HW 11 - Final Food Project 1

One big question facing society today is how do we deal with childhood obesity in America .Obesity in the past 20 years has tripled in children. This has especially effected minority comminties, "50 percent of adolescents in some minority populations are overweight". Heart attacks and type 2 diabetes may become a common disease for many if not most young adults.The question remains how do we deal with this epidemic ? who do we blame? In my opinion theirs only one place to point the finger at, the food industry, but what to do ? Should we fight the food industry or work together with it. The food industry, favors , of course the work it out together approach. Presently the food industry lobbying groups are invited to Agriculture Department meetings, participate in professional nutrition conferences, and have testified before Congress on obesity legislation. .I think to truly understand the food industry and what their doing we must draw a disturbing but true parallel with the tobacco industry.The same tactics used by the tobacco industry for years is now being used by the food industry. Largely because of industry resistance, it took decades before the war on tobacco reduced rates of smoking significantly.

The American Academy of Pediatrics determined in 1995 that advertising to young children is "inherently deceptive and exploitative". But yet every year, of every month,of every day, of every hour, of every minute the food industry spends an estimated "$10 billion dollars" to influence and manipulate the eating behavior of children.

The average child views "10,000 food advertisements per year", "95 percent of them for fast food, soft drinks, candy and sugared cereals" ,all high in profit but low in nutrition. Toys, games, collectibles, movies and popular personalities can all be linked fast food marketing campaigns. Soft-drink companies have made lucrative contracts with poor school districts tying financial incentives to sales.

While at the same time the entire federal budget for nutrition education is "equal to one-fifth of the advertising costs for Altoids mints." Children now consume about "15 percent of their total calories from fast food, 10 percent from sugar-sweetened soft drinks and only half the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables."

The obesity epidemic has many causes, but none more than diet. Fast food is served in massive portions, contains highly processed carbohydrate and horrible trans fats with little to no fiber. The contents of this fast food is central to the increase risk for obesity, diabetes and or heart disease. Excessive soft-drink consumption is related in scientific studies to increased calorie intake, weight gain and obesity.

The food industry argues that more research must be done before anything can be done on regulating advertising and sales; that physical inactivity and not the food should be the actual target for change; that parents must teach their children to eat responsibly; that vending and soft-drink machines in schools provide freedom of choice; and that no food or company should be demonized or made responsible.While this is all true , the food industry must be held accountable as well.

The food lobbyist use money and power to influence national nutrition policy. Even the country’s main professional dietetic association has fallen victim. Legal Times reported that industry pressure led to weakening of USDA dietary guidelines aimed at reducing consumption of added sugar.The nation cannot afford waiting, this is become more than a small problem but a problem growing fat off the backs of Americans no pun intended. The food industry must demonstrate that it will be a trustworthy . Federal and state officials must find a response to this public health crisis,they must find ways to protect children from the ravages of poor diet , physical inactivity, and the food industry. National legislation on the prevention and treatment of obesity and stopping food advertising to children must be made.

HW 12 - Final Food Project 2 - Outline

Thesis: The dominant social practices are all covered in secrecy and in fact industrial atrocities.

Supporting claim: The food industry is a direct cause of the rising tide of chronic disease in America and the high Health Care Costs

Evidence:The country's obesity epidemic caused by the food industry has lead to higher health care spending

$147 billion every year to treat obesity. It costs another $116 billion each year to treat diabetes,and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and many types of cancer

Evidence:Health insurance companies with their profits invest irresponsibly in food companies that are playing a significant roll in the high cost of health care in this country.The U.S., Canada and Europe hold nearly $1.9 billion in fast-food company stock, these insurance companies make billions off high premiums and denying care .

HW 10 - Food, Inc. Response

Are parents, are teachers, are politicians , are self's, are friends they were all lieing. Who would of figured It was a lie, that in fact the places where most of the pigs, chickens and cows we eat come from are Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs for short, and this simple fact expresses more about how farming in North America has changed over the last 50 years then we even know .

Food, Inc., is a atoushing documentary by Robert Kenner's, which discusses the industrialization of food production and delivery systems and how it has affected our daily lifes from health, to environment, to the economy. The rise in obesity, diabetes, and cases of salmonella and E Coli poisoning is all traced in Kenner's film to these CAFOs and the growth of processed foods on supermarket shelves and in fast-food restaurants.

Food, Inc does not paint a pretty picture but its a portrait that must be seen, from Giant processing plants to animals being injected with hormones and chemicals standing in their own excrement, being fed genetically engineered corn and grains to make them fatter. Chickens that never see sunlight, can barely support their own weight , unsettling and nightmarish is the least of it .

The combination of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma adds a certain substance to the film that cant be ignored . The film gets all the experts ,farmers, food advocates, and government officials who one after the other make striking indictments against giant food corporations like Tyson and Monsanto.

The film also points out are own government , the FDA and USDA have become almost powerless by legislation and court rulings, and the happy courtship of politician's and lobbyist has led to lax health and safety controls.What got me the most, was secrecy, it astonished me the lack of information given to s about what we are eating. For example agribusiness interests lobbied the state to keep labels off meats indicating that the fact they came from cloned animals.

