reduce their impacts. Levitt explains that the food sector is responsible for almost a third of all greenhouse gas emissions on earth, and that companies have largely not done enough to reduce their environmental impact. These articles were all very helpful in giving me more information about my topic. The first two presented gave me more information about current food production issues, and the last gave me insight into the impacts that large corporations have on climate change.
Topic Potential
I believe that this topic has the potential to be a great presentation to the class and to motivate my peers to investigate the issue on their own time. Food production, diet modifications, and climate change have serious potential for policy proposals – especially in the coming years – and are increasingly important topics to discuss as our world population continues to grow. If we are going to sustain a population of close to ten billion people by 2050, changes must be made in the way that our society produces and consumes food. This topic is so important because it addresses one of the most pressing issues that will plague our generation in the future, and it is important to inform my peers about this issue so that we are better prepared as a voting base and public when it comes time to demand change. There is a plethora of information about this issue, both online and at the library, as so many scientists and professionals realize the significance of the problem at hand. While I have already read a lot about the status of our climate and the impacts that meat production has on climate change, I would like to read more about policy that has been proposed or enacted to reduce the impacts of meat production on climate change both in our country and around the world. I find it hard to believe that so many people turn a blind eye to this problem, thinking that because its effects will not be seen until 2050 it will not affect them. This is the wrong way to approach this issue, and I am interested in finding out more about the ways we can reduce the impacts that meat production has on our climate so I can educate those around me. I believe that my views align with those of Lewis Ziska, the author of the book I chose, “Agriculture, Climate Change and Food Security in the 21st Century,” when he says, “Ignorance is the antithesis of science. It steals time, energy and resources; it takes hard work, dedication and constant struggle to negate it. It robs from future generations, it disrupts, it perverts. Finally, and most frightening, when it comes to agricultural science, and our ability to provide food for 7.5 million people currently, (and 9-10 billion by mid-century), it starves. It kills.” (Ziska xi-xii). I am so passionate about this topic because people are not aware of how serious it is, and I want to do anything I can to aid in finding a solution to this problem before it is too late.
Work Cited
Carrington, Damian. “Huge reduction in meat-eating ‘essential’ to avoid climate breakdown.” The Guardian, 10 October 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/10/huge-reduction-in-meat-eating-essential-to-avoid-climate-breakdown. Accessed 11 October 2018.
“Eat less steak and ice cream: What climate change means for the food you love.” The Current from CBC Radio, 11 October 2018.
Jahagirdar, Sujatha. “Less Beef, Less Carbon.” National Resources Defense Council, 22 March 2017, https://www.nrdc.org/experts/sujatha-jahagirdar/less-beef-less-carbon. Accessed 11 October 2018.
Levitt, Tom. “The Giant Corporations behind Your Burgers and Milk Have a Terrifying Climate Secret.” The Huffington Post, 12 October 2018. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cargill-tyson-food-companies-climate-change_us_5bbf272de4b0b27cf47aed47. Accessed 13 October 2018.
Ziska, Lewis H. Agriculture, Climate Change and Food Security in the 21st Century: Our Daily Bread. Edition 1. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 1 December 2017. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/lib/michstate-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5231596. Accessed 11 October 2018.
GROCERY ETHNOGRAPHY
In analyzing the different settings that customers purchase food, I visited three different locations to see how the customers interacted with sellers and other customers as well as the difference in product characteristics, such as packaging and pricing.
The first location I went to was Walmart. Walmart – the superstore of America – has close to anything a customer could dream of purchasing, including food products and other supplies. The store itself is massive and includes many aisles of food supplies designated by type of product. The first aisles visible to the customer contain frozen meals, candy, beer, milk, cheese, soda and chips, which are strategically placed to entice their customers to purchase those goods. Walmart executives and marketing professionals organized their aisles like this for a reason that was similar to what I read in the book, Agriculture, Climate Change and Food Security in the 21st Century by Lewis Ziska. Ziska says that supermarkets organize their stores like a “mouse-trap,” concealing the healthier products, such as vegetables and grains, on the outskirts of the store and displaying the colorful, cheap and well-known processed foods in the center for customers to pass on their way to other sections. While Walmart does have some produce, meats, and grains, their focus is clearly on making profits by selling affordable and popular foods to a consumer population that most likely is conservative with their spending. The prices at Walmart are significantly lower than at a Farmer’s Market or at a local food store, and the products are mostly packaged and belong to big-name brands. The customers at Walmart came from all walks of life, many wearing t-shirts and jeans, others wearing uniforms from day jobs, and some shopping on their way home from the office wearing suits. The customers most often kept to themselves, asking a staff member for help when they needed to and purchasing their goods with haste. Overall, Walmart felt like a place that consumers visited because it was convenient, cheap and accessible. I felt that Walmart was drawing in its consumers with its low prices, and ultimately making a massive amount of money due to the low cost of the products it sold. They choose to sell a majority of processed goods, which are so cheap because they are made up of many low-cost additives and a decreasing amount of substantial nutrients. In his article titled, "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food," author Michael Moss quotes Bob Drane, once the Vice President of new business strategy and development at Oscar Mayer, about why popular products cost so little. Drane, then retired and disappointed in what he had once been a part of, commented, "Our limbic brains love sugar, fat, salt... So formulate products to deliver these. Perhaps add low-cost ingredients to boost profit margins. Then 'supersize' to sell more...And advertise/promote to lock in 'heavy users"" (Moss 11-12). Superstores like Walmart capitalize on all of the choices that large production companies like Oscar Mayer make to lower prices, and continue to attract customers that have become the "heavy users" that Drane mentions.
