Epic Failure.
I took on the challenge starting after class on Tuesday. It lasted 3 days. I decided that I would completely cut out anything that had corn, corn products, or ate corn ever in it's life. This would have been much easier to accomplish if I was buying and preparing my own food. Unfortunately, as a freshman I am forced to eat most of my meals in TDR. This diet simply doesn't work when you don't have control over what food options are available. I could not eat any of the foods which are my staples, so I had to rediscover the options available in TDR. This in itself has proven to be a good thing. My diet is more diverse post-no-corn experiment. TDR has very, very few foods which don't fit somewhere in the corn cycle. About the only food I could eat was fruit, black beans, and granola(which I'm still not sure whether it's corn-free or not because one of my friends mentioned that it had butter, but I couldn't find any mentioned in the maker's recipe). This was a HUGE calorie reduction for me. I'm used to eating probably 3,000-4,000 calories a day. The beginning of this diet also coincided with me beginning my bike training for this summer when I'm biking from Venice across through Southern France, then up the coast to Brittany, over to Paris, and up into Belgium. So the reduction in calories, plus a significant drop in protein (TDR's bean supply was irregular, they only had beans at 2 of the 7 meals I ate), coupled with me training for this bike ride resulted in me losing weight at an alarming rate. So, I stopped. Another effect of the options available at TDR was that I ate probably 15 to 20 servings of fruit a day, with no grains to absorb the acid, such that by the third day, my stomach was burning with acid, and tissue in my mouth had begun to be eaten away by the acid.
All of this succeeded very well in demonstrating the extent to which corn has pervaded our food system, which is very alarming from many perspectives - health, economic, security, etc.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
I failed. I wish I could say that I didn’t. I think it might have been possible. I like vegetables and cooking and fresh produce, and find processed food kind of gross. However, I don’t have time to check ingredients, or to find substitutes, or to make every meal from scratch. I have presentations and papers and a job and friends and no money. Find me over the summer, and I could do this. I could totally do it.
In my defense, I made it a day (I think). To do this, I had to avoid TDR (who knows what goes on in those kitchens?) as well as the frozen dinners and pizzas that I had. Instead, I made noodles and vegetable stir fry. But the next morning, not thinking, I had cheerios. The web tells me that modified corn starch is the second ingredient in the cereal. From there I only got worse. I went out to eat with friends, ended up at Chipotle, and realized that their tortillas are made of corn after ordering one. I pulled a box of muffins out of the dumpster behind a local grocery store, and after biting into one realized that it was a corn-bread muffin. I made vegan banana bread, and was doing fine until I added baking powder. My failures, I’m sure, go on.
However, I did have very limited corn intake, mostly due to life-choices and less to do with this near-impossible assignment. I don’t drink pop (diet or otherwise), I don’t like twinkies or oreos, and am wary of anything with ingredients that I can’t pronounce or find in a farmer’s market. I've been waging my own personal war on high-fructose corn syrup for some time.
This (attempted) experience was eye-opening. There used to exist a time (not so long ago) when people knew and had intimate connections with the food that they ate. Now, we have so little time and money and energy to devote to food that we don’t even know what we’re putting into our mouths. When corn is subsidized so heavily, it is bound to find its way onto our plates.
In my defense, I made it a day (I think). To do this, I had to avoid TDR (who knows what goes on in those kitchens?) as well as the frozen dinners and pizzas that I had. Instead, I made noodles and vegetable stir fry. But the next morning, not thinking, I had cheerios. The web tells me that modified corn starch is the second ingredient in the cereal. From there I only got worse. I went out to eat with friends, ended up at Chipotle, and realized that their tortillas are made of corn after ordering one. I pulled a box of muffins out of the dumpster behind a local grocery store, and after biting into one realized that it was a corn-bread muffin. I made vegan banana bread, and was doing fine until I added baking powder. My failures, I’m sure, go on.
