This article was chosen for the positive outlook towards genetic engineering of crops, which help create more crop yields, longer lasting crops and specific variants of a crop resistant to pests and diseases. Though beneficial to the Earth, the lasting complications of ingesting genetically modified foods are a highly contestable topic in America, leading to the holistic and organic food movements.
For many of those who have come across the book In Defense of Food Michael Pollan, the readers may already have been influenced in many ways that have changed their lives forever. In most cases there are quite a few people who read this book and have no influence at all, these are the ones who are just left hanging and even more confused as they were before even reading the book. The book is written for a wide variety of audiences that have to comment on everything Pollan includes in his book, because his words are so powerful it makes people think deeply about what’s really going on with our food and who is to blame for it. For example, he cites, scientists, politicians, chemists, farmers, nutritionists, journalists,
This book creates an utopian vision of how the people of the world could soundly sustain themselves by eating grains and vegetables and conscientiously drifting away from our more consumptive and carnivorous ways. The book provides us with a possible and tangible solution to the problems of hunger, diseases and environmental destruction. The "Diet for a New America" is a tool at work to fight against the realities of the modern world, a world that lives on a 'Diet for a Capitalist America'.
Michael Pollan and David Freedman are two reputable authors who have written about different types of food and why they are healthy or why they are damaging to our health. Michael Pollan wrote “Escape from the Western Diet” and David Freedman wrote “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”. Imagine Pollan’s idea of a perfect world. Everything is organic. McDonald’s is serving spinach smoothies and Walmart is supplying consumers with raw milk. The vast majority of food in this world consists of plants grown locally, because almost everyone is a farmer in order to keep up with supply and demand. How much does all this cost? What happened to all the food that is loved just because it tastes good?
For this project I chose the book written by Jane Goodall called Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating. Being a very big animal lover I was excited to see her name on the list of book choices so I can further invest my time into getting to know her ideology that goes beyond the world of chimpanzees. I had first seen her inside a documentary I found on Netflix when I had the flu a few years ago. I had never heard of this book and never been familiar with a lot of her views and opinions surrounding human health. Although not surprising, her views surrounded itself with a high awareness for the environment, animals, and long lasting happy health for you and your family. The healthy alternatives she is proposing inside this book, like choosing to eat organic foods for example, goes beyond a temporary suggestion and reaches into the realm of helping the reader change their lifestyle for the better. This interesting book surrounds itself in her personal health and food advice supported with evidential facts. The strongest points that I personally found the most refreshing were her ideas on alternative ways to consume more healthy foods.
Goodall had a supportive family, such as her mother, Margaret Myfanwe Joseph, a “writer who wrote under the name Vanne Morris Goodall” (Bio True Story, Synopsis Feb. 10, 2012). Joseph encouraged her daughter to pursue her dreams. Her father, Herbert Goodall, was a business man who only wanted the best for his family. Once Jane received her toy chimpanzee, her fascination with animals became surreal. She would start to watch birds and other creatures that existed around her that she found amusing. Even while young, she had a dog named Rusty; Rusty taught Jane that animals do have minds of their own and emotions. Meanwhile, Jane read the book The Story of Dr. Dolittle, by Hugh Lofting; (Jane Goodall Institute) this encouraged her even more to go to Africa to study the wild life. She was most fascinated by the fact he was a doctor who could talk to animals. Goodall wanted to connect to the wild life in a way no one else has had before.
Starting when Goodall was a young girl, there were several important events that led to her success with chimps. Ever since Goodall was a young girl, she has loved animals and the outdoors. When Goodall was only two years old she became upset and started crying when a man killed a dragonfly that was buzzing around her baby carriage. Throughtout her childhood her favorite toy was a stuffed chimpanzee named Jubilee. Ever since then, she knew that she wanted to work with chimps. In 1957, Goodall first set foot into Africa when Dr. Louis Leak...
In the book published in 2006, the Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural history of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan, is a non-fiction book about American eating habits and the food dilemma that many Americans are facing today. Pollan begins the book by discussing the dilemma of the omnivore like ourselves, a creature with many choices of food. Pollan decides to learn the root to the food dilemma by examining the three primary food chains: industrial food chain, the organic food chain, and the hunter-gathering food chain. His journey begins by first exploring the industrialized food industry. Pollan examines the industry by following both corn and cow from the beginning through the industrialized process. The work on the corn fields of George Naylor shows him that the industrial system has made corn appears nearly in all products in the supermarket (Pollan 33-37). Pollen then decides to purchase a steer which allows him to see the industrialized monoculture of beef production and how mass production produces food to serve the society. Following his journey, Pollan and his family eat a meal at McDonald's restaurant. Pollan realizes that he and very few people actually understand how such a meal is created. By examining the different food paths available to modern man and by analyzing those paths, Pollan argues that there is a basic relation between nature and the human. The food choice and what we eat represents a connection with our natural world. The industrial food ruins that ecological connections. In fact, the modern agribusiness has lost touch with the natural cycles of farming. Pollan presents the book with a question in the beginning: "What should we have for dinner?" (Pollan 1) This question posed a combination of p...
GMOs first sprouted in the mid eighteen hundreds with an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel breeding peas, and has now evolved into a worldwide method of creating the perfect plant. Companies like Monsanto and AstraZeneca lead the world of unlimited GMOs today. Although consumers are led to believe that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food crops are uncontrollable and harmful, GMOs can be controlled and can be considered to be extremely beneficial. One concern that numerous consumers have, is that GMO products will cause genetic mutations in both humans and animals that eat genetically modified crops , but such accusations are based on supposition and myth. One of the strongest arguments against GMOs is that asexually reproducing crops will spread farther than intended, though there are deterrents that prevent this from happening. By using GMOs we are able to reduce the area needed to produce equal or higher yields compared to traditional food crops. Another argument that consumers have against GMOs is that farmers are not allowed to reuse seeds, which is largely a legal matter, not a biological one. Another major concern Americans have about GMOs in food crops is the correlation GMOs have with obesity in wealthy countries, but this concern is not valid when considering developing countries riddled with poverty. Lastly, consumers argue that plants that have insecticides built into them will kill the pollinators, such as bees and other insects and birds that depend on the pollen. However, pollinators are able to use plants that are not used in agriculture to pollinate and thrive. All of these issues that are commonly brought forward by consumers who wish to discourage the use of GMOs are able to be controlled or have alread...
Our current system of corporate-dominated, industrial-style farming might not resemble the old-fashioned farms of yore, but the modern method of raising food has been a surprisingly long time in the making. That's one of the astonishing revelations found in Christopher D. Cook's "Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis" (2004, 2006, The New Press), which explores in great detail the often unappealing, yet largely unseen, underbelly of today's food production and processing machine. While some of the material will be familiar to those who've read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or Eric Schlosser's "Fast-Food Nation," Cook's work provides many new insights for anyone who's concerned about how and what we eat,