Researching Food

I have never really thought about what and why I eat it, this course made me really think about every aspect of a meal, which I believe makes me enjoy every meal more. It is interesting to see what you can see at a restaurant if you are actually looking for it. Overall, this course was a lot of fun even though I was always starving mid way through the class. But to what I actually learned, this course made research a lot easier because I learned where to go and how to use it. One of my major weaknesses is the fact that i will just drop a quote into a paragraph and not explain it to its full potential. After doing many rewrite, I am now able to use quotes more efficiently and make them mesh with my papers more. The Food topic made this class much more enjoy able because it was not just tedious research, it was learning about what we wanted to talk about and being able to bring it into whatever aspect of writing we needed too. In the future, I plan to use all thing elements of writing that i learned in this course to apply to all other aspects of writing. These aspects may not be as fun, but it will be useful so I do not have to spend extra time on something.

Happy Meals are not happy

Dupuis puts more of his emphasis on the fact that history changes. When the economy was completely built on farmers, it was easy to eat natural foods. This is obvious because the people eating it without the use of pesticides and chemicals grew everything that was eaten. It is also true that the plants were not genetically changed for mass production. As history progressed, less people started to grow their own food and they begin to relay on other people to make their food. This began to change when people started to mass-produce food in factories and the meat packing business. The meat packing industry was one of the biggest problems with American Food which I felt like was left out of this essay. Upton Sinclair wrote a book about the meat packing industry and the best way it has been descripted was by him in his book;

"All day long the blazing midsummer sun beat down upon that square mile of abominations: upon tens of thousands of cattle crowded into pens whose wooden floors stank and steamed contagion; upon bare, blistering, cinder-strewn railroad tracks and huge blocks of dingy meat factories, whose labyrinthine passages defied a breath of fresh air to penetrate them; and there are not merely rivers of hot blood and carloads of moist flesh, and rendering-vats and soup cauldrons, glue-factories and fertilizer tanks, that smelt like the craters of hell-there are also tons of garbage festering in the sun, and the greasy laundry of the workers hung out to dry and dining rooms littered with food black with flies, and toilet rooms that are open sewers.”

 I feel like it is difficult for this to be left out because it effected the enomony and the food culture of America so much. They also bring up the fact of how the Northerners before the Civil War were so against slavery, however slaves harvested all of the food that they were eating. It is a lot like people who complain about how there is child labor, but they still buy the goods made by those children.

Looking at Pollan’s piece he talks more about how peoples choices and how they define “food” changes their diets. “That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat “food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket,” (Pollan) This shows how different things are now then they used to be because of the changing in the food culture. Pollan tries to describe the way people should eat by telling people not to eat that their great-great-great grandma would not eat. This is where the two articles tie in because they talk about how the best way to eat is to eat the things that were grown hundreds of years ago because this is what was the most natural and most healthy.  

Breakfast or not?

After looking at the all of the blogs that my fellow students posted, I noticed that most people skip breakfast, which I do as well. I feel like the big part about skipping is breakfast is time, personally in the morning, I wake up at 7:55 just to make it to class in time. Also, most people are not starving in the morning, and they do not think about being hungry until about half way through class. Growing up, everyone’s parents always stressed that breakfast was the most important part of your day, however once we grow older, a lot of people find that sleeping that extra 30 minutes is well worth it.

“Skipping breakfast is becoming a common trait among modern urban families everywhere,” (Sundaram) Since many people are on the rush in the morning, it is hard for people to be able to make time in the morning to make breakfast for everyone since they have some many things to do themselves. There are many different negative effects for not eating breakfast, like not being able to focus or being tired for the day. However there are many more serious effects to someone’s health. Accroding to Sundaram’s article, a person can gain weight because their metabolism does not start until the first time the person eats. Also, people are more likely to have unhealthy snacks when they do not eat breakfast. Along with gaining weight, when people do not eat breakfast, they are more likely to develop diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure.

The best way to start your day of with breakfast is to have a well balanced meal with fats, proteins, and carbs for energy and vitamins to help the body. “It is said that breakfast should approximately meet one-third of your daily nutrient requirement. Both the regularity and quality of what is prepared are important,” (Sundaram) If you are going to McDonald’s Breakfast every morning is not going to help you feel and look better. The best way to have a good start is to make sure that the food being consumed is high quality and good for the person eating it. So making sure that you start off the day with a good break fast is huge not only for how you feel that day but also how you feel in the long run.