Food, Inc. is film making with a cause. He's wants to scare us from parent with children, to low-income families who cant afford a decent meal , politicians,regulators, he wants to scare all of us and through his film he does just that, preparing us for the battle ahead. And in his own words "I think it's one of the most important battles for consumers to fight: the right to know what's in their food, and how it was grown."

HW 7d

Chapter 9 starts with an story about histories largest recall of food. In 1997 about 35 million pounds of ground beef was recalled by Hudson Foods because of E Coli found in the meat . At the time of the recall, almost 25 million pounds were already eaten. Schlosser discusses the new ways people our experiencing food poisoning . Before the rise of the large meatpacking plants, most cases seen of tainted food localized in small arenas. But because of meat now being distributed in large quantie across the nation, an account of food poisoning in one small town may indicate a epidemic. In the United States 200, 000 people are sickened by a food borne disease everyday.

Is this one of the first signs that the government is slowly losing more and more power to big corporations ?

The old saying is the costumer is always right, so if this is the case if we demand better food products would we get it ?

How come these large food corporations are reviving government subsides and write offs, while their killing and making Americans sick at the same time?

Is their a rate of change (leaning towards increasing) in just the last 10 years of people being affected with E Coli ?

Chapter 10 discusses about Plauen, Germany. Schlosser makes point to mention that everyone he talked with about Plauen was shocked to learn he wanted to visit this town of all towns. Schlosser notes the history of the city from 1923 when it was one of the first places to subscribe to Nazism, until 1990 when it was the first in East Germany to accept a McDonald’s restaurant.


Schlosser makes a point to show the the United States in a global context and to point out the role of the consumer. So I wonder how much power does the consumer really have ? If we were more informed could we make a differences? At the end of the day if the people we send to represent us aren't but yet representing large food companies whats the point? It appears to me the fist thing we need to control in the money. If we take the lobbyist money out of politics, maybe we could see true sweeping reforms but until that day its going to be more of the same. In the words of Barrack Obama , you can slap make up on a pig but its still a pig.

In the Epiloge Schlosser discusses a bout a surreal experience he had , while researching this book .It took place in 1999 in Las Vegas. Schlosser describes Las Vegas as “the fulfillment of social and economic trends now sweeping from the American West to the farthest reaches of the globe.” While in Las Vegas, Schlosser heard Mikhail Gorbachev ones leader of the former Soviet Union speak at the Twenty-sixth Annual Chain Operators Exchange about Russia in the aftermath of the Cold War. Schlosser saw Gorbachev’s being their something like an American version of a Roman circus, displaying the leader of a captured land.

Is Fast food being a chief American export, a key example of how the United States engages the rest of the world ?

HW 7c.

Chapter 7 takes place in Greeley, Colorado.A small town , known for meatpacking , with a strong migrant industrial workforce. Greeley got its name after a newspaper editor Horace Greeley. Greeley roots started in 1870 with education,agriculture,and strong moral values being its foundation. This all came to a halt by the IBPIBP revolution started in Denison, Iowa with Currier J. Holman and A.D. Anderson, these men began Iowa Beef Packers , which applied similar labor practices to the meat packing business that the McDonald brothers applied to making hamburgers. These practices required a low set of skills from its workforce. IBP placed its slaughterhouses in more rural areas giving them great distance from unions .

Insights:


Does fear of being fried stop these employees from joining unions ?

Has the birth of the machine brought upon the death of basic hard work ?

Chapter 8 gives us a look at the slaughterhouse in the High Plains. Schlosser takes note of how these slaugther houses are crowded and bloody. Schlosser discusses how meatpacking has become one of the most dangerous jobs in America.We see the grim , almost nightmarish process that turns live cattle into what we see in grocery stores everyday. Most of the work in a slaughterhouse is not done by machines but people themselves. People everyday on the job receive injuries from the various machines and knives in the slaughter house . The workers our put under constant stress and strain from the poor working conditions, and the methamphetamine which is used to keep up with the production line. Women workers also constantly face sexual harassment.

Insights:

What role does the federal government have in these companies ?

What charges have been put up against these companies on behalf of the workers ?

HW 9 - Freakonomics Response

After watching the movie I have to say I wasn't as amazed as I was made to believe to by everybody else. It was interesting to watch but I was not shocked or left in aha. There was nothing to me to profound about the movie. Tho the abortion crime link was quite outstanding and the insight made me want to drive deeper in this very "weird" connection.

I did enjoy the movies overall message, i think to often we put more importance into ideology then the hard data . This economics approach is actually understandable, even for me. I found the movie itself to be to scattered .Each chapter, taken on its own, is at times informative and entertaining. But when combined it’s hard to know to understand why these chapters were chosen. I was left kinda left puzzled . I think they should of focused on one chapter, flushing it out to illuminate the message which was very clear in the book.