The next location I visited was the East Lansing Farmer’s Market. The market was small, unlike Walmart, and was made up of about a dozen tents in a parking lot. The products, which included a variety of fresh produce, cheeses and even soaps, were all produced by those who were selling the products in the tents. Each tent had a poster with prices and the name of their farm or small business. While these prices were significantly higher than those at Walmart, I got to enjoy the luxury of speaking face-to-face with the people responsible for making the food I was purchasing. I spoke with a man representing Hickory Knoll Farms about why his cheese was so fresh and tasty, and he explained to me that his cheese was “Farmstead Cheese,” meaning it was produced at the same location that the cows and goats produced milk. The higher prices indicated to me that these products were natural and unprocessed, which reassured me about the quality of my food. The prices were higher because the local vendors did not have access to large production plants, chemical additives or preservative packaging. The vendors could only produce a certain amount of goods, and even after that could only sell the items that looked fresh enough to be purchased. This reminded me of what we watched in “The Harvest” during class. In the video, we saw that the farmers sorted through the produce they picked, only selecting fruits and vegetables suitable to be marketed and sold to consumers. While the higher prices of the products did make me spend my money more conservatively, having the knowledge that my food was fresh and healthy was worth the few extra bucks. The customers at the Farmer’s market were all very friendly, stopping to talk to one another about things that were going on in their lives and products they had sampled around the market. The sellers actively engaged with the customers, attempting to sell their products while still being friendly and engaging in conversation. This was very different than the employees at Walmart, who would only engage with the customers if the customers asked them questions. I felt as if the Farmer’s Market was targeting individuals who were passionate about eating organic foods and pulled those consumers in with colorful posters and friendly attitudes.
The first location I went to was Walmart. Walmart – the superstore of America – has close to anything a customer could dream of purchasing, including food products and other supplies. The store itself is massive and includes many aisles of food supplies designated by type of product. The first aisles visible to the customer contain frozen meals, candy, beer, milk, cheese, soda and chips, which are strategically placed to entice their customers to purchase those goods. Walmart executives and marketing professionals organized their aisles like this for a reason that was similar to what I read in the book, Agriculture, Climate Change and Food Security in the 21st Century by Lewis Ziska. Ziska says that supermarkets organize their stores like a “mouse-trap,” concealing the healthier products, such as vegetables and grains, on the outskirts of the store and displaying the colorful, cheap and well-known processed foods in the center for customers to pass on their way to other sections. While Walmart does have some produce, meats, and grains, their focus is clearly on making profits by selling affordable and popular foods to a consumer population that most likely is conservative with their spending. The prices at Walmart are significantly lower than at a Farmer’s Market or at a local food store, and the products are mostly packaged and belong to big-name brands. The customers at Walmart came from all walks of life, many wearing t-shirts and jeans, others wearing uniforms from day jobs, and some shopping on their way home from the office wearing suits. The customers most often kept to themselves, asking a staff member for help when they needed to and purchasing their goods with haste. Overall, Walmart felt like a place that consumers visited because it was convenient, cheap and accessible. I felt that Walmart was drawing in its consumers with its low prices, and ultimately making a massive amount of money due to the low cost of the products it sold. They choose to sell a majority of processed goods, which are so cheap because they are made up of many low-cost additives and a decreasing amount of substantial nutrients. In his article titled, "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food," author Michael Moss quotes Bob Drane, once the Vice President of new business strategy and development at Oscar Mayer, about why popular products cost so little. Drane, then retired and disappointed in what he had once been a part of, commented, "Our limbic brains love sugar, fat, salt... So formulate products to deliver these. Perhaps add low-cost ingredients to boost profit margins. Then 'supersize' to sell more...And advertise/promote to lock in 'heavy users"" (Moss 11-12). Superstores like Walmart capitalize on all of the choices that large production companies like Oscar Mayer make to lower prices, and continue to attract customers that have become the "heavy users" that Drane mentions.
