Wegman's

One of my favorite discoveries I have had during my first semester at Cornell was the grocery store chain by the name of Wegman's. I kept hearing about people going to this place, however, I did not know what it was since it is only found around New York State. A friend of mine told me that I absolutely needed to go since it is supposedly not your typical grocery store. After my first visit, about halfway through the semester, I had to agree with that statement. Wegman's is simply amazing! What struck me was the fact that as you walk around the store, you get the impression that you are walking in an indoor farmer's market. I had never gotten this sensation in a grocery store before and it is pretty remarkable that not a single store but an actual chain can achieve this. You feel this way because there are so many products prepared right on the spot. This sensation is also accentuated by the fact that so many friendly smiling workers will give you free samples of their delicious products, just like at a farmer's market. This grocery store is also big on local organic produces and this tells the customers that they will be able to find fresh nutritious healthy food. As traditional grocery stores are selling more and more processed food, Wegman's felt like a nice breath of fresh air. Interesting fact, Wegman's was recently rated best grocery store chain in the United States by both the FoodNetwork and ConsumerRatings. To conclude, I am glad I discovered this little gem that is Wegman's and I now feel more integrated in the community of Cornell and Ithaca since many of is share the same joy for this wonderful grocery store.

Typical Costa Rican cuisine and drinks

The fact that my dad married "una tica de Costa Rica" and lived there for six years gave me the opportunity to visit the country on multiple occasions. I was lucky to experience their very good traditional food throughout the country. The main dish of Costa Rica is known as "casaso" and like many other Latin American countries, its main constituents are white rice and black beans. Casados differ in what meat will be served along with the rice and beans. The choices are usually pescado (fish), pollo (chicken) and carne (beef). This meal can literally be found just about anywhere in the country. From the capital, San Jose, to a rest stop in the middle of the rain forest, one will be able to savor a delicious casado.

Since Costa Rica is a big producer of tropical fruits, fresh pressed juices are very popular. My personal favorite is named "chan" and come from a fruit resembling the papaya. It is a naturally red sweet drink which contains many gelatinous seeds. It's unique consistency makes it very interesting to slurp. Fresh coconut juice is also a very popular choice. It is usually packed in small plastic bags and  contain a piece of coconut. Although Costa Rica is not known for its alcohol, it still has a major local beer brand known as "imperial" which beer fans will appreciate on a hot humid day.

Poutine: A French Canadian meal to discover

When I decided to go to Montreal for Fall break, I quickly realized that it would be the opportunity to eat a meal that I truly missed. A meal that can only be found in French Canadian regions, more specifically Quebec and New-Brunswick. It is probably the most famous meal of this culture. Whenever someone asks me if there are any typical French Canadian dishes, one thing always comes up to my mind; poutine. This wonder in taste is actually very simple. It consists of fries that are usually homemade, curd cheese, and brown sauce. It is served warm and the hot sauce melts the cheese over the fries. When I describe poutine to someone, I usually get the same response, eww! Although it might sound disgusting, people usually love it once they try it. For example, I brought one of my friend from Cornell, who is Costa Rican, to a bar in Montreal in order to share this meal with him. His first reaction was "wow, this tastes amazing!" His last reaction was "wow, I think I'm gonna have a heart attack now!". It is true that poutine is not very healthy.

Poutine is definitely a very popular regional meal. It can be found almost everywhere, even in fast food restaurants. It is quite fascinating for a foreigner to find out that it can be found in places such as McDonalds, Burger King and A&W. Now that I have described this meal and its importance in my culture, it is time to unveil my true feelings about this meal. I actually don't like it as it is and I always make people turn their head when I order a; poutine without sauce!

The future of food

The chapter The future of food by Warren Belasco's book "food, the key concepts" is about our current standpoint in our society regarding industrialized farming and its problems associated with it along with two solutions (or views) by the author. The chapter starts off by mentioning that conservationists have been worried for a long time about the limits of our technology and the earth's carrying capacity. Our agricultural activity has nonetheless increased faster than expected and has resulted in being a catalyst on an incredible amounts of problems such as malnutrition, pollution, decrease of potable water, global warming, destruction of ecosystems ect. Even if our population levels off, our economic growth may still endanger our world's resources, since for example, rich people consume a much bigger share world's resources for food, transportation, leisure and housing. Another good point by the author is the fact that the future is invented in the present, it is thus the outgrow of current decisions. The author provides two solutions for the problems coming from industrialized farming, the technological fix and the anthropological fix. The first one assumes that the human inventiveness to profit-seeking free enterprises, will beat the odds and nutrition will continue to spread. It keeps the demand for convenience and achieves this through corporate research and development.  The anthropological fix goes a different way. It would change people's value, comfort, and convenience in order to meet the challenges of feeding the future.


