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?