HW 8 - Growing Our Own Food

I found growing my own food at first to be overwhelming ,but as time past it became simpler than it sounded at first. I thought one big plus was that I did have to really change my life style at all.It barely effects time or money. All I needed was a few seeds ,a little space , a water source, and a little time. Honestly anyone can do it. And now that where in a recession , people tightening up and reducing consumption in general, so why not food. Everyday the price of everything seems to be getting higher and higher , especially at grocery stores across America.So to me in growing my own food it made me wonder cant we just skip it ? or maybe cut back on somethings we buy to help cut our bill, by growing our own food. Also theirs no better , healthier feeling then eating your own food, cause you know the process it took to complete it.

HW 7b

Chapter 4 starts with a delivery man for a pizza shop going through Pueblo a town in Colorado. Pueblo is also known as “the asshole of Colorado” . But both Pueblo and Colorado Springs while having many differences share the increase of restaurant franchises and ranch homes.From their the chapter talks about how Schlosser vist's The Little Caesars owned by one time NHL player ,Dave Feamster. The chapter goes on to discuss how franchising has been around since the 19th century, and and was taken to new height with the sudden emerge of fast-food chains.

Insight:

What is the significance of the section being titled "Success" And how does that represent how our own blind ambition ways can lead us to overlook what we have done to the world around us and ourselves ?

Chapter 5, takes us to the home of J.R. Simplot born in 1909 . Simplot spent most of his life working on his family’s farm in Idaho. At fifteen he left home and dropped out of school , from the he worked in a potato house. At sixteen, he was a potato farmer. Before he knew it Simplot was buying, selling, and sorting potatoes in large quantities he became the largest shipper of potatoes in the West. Simplot made millions selling potatoes and dried onions to the military during World War II . Simplot would soon invest in frozen food technology and sold frozen french fries to McDonald's during the 1950's. From their history was made.Schlosser goes on to talk about how today the french fry business has become big business with three major companies controlling the market and the process of fry making taking a sad turn.

Insights:

Does J.R. Simplot represent the American dream, from his rag to riches story, or simply another benchmark of how ones mans success becomes a society's downfall ?

Why does in appear that while theirs a competitive field in the french fry business, their is not a better overall product being made ?

In Chapter 6, Schlosser visits a rancher in Colorado named Hank. Schlosser is given a tour of the ranch , Hank tries to show a clear distinction between what he does and “raping the land” he claims the others do. Hank takes more care in cattle raising , because he wishes to keep the land fertile and lush. This is unlike the mass development of Colorado Springs which destroys the natural landscape.The next piece of this chapter give a little bit of history on the early twentieth century efforts to break up the Beef Trust.The Beef Trust being five meatpacking companies that have monopoly on the meatpacking industry.

Insight:

How does the refusal to a cleaner more "natural" cattle raising process show how the bigger a business the slower and more stubborn it becomes to taking more care in the resource's it uses ? When does moving product with speed out way what's right ?

HW 7 - Reading Response Monday

Chapter 1 starts with a forward about Carl N. Karcher, a- pioneer in the fast food’s industry. He was born to a rural family in Ohio in 1917. After eighth grade he left school and to work endless hours on a farm with his father. At the age of twenty, he got a job his in h Feed and Seed store in Anaheim, CA by his uncle. In California he would meet his wife Margaret and began a family of his own. Margaret and Carl bought a hot dog cart; Car also worked at a bakery. At this time California’s population was increasing at a rapid pace, as was the auto industry. Carl deiced to open a Drive-In Barbecue restaurant. This post-WWII economy gave him a handful of customers.Close by the McDonald brothers were heading their own restaurant, “McDonald’s Famous Hamburgers.” The brothers began what we now know as the Speedee Service System, which allowed customers to get out of their cars and into their "fast" food restaurants. Carl Karcher inspired by this idea opened his own self-service restaurant, Carl Jr.’s. Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway Act allowed for even more people to eat in self-service restaurants. This McDonald’s phenomenon change the landscape of the restaurant business forever and gave start to Taco Bell, Dunkin’ Donuts, Wendy’s, Domino’s, and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Insights:

Are Taco Bell, and other such establishments use as tools to express how white Americans in the 1940's viewed Mexicans ?

Do the benefits of franchising such as , more jobs, out way the negatives such as farmer health ?

In chapter 2, Schlosser explores Ray Kroc and Walt Disney’s complicated relationship. Constantly compering and contrasting each man’s rise to fame. This chapter also considers the profitable method of advertising to children.

Insights:

Its a gross shame in my opponent that the fast food heads like Ray Croc prey on school systems with declining revenue. Its confusing how these fast-food companies, that have little nutrition, are allowed to manipulate children to sell their products. When did image out way substance ?,these companies portray themselves as trusted friends while at the same time stab us in the back.

Chapter 3 places in discusses about a small town in Colorado Springs. Schlosser gives the history of this city, and paints the backdrop of the homes to many former California residents. Colorado Springs was a quiet town until World War II, during this time the military brought thousands of troops to the area. When the war was over, even more bases were opened; almost half of the jobs there still to this day depend on military spending. The area has grew to become extremely conservative , as well as religious . The chapter discusses how the largest private employer is in fact the restaurant business.

Insights:

Would teen employee's creating a union work? Wwould anybody listen ? Would people even be interested in spending more money on food which would no doubt be more expensive because of the increase of wages and benefits of these union fast-food employee's?