However, I did have very limited corn intake, mostly due to life-choices and less to do with this near-impossible assignment. I don’t drink pop (diet or otherwise), I don’t like twinkies or oreos, and am wary of anything with ingredients that I can’t pronounce or find in a farmer’s market. I've been waging my own personal war on high-fructose corn syrup for some time.
This (attempted) experience was eye-opening. There used to exist a time (not so long ago) when people knew and had intimate connections with the food that they ate. Now, we have so little time and money and energy to devote to food that we don’t even know what we’re putting into our mouths. When corn is subsidized so heavily, it is bound to find its way onto our plates.
Maize: Stacking the Deck
Had this been a competition with some prize riding on it, I believe all of us challenged to avoid corn or corn derivatives in our diet would have reason to complain. Our lives are simply inundated by corn. In some ways, I can see this as a blessing. Corn is simply incredible in its versatility. However, to be challenged to avoid for a week is quite separate from a blessing, much like it must be to have a corn allergy. Eating in America without consuming corn or its derivatives is something akin to trying to drive a pickup that has no metal in it. I left class last Tuesday not having eaten anything and proceeded to run straight into my first dilemma. I went to Subway to have a sandwich. Not having seen the list I started with the assumption that high fructose corn syrup is everywhere today. I knew I could not have any dressing on my sandwich, and those who know know that a sandwich needs something for lubrication. I then wondered if the bread might not have been sweetened with some amount of the corn syrup. My calculations were later confirmed... The difficulty it seems is that I simply have no say in the way that so many of the processed goods that are a staple part of my diet are made. I suppose if corn is subsidized and can be used in so many ways, it will be.
If I were to break down my diet, it would consist of meat proteins, whatever vegetable or fruit produce can be gathered at a market, carbohydrates in the form of starches in potatoes and pasta or couscous, fats and oils (for cooking and from animal proteins), rice, limited dairy, and then just junk. Now junk is really any condiment ever made, the clearly processed crud that are snacks/drinks etc, even juices more than likely are largely junk. So, the surprising challenge is I can eat the animal proteins (mainly chicken I suppose) and the produce (excluding corn) avoiding the dreaded maize because I assume that none should be added to these things in their processing. Then again, the animals I eat were fed corn, so including myself in the food chain, that would have to be excluded. I am not even entirely sure what it is the pastas I buy. Anything with even a hint of sweetness is suspect because corn syrup is cheaper than sugar. Sugar, the thing that had us oppressing millions for centuries to provide us with stimulant, and we have supplanted with another plant that is so processed that it can hardly be considered a plant anymore. I feel powerless. I have no say in where the things I eat come from because I do not grow them, and the dollar dictates what should be put into them. The dollars it costs to make them. The dollars we spend to buy them.
I do not want food to be so thoroughly run through a system to reach me, but it happened before I was born. I know that no food would reach me without the system. I know not enough Americans farm for everyone to go buy what has been grown within 50 to 100 miles. What was most frightening is that corn is not only the food but the means for conveying the food-- the plastic, the spark plugs in the trucks that move it, even the fuel sometimes. The vitality of our food is lost in the confusing maize *cough cough* constructed that is so effective our evading our eyesight while stuffing our mouths. Corn is a fine plant that evokes seasonal senses and memories, but what has happened when we have forgotten that seasonal cooking was once the only cooking? If it grew naturally in winter, you were thankful and ate it. Knowing that not much did, people canned vegetables like my grandmother still does for the winter. I used to think that was so silly considering I could always go the market and grab whatever I wanted year round. I question how is anything special or a treat if it is always there, always mediocre like our tomatoes? Then I question, how have we lost the idea of everything in moderation so thoroughly? Corn can be everywhere all the time, but should it be?