Some people have very different things for breakfast based on how much time they have, and many people only end up getting a cup of coffee. However, coffee just masks the hunger and does not actually help. However, Sundaram mentions that people should drink buttermilk or fruit juice to give their bodies what they really need.

After reading about all these facts of eating breakfast, I am reassured that eating breakfast is extremely important. Unfortuantly, I do not think that this will change my eating habits because sometimes there just does not seem to be enough hours in the day. On a usual day, I do not finish all my things until midnight at the earliest so waking up at 7 am just to get some food before my 8 am does not seem worth the lost 30 minutes of sleep. Though, if I were to notice extreme fatuige or anything wrong with my normal functions, I would start to eat breakfast just to see if that would help. Overall, I just do not believe that college students have a lot more things to worry about than eating breakfast. I am lucky if I can walk to my bed without stepping on something, so making it to breakfast would be a miracle.

“Compared with skipping breakfast, micronutrient intakes were marginally higher on days when non-cereal breakfast was consumed but 30-90% higher on days where cereal was consumed.(Gibson, 1).” 
It interesting to see that not only is it important to eat breakfast, but the right breakfast is key for someone to have the right start.


“Dutch researchers at the Unilever Food and Health Research Institute conducted a study to test their theory that theaflavins in black tea may inhibit the formation of dietary mixed micelles, thus reducing the intestinal absorption of cholesterol”

I have heard that tea is good for you but i have never really gotten to see that medical effects, so it is nice to actually see scientific data that shows that tea is good for your health

Little Food This Weekend

After looking at all the Blogs, I noticed how many meals I ignored. Being at my Fraternity Formal, it was hard to make sure all meals were accounted for. Since all of the restaurant around Beaver Creek were closed due to off season. So, overall, everyone seemed to be much more on top of their meals than I was

Food Log

Thursday, I woke up for my Physics Class and did not eat before class, after that class, I met up with my usual lunch companion and walked to Nelson for some food. I got a taco Quesadilla and it was not best Mexican food I have eaten. Then I also had some water with the meal. Then I didn’t eat anything until about 12 am when one of my friends took me to Wendy’s to get a Baconator and some fries with a iced tea on the side. Once we got back, we started to eat the meal with ketchup and ranch. I had to wake up early to finish some homework so I went to the pub and got a breakfast platter while I finished up my Engineering Homework. I sat through the class sipping on my lemonade until class ended. Then I got home to pack for my Fraternity Formal. Got everything all set, and went to Which Wich and got a chicken pesto, which was amazing. Also, I had a diet coke on the side. Then we started driving to Beaver Creek to get to the resort. Once, we got there, everyone got in the pool until about ten and than ordered some dominos pizza. While drinking water to make sure I did not get altitude sickness. Then we woke up the next morning we went to Bob’s Deli and I got a classic breakfast with lots of water. Then at about 7 o’clock we had a great dinner during our award ceremony including chicken parm and pesto pasta. 

Potato Patato

When most people think about the history of the potato, they think about the potato famine in Ireland or the push to change “French Fries” to “Freedom Fries”. When I think of potatoes, my favorite foods come to mind. Nothing is better than a loaded baked potato with bacon, cheese, and sour cream or In and Out’s Animal Style Fries. However, when we eat potatoes, many people do not understand how much history there is.

Many people have misconceptions of the potato, like they were first found in Ireland. However, this is not true. The first cultivated potato was found in Andes Mountains.

The cultivated potato, Solanum tuberosum, ultimately traces its origin to Andean and Chilean landraces developed by pre-Colombian cultivators. These Andean landraces exhibit tremendous morphological and genetic diversity, and are distributed throughout the Andes, from western Venezuela to northern Argentina, and in southern Chile. (Spooner)

Since many people do not know of this fact, including me, it is rather interesting how long ago this was found out. Since they were first found here, the way they were brought to Europe was Francisco Pizarro in 1532 (“Smithsonian”3). Francisco returned to Spain with the potato and within 30 years the potato was expanding through out Europe. The people of Europe had never seen anything else like this before; “Unlike any previous European crop, potatoes are grown not from seed but from little chunks of tuber—the misnamed “seed potatoes.” Continental farmers regarded this alien food with fascinated suspicion; some believed it an aphrodisiac, others a cause of fever or leprosy” (Spooner”). At the start, people did not know what to think of the potato. Like many other plants at this time in history, people believed that it had other kinds of power. Along with Europeans thinking that it was causing fever and leprosy, they thought that is was very odd that there were no seeds.  However they were not completely wrong. Wild Potatoes did have some things to prevent themselves for several things: “Wild potatoes are laced with solanine and tomatine, toxic compounds believed to defend the plants against attacks from dangerous organisms like fungi, bacteria and human beings (“Smithsonian”). Animals that ate these potatoes in the Andes would eat them with clay. The clay would absorb the toxins and would be passed through the body without any harm. Over time, these plants became less toxic and were able to be eaten by humans. However in Peru and Bolivia still sells clay dust with their potatoes to protect the consumers from the toxins.