I found this reading to be a very nice conclusion to our class about food.  It went in extensive details about our current problems and was very rich in facts and anecdotes. This author, in comparison to other authors such as Pollan, actually provided very thorough solutions. While his ideas about fixing our problems through technology might seem adequate, I do not believe it will help solve the bigger picture.  Even though we continuously keep using new technology to solve problems, it seems like we always end up creating new one which can end up being even more problematic. The use of fertilizers, to increase food yield, is harming our environment by increasing the pH of nearby water and is deteriorating the wildlife. I believe that we should not play around with nature to such extent because as the author mentions, everything is connected.  I have to say that the second solution would probably be the most effective, however, it would be very hard to put in place. This solution requires our advanced country to basically go back in time and give up some of the luxuries that we currently enjoy. For example, we would stop eating pineapples since it takes a lot of energy for it to travel to us and emits a lot of CO2. I feel like the government would have to lead to way in order to see changes like these take place.

Questions:

Can we convince society to live with less than it currently has?

The Scarcity Fallacy

Today's reading, named "The Scarcity Fallacy", talks about the current world hunger problems and includes some possible solutions. It first starts of by looking for the root of the problem. The author argues that failure to produce enough food to our increasing world population is not the problem. Indeed, food is more plentiful today than any other time in history. The real problem is ensuring access to this food and distributing it more equitably.  This task is negatively affected by different factors such as poverty, health crises, political instability, social inequalities, conflicts and corruption and finally "the supermarket revolution".  For example, the problem with our modern industrialized food system is that while it may increase food yields and ship food to more places more efficiently, the increased prices that often accompany such a system makes food less affordable for those in need. Oxfam International, for example, argues that the developped world should not dump cheap, subsidized food aid that undermines local food production and markets in the developing economies it tries to help. A better solution would be to provide money directly and promote local farming. This approach would transmit money directly to those in need, rather than making the global agri-businesses and shipping companies profit from the current system. Other solutions include making food a human right, improving the efficiency and corruption of food aid, and solving social issues such as ethnic and gender inequalities.


This text made me realize that solving world hunger is an extremely hard task to do. It is probably the reason why we still have this important issue in our modern world.  The problem of hunger comes from so many different factors and ties in with so many other problems that it makes fixing it very challenging. For example, a big part of world hunger comes from political instabilities and conflicts. This makes our world hunger problem way bigger and difficult to solve since we are adding other problems on top of it. A vicious cycle can even be produced according to the author. More precisely, established poverty can contribute to further conflict and environmental destruction. This limits food access and reinforces a feedback cycle causing more conflict, which in turn creates more scarcity, and so on.

I'm happy to know that there are multiple organizations trying to make a difference about world hunger. Organizations such as ONE and Heifer International can make a big difference in someone's life.  However, I believe that international policy makers, agri-businesses, people of power, will have to step up and help the best they can because they are the ones who can make the biggest difference.

Questions:

Can we ever end world hunger?
How can I make a difference as an individual?
Is it moral to grow corn for energy purposes when people are starving in other parts of the world?
Can you limit the corporations' influence in poor countries while keeping our lifestyle.

Food Stamps

Today's reading, an article from The NY Times titled Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades talks the increasing use of food stamps by our population and the decrease of the stigmas associated with it. The demand for food stamps is currently at record high going up every month and strikingly 1 in every 8 American and 1 in 4 children is fed by the use of food stamps. Thirty six million Americans are now using food stamps in order to help them survive. The reason for this sudden increase, the current recession we are facing which is making a significant number of people to lose their jobs. Unemployment is actually the number reason for someone to use food stamps. The minorities are also most likely to use food stamps. In fact, 28% percent of the entire black population uses food stamps, 15 percent of the Latinos and 8% of whites.  The use by children is also especially high.  For example, 46 percent of the children living in the Bronx live on food stamps. Support for the food stamp program reached a nadir in the mid 1990s but with efforts from Clinton, Bush and now Obama, the food stamp program is now bigger and stronger than ever. One of the steps taken for diminishing the stigma associated with food stamp was to change the name of the program to "the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program" or SNAP.