If I were to break down my diet, it would consist of meat proteins, whatever vegetable or fruit produce can be gathered at a market, carbohydrates in the form of starches in potatoes and pasta or couscous, fats and oils (for cooking and from animal proteins), rice, limited dairy, and then just junk. Now junk is really any condiment ever made, the clearly processed crud that are snacks/drinks etc, even juices more than likely are largely junk. So, the surprising challenge is I can eat the animal proteins (mainly chicken I suppose) and the produce (excluding corn) avoiding the dreaded maize because I assume that none should be added to these things in their processing. Then again, the animals I eat were fed corn, so including myself in the food chain, that would have to be excluded. I am not even entirely sure what it is the pastas I buy. Anything with even a hint of sweetness is suspect because corn syrup is cheaper than sugar. Sugar, the thing that had us oppressing millions for centuries to provide us with stimulant, and we have supplanted with another plant that is so processed that it can hardly be considered a plant anymore. I feel powerless. I have no say in where the things I eat come from because I do not grow them, and the dollar dictates what should be put into them. The dollars it costs to make them. The dollars we spend to buy them.
I do not want food to be so thoroughly run through a system to reach me, but it happened before I was born. I know that no food would reach me without the system. I know not enough Americans farm for everyone to go buy what has been grown within 50 to 100 miles. What was most frightening is that corn is not only the food but the means for conveying the food-- the plastic, the spark plugs in the trucks that move it, even the fuel sometimes. The vitality of our food is lost in the confusing maize *cough cough* constructed that is so effective our evading our eyesight while stuffing our mouths. Corn is a fine plant that evokes seasonal senses and memories, but what has happened when we have forgotten that seasonal cooking was once the only cooking? If it grew naturally in winter, you were thankful and ate it. Knowing that not much did, people canned vegetables like my grandmother still does for the winter. I used to think that was so silly considering I could always go the market and grab whatever I wanted year round. I question how is anything special or a treat if it is always there, always mediocre like our tomatoes? Then I question, how have we lost the idea of everything in moderation so thoroughly? Corn can be everywhere all the time, but should it be?
Cornsumption
This week I've challenged you to go a week without eating anything containing corn or corn derivatives. On your blogs this week I'd like you to write about the experience. How easy or hard has this been for you? Did you come across anything particularly challenging or surprising? What did the overall experience teach you about the contemporary US food system?
After a week of trying to have a corn-free diet, I really have only one thing to post: It must really suck to be allergic to corn and living in the United States! Corn is without doubt king in this country and it almost feels like there is no escaping it!
My first step was to look at all of the three websites and figure out exactly what I could and could not eat, and man, those lists were daunting! I am a person who definitely enjoys her food and was worried that this week would be one where I would end up hungry for the most of it. No cereal, no caramel, no vegetable oil, no instant coffee or tea, no potato chips and not even salad dressing! It feels like if you want to avoid corn absolutely, the only true option you have is to eat plain, raw salads. Or it might just be that I am not creative enough to think of alternative options.
I feel like this would have been much easier had I been back home, than here on campus. Most of my meals are either consumed in TDR or the Tavern, and even if you try to be careful with what you put on your plate, there is no guarantee that it was not cooked in corn or vegetable oil. In TDR, the safest bet would be the salad bar, but I would still need to add some salad dressing to that! When I am back home, we usually cook Indian food, and we don't normally use corn for much. Most of the food is cooked in either sesame or olive oil and we normally don't use corn in most of our dishes. I am not a soda person either, so I usually stick to water or milk during my meals.
I think this challenge made me realise how hard it must be for people who are allergic to corn in any capacity, because their options are very slim. Again, I might just lack creativity in thinking of meal choices, but the ones I was presented here on campus were definitely not that great in number. I think that the US contemporary food system needs to take a step back from this crop and think of alternatives. I did not even mention the indirect consumption of corn we get from consuming meat in our diets! I praise those who were able to complete the challenge without consuming corn at all for this week! I know that I was not able to do it!
After a week of trying to have a corn-free diet, I really have only one thing to post: It must really suck to be allergic to corn and living in the United States! Corn is without doubt king in this country and it almost feels like there is no escaping it!