The most significant part that potatoes played in history was the potato famine in Ireland. It started in 1845 when the Phytophthora infestans, which is a water mold, was brought to Europe by a trade boat. This mold destroyed much of the potato crops in Europe. The reason that Ireland was hit so hard was because the majority of their crops were potatoes. “It was reported in Ireland on September 13, 1845. Cormac O Grada, an economist and blight historian at University College, Dublin, has estimated that Irish farmers planted about 2.1 million acres of potatoes that year. In two months P. infestans wiped out the equivalent of one-half to three-quarters of a million acres,” (“Smithsonian”) the fact is Ireland invested so much of their land to potatoes that once the bug came, they could not support everyone living in the country. Once this hit Ireland, everyone panicked, which made people immigrate to America. It is amazing that one plant can effect a country so much, which also had and effect on other countries. Within the ten years after the famine hit, over two million Irish people moved to America.

The potato has come a long way since then. It expanded through out the world; “ Today the potato is the fifth most important crop worldwide, after wheat, corn, rice and sugar cane” (“Smithsonian”1). The world clearly heavily relies on this crop because of the nutrients of the potato;

“The potato changed all that. Every year, many farmers left fallow as much as half of their grain land, to rest the soil and fight weeds (which were plowed under in summer). Now smallholders could grow potatoes on the fallow land, controlling weeds by hoeing. Because potatoes were so productive, the effective result, in terms of calories, was to double Europe’s food supply,” (“Smithsonian”3)

 Not many people in America think about the value of a food. Most people go to the store to get whatever they have a taste for, but in Europe around the 1800s, people had to support their families and feed them. So, the farmers would choose the most effective plants to give their family the most energy. It is incredible that potatoes could make a whole continent double their food supply. Many people do not think about how their food shaped the earth, but the potato had a lot of impact.

The potato, when first found in the Andes Mountains, was extremely toxic, but the native people and animals knew how to take out the toxins but eating it with clay, which is still used today in some places to protect them for the toxins. Then, once Francisco Pizarro brought the crop back to Spain, it expanded all through the European Continent. Once the farmers first got a hold of the seedless plant, they saw all the benefits of growing this crop and committed a lot of their land to only grow the potato. Then, the most memorable part of the potatoes history, the potato famine. Since much of Ireland decided to only grow the potatoes, they were set up for disaster. Once the water mold came from the ship coming from the Americas, it destroy much of Europe’s potato crops. However, Ireland was the only country to invest most of their farmland to potatoes, so the Irish people had no food and needed a way out. They came to America, which has forever changed the history of America and Ireland.

Personally, seeing that the potato has so much history, I think that I will be able to appreciate more than I have before. Seeing that one crop had so much effect on the world is pretty incredible. Also, knowing that hundreds of years ago, potatoes were actually toxic and could not be eaten without clay is a very weird way to think of my favorite food.

Steak and Eggs

This reading talks about how the way humans had to use the animals for food and animals, but then brings up the argument on how we do not treat animals correctly. Historically humans were eating animals because it was the only way for them to survive, but now that we have can farm and make our own food more efficiently, it does not seem necessary. I personally feel like that there is no reason for us to worry about the animals, and the best support I can think of is; “Why treat animals more ethically than they treat one another?” Since animals eat each other, it is stupid for us too protect them more, because either way they are not going to survive. Also, something I think about is, what is a deer looking to do with its life, they just walk around the woods and get hit by cars. I just think it is interesting that people get so offended about how animals are not treated right and think that they are almost more important than humans. I understand that animals feel pain, but it is that important that we protect all of them. To some this all up, I don’t not care how much pain a cow feels, but I am going to eat as many steaks and hamburgers that I want. You can tell me about all the pain they went through, and I am still going to enjoy it. That is what happened in history, and why change it if it is not broken?