The next location I visited was the East Lansing Farmer’s Market. The market was small, unlike Walmart, and was made up of about a dozen tents in a parking lot. The products, which included a variety of fresh produce, cheeses and even soaps, were all produced by those who were selling the products in the tents. Each tent had a poster with prices and the name of their farm or small business. While these prices were significantly higher than those at Walmart, I got to enjoy the luxury of speaking face-to-face with the people responsible for making the food I was purchasing. I spoke with a man representing Hickory Knoll Farms about why his cheese was so fresh and tasty, and he explained to me that his cheese was “Farmstead Cheese,” meaning it was produced at the same location that the cows and goats produced milk. The higher prices indicated to me that these products were natural and unprocessed, which reassured me about the quality of my food. The prices were higher because the local vendors did not have access to large production plants, chemical additives or preservative packaging. The vendors could only produce a certain amount of goods, and even after that could only sell the items that looked fresh enough to be purchased. This reminded me of what we watched in “The Harvest” during class. In the video, we saw that the farmers sorted through the produce they picked, only selecting fruits and vegetables suitable to be marketed and sold to consumers. While the higher prices of the products did make me spend my money more conservatively, having the knowledge that my food was fresh and healthy was worth the few extra bucks. The customers at the Farmer’s market were all very friendly, stopping to talk to one another about things that were going on in their lives and products they had sampled around the market. The sellers actively engaged with the customers, attempting to sell their products while still being friendly and engaging in conversation. This was very different than the employees at Walmart, who would only engage with the customers if the customers asked them questions. I felt as if the Farmer’s Market was targeting individuals who were passionate about eating organic foods and pulled those consumers in with colorful posters and friendly attitudes.
The last destination I visited was the Fresh Thyme market in East Lansing. What I found was a setting similar to a supermarket, but with different organization and products. Upon entering, I immediately saw fresh produce, cheeses, grains, and nuts, with aisles of packaged food in the far corner of the store. The layout of the store was designed quite differently than Walmart, which featured its processed foods first. I found that the amount of big name-brand products in this store was far less than at Walmart, with the largest brands being Tropicana and Nature Valley. Most of the products looked like healthier alternatives to cheaper products you might find at a Walmart, as shown in the picture above comparing the chip and soda aisle at Walmart to its healthy alternative at Fresh Thyme. Most of the products displayed images of vegetables or grains, and included bolded words like "FRESH" or "ORGANIC." Additionally, much of the packaging at Fresh Thyme was considerably more revealing than at Walmart. I could actually see the food items that I was shopping for, and that made me feel as if the goal of the store was to actually sell me food rather than to simply make money. That being said, the products all seemed more packaged and processed than the items at the Farmer's Market, which often had no packaging at all. Prices were higher than at Walmart but lower than at the Farmer’s Market, signaling that these products were more organic than those at Walmart but not as wholesome as those at the Farmer’s Market. I imagine that these products came from a larger farm than the items that were sold at the Farmer's Market and produced locally. The food was most likely slightly processed, having been preserved to sit on the shelf at Fresh Thyme. The customers at Fresh Thyme mostly kept to themselves, but asked employees more about the products and seemed as if they were not in a rush, browsing the products that they most desired. Overall, the store seemed to be an efficient location for buying fresh and healthy foods. It seemed to target those who live more affluently than the shoppers at Walmart, who care about the quality of food that they purchase but at the same time enjoy the convenience of supermarket structure.
Overall, this assignment allowed me to analyze my own decisions as a consumer and forced me to contemplate whether I would be better off changing my current choices. Prior to completing this assignment, I have frequently gone to superstores like Walmart and Meijer to quickly pick up things that I need at an affordable price. After learning more about what goes into the food I consume, I am strongly considering shopping at stores like Fresh Thyme more often. While I would love to purchase all of my food from a Farmer's Market, I do not think that I can afford to pay for the diligence and care that comes with locally grown food on a weekly basis. That being said, I found that I enjoyed learning about the food I was shopping for and that having a greater knowledge of how my food was produced increase my enjoyment of the products I purchased. I think that shopping at a store like Fresh Thyme will provide a comfortable middle ground for me economically and will increase my satisfaction as a customer. There, I can find affordable, healthy products and talk to employees who can tell me more about their products.