My first step was to look at all of the three websites and figure out exactly what I could and could not eat, and man, those lists were daunting! I am a person who definitely enjoys her food and was worried that this week would be one where I would end up hungry for the most of it. No cereal, no caramel, no vegetable oil, no instant coffee or tea, no potato chips and not even salad dressing! It feels like if you want to avoid corn absolutely, the only true option you have is to eat plain, raw salads. Or it might just be that I am not creative enough to think of alternative options.
I feel like this would have been much easier had I been back home, than here on campus. Most of my meals are either consumed in TDR or the Tavern, and even if you try to be careful with what you put on your plate, there is no guarantee that it was not cooked in corn or vegetable oil. In TDR, the safest bet would be the salad bar, but I would still need to add some salad dressing to that! When I am back home, we usually cook Indian food, and we don't normally use corn for much. Most of the food is cooked in either sesame or olive oil and we normally don't use corn in most of our dishes. I am not a soda person either, so I usually stick to water or milk during my meals.
I think this challenge made me realise how hard it must be for people who are allergic to corn in any capacity, because their options are very slim. Again, I might just lack creativity in thinking of meal choices, but the ones I was presented here on campus were definitely not that great in number. I think that the US contemporary food system needs to take a step back from this crop and think of alternatives. I did not even mention the indirect consumption of corn we get from consuming meat in our diets! I praise those who were able to complete the challenge without consuming corn at all for this week! I know that I was not able to do it!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Eating with Environmental Awareness - A New Concept for me
1. What, exactly, do you think about when you make food choices? Do you have environmental considerations in mind? Or other stuff?
Until just recently (this semester), I am sad to say, that I have rarely if ever taken environmental considerations into account when making food choices. Save the immediate, obvious health concerns of food served or prepared in a dirty environment, my ecological impact did not ever cross my mind. Writing this post has made me ponder what the reason for this is: Part of it is lack of exposure to ecological thought concerning food. I was raised in a wealthy suburb of Dallas, and both of my parents work full-time jobs, so we spent more nights of the week eating out than preparing food at home. On top of that, I usually didn't accompany my mom to the grocery store, so not only did I not experience the cooking process, I also didn't really know much about grocery shopping or the different options that are available. Because of all this, I was extraordinarily distanced from the modern industrial agricultural system that our food comes from today. This semester, I am finally delving into environmental issues head first. I was pulled into the movement in opposition to fossil-fuel induced climate change, but have since seen that my scope of environmental thought was fairly narrow. Most of my life I have had a very American diet. TONS of meat, processed junk food, WAY too many calories for my body size. I have actually conducted numerous food experiments in my life, though until recently these were entirely exercises in self-will and health based endeavors. Beginning this semester though, I have begun thinking about the environmental impact of my food choices. I have cut back on meat. I have greatly increased the proportion of my diet that is plants.
2. Take a few moments to consider everything you've eaten in the last day or two. Of the food or beverage items you've consumed, which, in your estimation, has had the greatest environmental impact? Why?
Monday, I had granola, yogurt, canteloupe, 4 hard boiled eggs' egg-whites, and a banana for breakfast. I had a boxed lunch with a turkey sandwich, yogurt, an apple, and a banana for lunch. For dinner, I had three servings of mexican enchilasagna bake, a serving of pasta, two slices of pesto cheese pizza, and some rice. This morning's breakfast consisted of yogurt, canteloupe, grapes, and an apple for breakfast. Monday's dinner is without a doubt my least environmentally friendly, as well as least healthy, meal. The quantity of food that I ate, along with the food's composition of hamburger meat (in the enchilasagna) make that meal the least environmentally friendly by far.
The Trick of It All Is...
...turn your brain off. Stop thinking. Step away from your thoughts. Take a bite. Sometimes it seems like one of those game show competitions where the contestants have been toiling away for an hour perfecting their craft and must finally just step away for fear of disqualification. With all the concerns that can go into eating today to achieve a environmentally friendly diet can lead to some toil and perfecting.