I was shocked to learn that such a high number of people are now using food stamps. I have actually never seen a food stamp nor heard about anyone using them. This could prove the point that there are still stigmas present with using them. I am glad the SNAP is now working better than ever because without those food stamps, people could use the federal aid for things like cigarette or drugs. At least, we know that people will only use the money for survival purposes. I now wonder what the effects of the increasing food stamp use now has on our country. How long will it continue increasing? Are people now getting too dependent on those stamps? How is it affecting our economy and our tax money?

Never too rich...or to thin

This weeks reading called "Never Too Rich... Or Too Thin: The Role of Stigma in the Social Construction of Anorexia Nervosa" written by Karen Way, tries to bring more light about what is "normal" dieting behavior and weight concern and what is anorexia. Many psychologist and social researchers agree that there has been a trend toward a feminine ideal of unstopping slenderness over the last 30 years. This is becoming a very serious societal issue. One of the reason might be that woman are scared of being overweight since it may lead to social rejection. Studies show that overweight people are often attributed to be morally and emotionally impaired, socially handicapped, lazy, and less intelligent. It even lessens the chances of a woman to get married.  Many industries such as the corporate beauty industry, fashion industry, beauty magazines earn profits by taking advantage of the cultural obsession of thinness.  If they are able to undermine a woman's self-esteem, induce high anxiety in respect to a "feminine" appearance, the product will sell itself.  Another problem is that these companies have so much influence on society that they now define what is a "normal" physical look. As time goes on, they portray woman being slimmer and lighter as being normal and this physical aspect becomes almost  unattainable for a woman unless she has an eating disorder.  Saddening facts, 1 in 25 American females have an obsession with thinness that turns into a life-threatening eating disorder such as bulimia and anorexia.


I found this reading to be very interesting even though I was already aware of most of its content.  I have to point out that most of the citations and studies are from 20 years ago which means that it is probably not the most reliable source of information since our society changes extremely fast.  The writer mentions that "there has been no official response to the problem of eating disorders by a governmental agency, institution, or other influential group, no official investigation and no proposal for reform". I do believe that steps have now be done into solving this problem.  The fact that I am already well educated about this eating disorder proves my point.  A lot of work have been done into making anorexia and bulimia into the required topics covered by most of our public high school's health classes.  Informing young girls (and guys) about the negative aspects of these eating disorders at a young age is a very good measure for solving the problem. I also believe that actions have been recently taken in the modeling industry to stop the trend of ever-increasing thinness.

Questions:

Is anorexia today as frequent as in the 1980s and 1990s or has it slowed down by recent measures taken?

How is the increasing obesity in our country affecting eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia? Are the cases of these eating disorders decreasing because we see more fat people around us and view our normal weight as being more acceptable?

Reflection on "Can't Stomach it"

The essay by the name of "Can't Stomach it" by Julie Guthman starts off by talking about obesity, the focus of the essay. We learn that obesity causes many problems such as worker productivity and many things are done in order to help these problems like snack taxes, stronger food labeling laws and even state-mandated student weighings at public schools.  Guthman then describes how the "tendency to dignify obsessions that equate thinness and beauty, is hugely profitable". Obesity is seen as an infectious disease. By referencing herself to popular books supporting the cause of anti-obesity such as "The Omnivore's dilemma" by Pollan and "Harvest for Hope" by Goodall, she comes to the conclusion that these author "extol the virtues of organic and local while arguing for a commonsense, ecumenical approach to diet choices".  The main message of her essay is to attack arguments by these authors.  She replies to Pollan's claim that "people eat corn because it's there" by saying that it makes people seen as they are dupes. Even the movie SuperSize me hints that people are ashame of their bodies and eating habits by not showing their heads in the documentary.


