This is the first week I joined this reading club. And before I read the book, I didn't realize that it was such a quite unique type of book compared to the book I used to read. Since its title connects to food, I thought it was supposed to be about food and traveling. Something may happen during the author's journey and the experience may provoke the author into thinking about the food that we eat. However, after I read it, it proves that, to some degree, I was completely wrong. What am I reading? I have to check many terms and it seems like an academic article I used to read during my university period.
So far, the theme I have read about this book is all about "corn". And I haven't thought that corn, or the maize, the word which I officially learnt from this book, has played a such pivotal role in our life. Also, I haven't thought that corn, which was just a type of plants, has such power to change the nature and the food chain.
Actually, I am not interested in how the corn are planted or spreader all over America. Instead, the animals, especially the cows, mentioned a lot of times in this book, are the only thing that I feel sympathetic. In the feedlot, they are forced to change their diet and eat surplus of corns. Because of this, they are not only getting sick easily, but also this means they will be killed sooner.
In a industrialized world, when the corns becomes commodities, when the framers only want to gain more profits and ignore qualities,when the cows are against nature (start eating corns). I start thinking the following question: When nearly everything is commodified in a society, can we really eat what we truly want ? I am looking forward to reading the following chapters, especially the part about consumers.