To be honest, I wonder sometimes if being a farmer would not be the best life choice for me. I do enjoy something about the outdoors, and the exhaustion of a hard day's labor is uplifting. Of course, that this idea pops into my head each day before I eat something is likely not very helpful. I have to admit my diet is not to the point where I want to be yet. I have not completely removed animal protein or even red meat from my diet. I was raised eating family meals which were well balanced with carbohydrates, a few vegetable options, and a protein entree. The most important part of this I believe was that it was a family meal, and I learned how to cook quite well, even exceeding my parents interest in different ways of preparation, flavor profiles, along with textural and visual elements. Thus it was with these things in mind that I began to get into cooking for myself and choosing meals. I still indulge in far too much junk food and use college lifestyles as an excuse. Yet, more recently with an expanded knowledge of the risk factors in meat protein or the mercury scares with fish like tuna, I have started to think a bit before purchasing meat to prepare for meals at my apartment, even to point where I rarely purchase it anymore. I do enjoy a properly prepared piece of meat. It is an essential part of so much of Western cuisine, and I do not believe it should be vilified... only balanced with plant matter and substituted for most meals. Frankly it isn't essential to many Eastern cuisines, and the substitutes of beans or tofu or lentils provide intriguing amounts of alternatives for even complete proteins with rice. Thus a diet rich in these items with the occasional meat proteins would seem to serve me fairly well.
Yet...the environmental issue is the one that is truly grim. Because as it turns out, any meat that I am likely to get my hands on in the store-- whether or not it has been fed a lot of unnatural things (organic or not)-- has still released large amounts of green house gases. By eating organic we assume we can at least be putting natural things in our body and into the ground when we eat plants. We could hope that this would be a sustainable way of farming, but the issue is that when I go the supermarket, virtually none of the stuff there is truly sustainable because it is from so far away. How can I ensure local produce when I have no ties to local farming? When there is not a huge amount of local farming, especially for certain products that do not grow here? Reverting back to my love of cooking, I would love to be more versed in seasonal cooking, a term I admit is a bit silly to me because seasonal cooking used to be the only type of cooking. We used to only be able to cook what would grow, so in the winter if hearty squash was what was left that was used. The whole idea of jarring and canning our own food came from the need to have things for winter. I always used to enjoy black eyed peas and tomato preserves even on New Year's Day because the peas were dried and the preserves jarred in summer. Where has our knowledge of this gone? When we aren't growing and picking our own food and orange is there in February at the supermarket, it's hard to roll back expectations and begin to learn this lifestyle again. So eventually I've gotten very hungry and to avoid calling in something I go ahead and make what I could buy at the store. Even so, I did eat out with a friend last weekend, and I wasn't really thinking about what I had until after the meal, only of enjoy myself at dinner. So who knows how far those things traveled and what was fed to the animal I was fed? The trick of it all is...
To be honest, I wonder sometimes if being a farmer would not be the best life choice for me. I do enjoy something about the outdoors, and the exhaustion of a hard day's labor is uplifting. Of course, that this idea pops into my head each day before I eat something is likely not very helpful. I have to admit my diet is not to the point where I want to be yet. I have not completely removed animal protein or even red meat from my diet. I was raised eating family meals which were well balanced with carbohydrates, a few vegetable options, and a protein entree. The most important part of this I believe was that it was a family meal, and I learned how to cook quite well, even exceeding my parents interest in different ways of preparation, flavor profiles, along with textural and visual elements. Thus it was with these things in mind that I began to get into cooking for myself and choosing meals. I still indulge in far too much junk food and use college lifestyles as an excuse. Yet, more recently with an expanded knowledge of the risk factors in meat protein or the mercury scares with fish like tuna, I have started to think a bit before purchasing meat to prepare for meals at my apartment, even to point where I rarely purchase it anymore. I do enjoy a properly prepared piece of meat. It is an essential part of so much of Western cuisine, and I do not believe it should be vilified... only balanced with plant matter and substituted for most meals. Frankly it isn't essential to many Eastern cuisines, and the substitutes of beans or tofu or lentils provide intriguing amounts of alternatives for even complete proteins with rice. Thus a diet rich in these items with the occasional meat proteins would seem to serve me fairly well.