I think this essay had some fairly good points but the writer exagerrated on various occasions.  I found it interesting since I've been mostly reading Omnivore's Dilemma, I've only seen one side. The writer mentions that Pollan fails to urge his readers to write to their congressional representative or comment to the FDA about food additives for example, but instead brags about the meal that he hunt and cooked himself. She says that Pollan puts thin people as the people who clearly have seen the light that everyone else is blinded to.  Thin people are seen as superior.  I agree that Pollan does not really puts solutions on the table but I don't think we should think that writers like him classify "thin people as superior".  A lot of people in our society just don't have the wealth to buy "real food" and our economic system sadly supports processed food since they are so cheap.


Questions:

Is trying to portray fat people as people ashamed of their bodies and eating habits in the media, going a bit too far in order to fix our obesity problem?

How economically dependent are we on the "obesity market"? How would fixing obesity affect the economy?

Omnivore's Dilemma: The Processing Plant (chapter 5)

This chapter revolves around the processing of corn which makes this vegetable (or derivative of corn) part of almost every processed food around us.  Pollen describes the whole transformation which is comprised of many steps and takes place in what is know as a "wet mill". The corn is first subdivided into kernels.  Its skin will be processed into vitamins and nutritional elements while the tiny germ will be crushed for its oil.  The biggest section of the kernel, the endosperm, will have its rich complex carbohydrates extracted from it, the most important contributor to processed food. The idea is that these long carbohydrates are very polyvalent because chemist have learned to break them down into more than a hundred different organic compounds such as acids, sugars, starch and alcohols. The most valuable product derived from corn is definitely high-fructose corn syrop, accounting for 530 million bushels every year.  With those essential building blocks coming from corn (and soybean), a food scientist can basically create almost any processed food he can think of.

Processed food has truly become a supply-driven business. In order to stay in business, companies will either have to figure out how to make us spend more money for the same pound of food we will buy, or make us eat more.  This really bothers me because these companies are solely looking for profit instead of the good of the population. These food contain so much fat and sugar that it is sickening everyone. No wonder three out of five American is now considered overweight. It's true that processed food still have advantages like adding shelf-life and more practical packaging than whole food but I really do not agree that we should depend that extensively on fast food and processed food. I just think that overall these companies are modifying the way we eat in order to put money in their pockets which is destructive to our health. So what can we do about it? If we go back to the root of the problem, we will see that again, everything comes from the cheap price of corn. It is the subsidies on corn created by the government which is problematic. So then, what would be the effects of modifying those subsidies? Would it alleviate the problem or instead collapse our economic system?

Omnivore's Dilemma: The Ethics of Eating Animals (chapter 17)

This chapter deals with the philosophical aspects of eating animals.  Various ideas are discussed both from the animal rightist groups perspectives and from the meat eater perspectives. The chapter starts off by questioning why we start questioning the animal industry. Maybe it is because our civilization is moving toward a higher plane of consciousness, where we now realizing the terrible barbarity that we are doing towards animals.  In the present time, this barbarity is often hidden by the fact that the packaged meat looks as little from parts of animals as possible.  The morality of inflicting pain is then investigated. Since we all agree that animals, from humans to pigs, will try to avoid pain, why would it be right to inflict pain on animals and not humans? This view of discriminating against animals that are not humans is know as "speciesism''. However, one could argue that human suffering is amplified by the distinctly human emotions such as regret, self-pity, shame, humiliation, and dread.

I found this chapter to be quite thought provoking. Some of the ideas discussed actually made me want to stop eating meat since they were so direct and profound. I almost feel like my possible refusal to eat meat would make myself rise to a more informed and wise level in society. I always thought that turning vegetarian or vegan would solve every problem created by meat consumption such as animal cruelty, pollution, ressources used ect. I was however surprised to read some of Pollan's counterarguments about this subject. He concludes that killing animals is probably unavoidable no matter what we chose to eat, supporting this idea with the fact that field mice ends up in combines. I agree with this statement but I still think that not directly eating meat would greatly help the case. His next point is that vegan utopia would make people import all their from distant places in some areas since their are many places where the best, if not the only, way to obtain food from the land is by grazing animals on it. His last point was that the food chain would be even more dependent on fossil fuels and chemical fertilizers, since food would need to travel even farther and fertility, in the form of manure, would be short supply. I however disagree with this point because it was been shown that raising meat requires way more crop and thus everything associated with raising it, than eating greens directly. This chapter confused me a lot since many ideas are discussed but no obvious answers are apparent.

