#Week2#
The reading task of today is Chapter Five The Processing Plant. In this chapter, we know a new concept—food system.
Thanks to food manufactures and the so-called nutritionists, food has unnoticeably transformed into a commodity, something like a service: novelty, convenience, status, fortification, lately even medicine. Think about the money you paid for Haagen-Dazs by trying to please your boyfriend or girlfriend, or the slim-juice and vitamins you told yourself that would work.
Question 1: How does the food industry manage to tremendously increase the profit from processing food?
The raw materials are really cheap. Further value is added in the form of color and taste, branding and packaging. In these ways four cents' worth product can be raised up to four dollars'.
We are supposed to finish reading chapter 6 The Consumer and chapter 7 The Meal by yesterday. In these two chapters, Pollan traces the flow of corn to American’s daily meal, particularly the fast food. Guiding question of these two chapters are listed below
Question 1: As food producers cannot force people to eat more than they need, what are their strategies to consume more corn surplus and sell more products?
They make products like corn sweetener, relishes and crackers, ketchup and mustard, breads and cereals...
Question 2: What are the biological and cultural consequence of relying too much on fast food?
Without reading this book, we all know that eating too much fast food can cause several kinds of deseases. The author says in the book that when he was a child, I belive we all have the similiar feeling, everytime he had fast food, it feels like having a special festival, you're going to celebrate something because the price is not cheap at all. But it has all changed these days, children take fast food really often and they don't find it special. Thought having fast food saves time at a certain level, I still don't think we will benift from it taking fast food as a daily meal.
From this chapter on, the organic food chain reveals itself. Pollan takes a tour to Jeol Salatin’s organic farm.well, Saltin calls the farm “beyond organic,” though. Nowadays, organic food seems to gain a lot of popularity among consumers, although the price of which doubles or triples than the ordinary industrial food.
Question 1: After reading this chapter, what is your definition of “organic”?
It represents officially charted food these years. So it doesn't mean the food quality is good but has successfully has made people think so.
Reading Chapter Nine is like forever. I hope you have already made it. In this chapter, Pollan visits some industrial organic farms in California, and expresses his critique to the industrial organics. I thought he would favor the organic foods more than the traditional productions, but it turns out that he is for neither.
Question 1: What are Pollan's critiques towards industrial organic food?
