It's just a thought of mind.

"I triple dog dare you to eat a worm!" Imagine eating an insect. Think of the texture and the sour taste of an insect. Most people wouldn't be able to do it. People would either start to throw up or just from the beginning reject to eat an insect. Would you be able to do it? I think anyone could, it all just depends on your mindset. For example, if you tell someone to eat a carne asada taco they would gladly accept. But what about a taco of cow tongue? Or of cow intestine? Now people would probably say no but me personally being mexican I love cow tongue. I eat it all the time. I just think that you have to be around people who accept that eating insects is fine and probably good for you. In one of the ted talks the speaker said that eventually insects will be considered fine to eat and people won't be disgusted by it. I totally agree with what he says because it all just depends on what people find normal, so if it seems normal people will feel that they have permission to do it without being looked at differently. Their is also that factor that is humans are running out of what to eat so just later in the future it will start to happen, you'll see insects on restaurant menus across the world and I am one hundred percent positive that their is already places in this world where insects are being eaten so you know what they say "you never know until you try it."

Schools Should Provide Healthier Food

Out of most of the places in the world school is the most common place that talks about how important your health is. To support this claim they provide health classes that inform students about the healthy things they should eat. According to this “concern” that schools have about the health of students, most would assume that students are provided with a healthy meal every day. Sadly, that’s not the case. The meals we receive are far from healthy and hardly appetizing.

In the article, “No Lunch Left Behind,” Waters and Heron describe how the lunch program cost is billions of dollars, but only a small amount of this money goes towards the food. Most of the money is used for custodial services to heat the cafeteria. As a result of the small amount contributed to the food, the school is forced to buy cheap and unhealthy products that are frozen, processed, and high in fat. These products are thought of as healthier than fast food, but it is actually as unhealthy as fast food is. These foods hardly reach the nutritional standards.

After learning about how unhealthy the school food is, I am very disappointed. I do not understand how a school can promote good health, but not provide it. I believe that the schools can and should work harder to change menus that they have. I also think that they should use most of the money for food and less for the heating of the cafeteria. If schools are going telling students how important their health is and how they should start making healthy decisions, then it would be helpful if they provide healthy foods and it would be easier for the students to make an attempt to make healthy choices.

What do you think?

Convenient vs. Necessity

Most of the food topics that we discuss all revolve around the fact that majority of  local consumers are unaware of what's really going on. In Wendell Berry's "The Pleasure of Eating," Berry suggests that we buy what we want, but only within the limits of what we can get. This really caught my attention because it's so true. Lately I've been eating Chick-Fil-A about three day out of the week because it's on my way home, it's fulfilling, affordable and convenient. From what I know Chick-Fil-A uses real meat and is a better choice compared to other fast food places like McDonald's or Burger King. If I ever found out that Chick-Fil-A was processed I would throw a fit. I honestly would rather not know and continue to enjoy my chicken sandwich and large fries.

            I've always enjoyed eating, but whose responsibility is it to make sure that we eat healthy on a daily basis? In my opinion the fast food industries make it quite difficult to choose a healthy meal. We've become so immune to what we're actually eating on a daily basis that we fail to realize the importance of a healthy diet.  I would definitely choose a fruit salad over Chick-Fil-A any day but I never really have the time to go search for one at the grocery store. Do you think it's our own responsibility to eat healthy or do you think our surrounding food vendors could make it a bit easier on us by offering more healthy and affordable choices?

"we accept the food we think we deserve..."

While reading Wendell Berry's "The Pleasures of Eating" it made me reevaluate all the bad things I eat, and how I can change my eating behavior. I myself would rather go to McDonalds and spend 3 dollars on a few cheeseburgers instead of going to a place like Chipotle and getting a salad that isn't going to fill me up for 8 dollars. People would rather save a few pennies and get food that doesn't have any real benefits to the bod, instead of spending more and essentially providing your body with the right nutrients it needs. We buy what have been persuaded to want, instead of what we really need just because of the price. Even the "cheap" food isn't what it's worth. We pay what we are charged, instead of standing up against it and trying to fight for the right price. Today in the modern world, a lot of women don't have time to slave in the kitchen for 3 hours to prepare dinner, but does that justify them serving already pre-cooked/pre-packaged food? No. Serving ready stuff is not a healthy substitute. Instead of cooking a whole chicken and hand carving it themselves for the family at a dinner table, they'd rather buy pre-processed boneless chicken breast. In America especially we always forgot to ask questions that need to be answered. The pleausre of eating shouldn't be to just satisfy your taste buds and fill your stomach up; it's about nourishing your body, while keeping the environment and certain ecosystems in mind. Do you plan on changing the way you eat, to not only better yourself, but also the world?

Cornstalks everywhere (but nothing else. Not even a bee)

Check out this review of the book A World in One Cubic Foot by Robert Krulwich of Radiolab!  This is cool because it communicates so well, but it's awful, tragic, devastating information.  It worries me.

Politics of Food

This is a wide open topic with multiple fascinating avenues to explore.  Don't get stuck.  Find a research question you are genuinely interested in, and follow your research in a direction that matters.  It makes the work fly by; it's interesting and real when the writer really wants to know something.

Here are some websites you can explore:

Michael Pollan has his own web page
Here's the Atkins Center for Weight and Health at UC Berkeley
The Food Inc. documentary has a website
The Edible Schoolyard -- wouldn't it be cool to plant a garden here at Mayfair?  What would it take?
Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity

The fourth talk here (all about ecosystems) is about our dwindling bee populations.  Galvanizing.
Ron Finley inspires me:  a TEDTalk about guerrilla gardening
Jamie Oliver's TEDTalk called "Teach Every Child About Food"
Another TEDTalk:  "My (subversive) garden plot"

I planted last year in hay bales that I purchased up the street at Bellflower Feed.  You could put one of these bales almost anywhere, even beside a driveway.  I'm going to try this again this year -- it was easy, cheap and fun -- my idea of a good time.  Last year, I planted four; this year, I'm gonna double that.  (Twice the fun.)

Early:

Later:

Let's eat what we NEED, not want.

In Berry’s article, “The Pleasures of Eating,” he discusses various elements about eating that we may not be aware of.  In paragraph twelve, for example, he explains the seven steps to a new way of eating. Throughout his essay, he provides many reasons as to why eating healthy comes with discipline, responsibility, and commitment. Residing in a metropolitan area surrounded by fast food restaurants, it is easy to throw commitment and discipline out the window in the name of convenience. Eating with discipline means to know when enough is enough. Further, dedicating our bodies to eating healthy requires commitment, especially with so many options to tempt us.

The step I was most interested in is step five. Step five is to learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. We volunteer our money and health when we choose to eat In-N-Out, Taco Bell, etc. Do we truly know what is added to the food that is not food? No. Together we should be making our food system, which is very vital to survival, more responsive to our needs and to our overall health. Step five must be integrated into our personal lives at home and practiced. To stop unhealthy meals from appearing when we ask "What's for dinner?", we need to carefully consider what's for dinner.