Questions raised:

Is turning vegetarian/vegan as great as we often hear about in solving the problems associated with meat consumption?

Is it even possible to cut our meat consumption to zero as a society? (Pollan is doubtful that you could build a genuinely sustainable agriculture without animals to cycle nutrients and support local food production)

Omnivore's Dilemma: The Animals (chapter 11)

In this chapter, Pollen experiences Joel's farm at Polyface, where a half dozen animal species are raised together in an intensive rotational dance on the theme of symbiosis. Every animal has a specific job and contributes to the overall success of the far. As Joel mentions, "Animals do the work here" and "I'm just the orchestra conductor, making sure everybody's in the right place at the right time".  Pollan then experiences how animals are used in this farm. For example, chickens are brought on the pasture and are known as the sanitation crew. They eat the fly larvae in manure on a four day cycle. This gives them prodigious amounts of protein which creates eggs that are unusually rich and tasty. All in all, Joel uses his cattle's waste to grow high-protein chicken feed for free. This is only one example of the many little cycles on his farm. Joel takes advantage of each species in a way that benefits them but also other animals. His practice makes him buy next to nothing for his farm. He finds that he has little need for machinery, fertilizers, and even chemicals. He also finds that he has no sanitation problem or any diseases coming from raising one animal from monocultures. As Pollen mentions, "this is perhaps the greatest efficiency of a farm treated as biological system: health".

It is very interesting to learn how a farm can be run this way. Everything just seems to work adequately with everything else in this farm, just like an ecosystem. Pollan, in this chapter, is trying to show us how you don't specifically need an industrialized farm to be successful in today's world. Although Joel farm seems to be ideal from this piece of writing, I don't think it can be seen as a solution for our farming methods in the U.S. I don't think everyone could be successful in achieving what Joel has created and I'm also doubting the fact that farming is his only source of income. His farming almost seems like a pastime instead of production for basic survival. Overall, I think his farming method is great and it should be a model for other local small-scale farming around the U.S but this would not replace big industrialized farms because his output does not seem to be efficient enough to provide for the population. However, I think it would be great if big-scale farms could use some of his ecological methods.

Questions:
Could big-scale farms use some of his methods of using animals to do work or is this only restricted to small-scale farming?

Omnivore's Dilemma: Big Organic (chapter 9)

Summary:
In this chapter Pollan investigates what the organic industry truly is.  He finds out that after analyzing a couple products at Whole Foods, what really makes this food special is its evocative prose. For example, milk from cows that live "free from unnecessary fear and distress" and wild salmon caught by Native Americans in Yakutat, Alaska.  The word organic has become one of the most powerful words in the supermarket and the organic industry has now become the fastest growing sector of the food economy. Pollan's eventually finds out that most of the small local produces at Whole Foods are now gone because of the grocery industry's standard regional distribution system, which makes small farms impractical.  The organic industry has been taken over by some industrial organic companies like Earthbound Farm and Grimmway Farms.  As Pollan stated in the chapter, the real question is what does the word "organic" truly means? According to Pollan, a long debate has taken place over the years, and the word "organic'' as we might think, did not survive the federal ruling process in 1997 by the USDA.

Analysis:
I found this chapter to really be unveiling in terms of what organic is and what it means. I guess the people in the organic industry do not really want to population to know about this.  Although Pollan might try to persuade the reader that this industrialized organic industry is full of lies, I agree that in today's world, it would almost be impossible to go back to the 1800's method of farming in order to supply for the U.S increasing population.  It would just not be feasible to be successful in the market without utilizing some sort of industrialization. I see this industrialized organic market as a transition between full-blown industrialized agriculture and the true meaning of the word "organic".

Questions:
Could we possibly have a defined set of rules regarding what organic produces should be?
Would the government regulating what's actually said on those organic produces ameliorate the situation?

Omnivore's Dilemma: The Feedlot (chapter 4)

After seeing where and how corn was growned, Pollan's brings us to one of the main application of corn, the meat industry. About 60% of it goes to feeding livestock.  However, ruminants are made to graze grass and this radical shift to corn in this new industrialization era are causing many problems to the animals, the environment and in the end, us. When animals used to live on farms (now they are sent to massive feeding stations) waste ceased to exist. A closed ecological loop was in place. Nowadays, feeding lots are breaking this loop and are creating new problems. We now have fertility problems that we're trying to solve with chemical fertilizers and also pollution problems that we're not really addressing.

