I ultimately finished reading this chapter, at the end of the first day of Read-a-thon, feeling extremely both tired and excited.
Pollan uses a pleasing way to expressing the process he cooked dinner in his friend's home, being a guest at the same time.
A few things I found impressing and interesting like: different nutritions such as Omega 3 and 6 with opposite effects; chemical compounds generate from grilling; the logic of choosing what to eat.
The Omega 3 and 6, for instance, will have different effects on human bodies. Like the author puts it
Omega 6 helps blood clot, while Omega 3 helps it flow.
So it is a Omega 3-Omega 6 balance issue. Taking in Omega 6 out numbered Omega 3 will probably cause heart disease, and vice versa. From the context, we learn that Omega 6 is produced in the seeds of plants, which are the grains; Omega 3 in the leaves, which are mostly vegetables. With the knowledge of this, we could easily make our wisest decision by ourselves.
As for the chemical compounds generate from grilling, the corn and chicken ultimately turns brown respectively. The flavor, however, turns out separately. So does the smell. Our professional cook writes:
The corn was caramelizing, as its sugars broke apart under the heat and formed into hundreds of more complicated aromatic compounds, giving a smoky dimension to the corny sweetness. Meanwhile, reaction, in which carbohydrates in the chicken react in dry heat with certain amino acids to create an even larger and more complicated set of compounds that, because they include atoms of sulfur and nitrogen, give a richer, meatier aroma and taste to the meat than it would otherwise possess.
This is definitely how the chemist would explains to us. I believe if your kids ask you one day why through the same method of grilling, they turn out to be totally different from each other, you could answer them seriously making them confused at the same time while growing hungrier or interested in digging up more information by themselves.
We don't know what to eat and how to choose until reading this chapter. A research mentioned in this chapter, suggests that, for example, that the problem with eating red meat may owe less to the animal in question than to that animal's diet. Which means
The species of animal you eat may matter less than what thae animal you're eating has itself eaten.
Put it more specifically, Grass-finishend beef has a two-to-one ratio of Omega-6 to -3 , of course, way healthier, compared to more than ten to one in corn-fed beef. This is why the so called "Organic food" and "Wild" things are pricier than the industrial ones. The only question is, how can you be so sure that they are raised and fed 100 percent in this way?