Ruminants would not be able to survive for more than 150 days if it wasn't for the enormous amount of antibiotics like Rumensin and Tylosin that are blended in the cows meal in addition to the liquefied fat (coming from other animals) and protein supplements. These additives cause manure to contain levels of nitrogen and phosphorus that are so high that it would kill crops if it was sprayed on them. This toxic waste ends up in streams and is concerning problems for the environment.

These corn-fed animals also end up being less healthy to humans because it contains more saturated fats and less omega-3 acids than the grass-fed cows.



In reading this chapter, I was able to see that Pollan wanted to display a major head to head comparison between grass-fed and corn-fed cows for us to realize how the farming industry changed for the worse. I feel sickened to know that these cows are getting so manipulated for efficiency that they barely are natural anymore. The fact that they would not live if it was not for the antiobiotics should be alarming to us. It means that we really need to change the way we treat those animals because we are barely keeping them alive. I personally think it should be considered animal cruelty.

We are also poisoning ourselves by poisoning what we eat. We might have the luxury as Americans to eat meat 3 times a day if we want, but the quality of this meat is now so bad that we are slowly killing ourselves. No wonder so many Americans have health problems.

So what are the incentives again of feeding those animal corn if it is causing so many problems around us? Corn offers the cheapest calories around and the excess that we have needs to be consumed. Cows raised on corn also reach slaughter weight faster that cows raised on grass. It is all about efficiency and money. Big companies are profiting while the cows, farmers, the environment and us are being affected negatively. I feel like if more people would be informed about these things, change could happen to save our planet and mankind because right now we are slowly destroying it.

Questions raised:

Would it ever be possible to go back and feed cows with grass like we used to? What would be the impact on our economy? 

How many problems would it solve if we would completely stop eating meat?

Omnivore's Dilemma: Corn Conquest (chapter 1-3)

This first chapter of Micheal Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma is about a produce that its derivation are ubiquitous around us: corn. The most interesting aspect is that most of our society is not even informed about the extensive use of this plant. Pollan reveals that on the the forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket, more than a quarter of them now contain corn. From feeding animals like chicken, beef, pig and now salmon, while being a constituent of eggs and most dairy products, corn is everywhere. Through some historical analysis of how corn was first used by the Maya's, Pollen explains why corn is such a powerful crop and how it's use was transferred to the white colonists. The fact that corn is a C-4 plant gives it an advantage to grow where water is scare and temperature high. It also contains significantly more energy that similar crop which makes it very tempting to feed humans and animals.

In chapter two, Pollan tells us about his experience on a corn farm. By interacting with George Naylor, a corn farmer, we get more insights about how corn changed farming and landscapes in Iowa. What once used to be verdant fields of varied produces, now became a desert of corn. Even the livestock which used to be present has no use since it was replaced by machinery.  The mentality of farmers has also changed. Now everything is about yield per acre, not its quality and size like it used to. The more corn is produced, the lower the price it sells for, the more corn has to be produced for the farmer to survive. This is the vicious circle of corn.

Chapter three is about the grain elevator which to Pollen's eyes lowers the value of this vegetable which was once praised by Mayan's. "An immense pile of corn left out in the rain". We then learn that big companies like ADM and Cargill are the ones who control the corn's obscure stages from elevators to feedlots.


I was very absorbed by this book from the start especially when Pollen revealed how much corn is around us.  I knew that high fructose corn syrop was present in many products but I never knew that modified or unmodified starch, maltodextrin, ascorbic acid, lecithin, dextrose, lactic acid, lysine, maltose, caramel color and xanthum gum all came from corn! I find it also shocking that most of us do not know what we are actually eating. I wonder how many percent of Americans know what xanthum gum is. I feel like we should not be eating so much of one product and that we are losing the variety of products that are civilization used to live on for thousands of years.

Questions that I am raising:

Pollen's writing seems to indicate that the corn revolution is harmful for our society. How so? Isn't corn healthy for us since it is a grain?