Yet...the environmental issue is the one that is truly grim. Because as it turns out, any meat that I am likely to get my hands on in the store-- whether or not it has been fed a lot of unnatural things (organic or not)-- has still released large amounts of green house gases. By eating organic we assume we can at least be putting natural things in our body and into the ground when we eat plants. We could hope that this would be a sustainable way of farming, but the issue is that when I go the supermarket, virtually none of the stuff there is truly sustainable because it is from so far away. How can I ensure local produce when I have no ties to local farming? When there is not a huge amount of local farming, especially for certain products that do not grow here? Reverting back to my love of cooking, I would love to be more versed in seasonal cooking, a term I admit is a bit silly to me because seasonal cooking used to be the only type of cooking. We used to only be able to cook what would grow, so in the winter if hearty squash was what was left that was used. The whole idea of jarring and canning our own food came from the need to have things for winter. I always used to enjoy black eyed peas and tomato preserves even on New Year's Day because the peas were dried and the preserves jarred in summer. Where has our knowledge of this gone? When we aren't growing and picking our own food and orange is there in February at the supermarket, it's hard to roll back expectations and begin to learn this lifestyle again. So eventually I've gotten very hungry and to avoid calling in something I go ahead and make what I could buy at the store. Even so, I did eat out with a friend last weekend, and I wasn't really thinking about what I had until after the meal, only of enjoy myself at dinner. So who knows how far those things traveled and what was fed to the animal I was fed? The trick of it all is...
The Solution to Overthinking
I am an over-thinker. From girls to papers to books to dreams to afternoon activities, I take over analysis and thinking about possible consequences and implications to absurd proportions. This trend extended into my political thoughts at the same time that I began to develop them (after reading A People’s History of the United States, in case you were interested), and initiated my foray into the world of facts concerning food. My first encounter with factory farms and everything that went along with it was through the book The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Singer.
I had gone vegan for Lent my senior year in high school. In Waconia, Minnesota, this was akin to giving up your chance to eat in the school cafeteria, but I wanted to try it after both of my parents became vegan after being introduced to some alarming statistical correlations between cancer, along with other “non-preventible” diseases, and animal protein. I read the book they did (The China Study) and was by no means convinced that there was a true connection. However, I wanted to give it a shot.
After Lent, I started eating ice cream occasionally (it’s so good), but had lost my taste for meat. When I found Singer’s book, I thought it might provide me with reasons to feed my incredulous friends and their families when I refused to eat hamburgers and hot dogs. What it provided me with was a long list of reasons to eat lower on the food chain, and enough information to never let me take the food I eat for granted again. Where my food comes from, how it was grown, harvested, produced, shipped, kept, sanitized, and sold; these all bog me down in an unescapable morass of questions which sometimes keep me from buying anything when I go shopping.
My food choices are influenced by four things—cost, taste, health, and environmental friendliness. I try to balance cheap food with healthy, tasty food, with a small impact on the environment. Last year, I found the ultimate way to get all of the above without compromises, complete with exercise, a clean conscience, funny stories, and good times with friends. I’m thinking about publishing a book about the new diet, but I know it wouldn’t catch on too well. I dumpster-dive.
And to cut off your objections before they start, let me say this: I have seen much more mold in refrigerators than I have ever seen in dumpsters. I have only ever seen one rat by a dumpster, but more than I care to count scurrying around AU after dark. I have never gotten sick of dumpster food. The legality of it is questionable, maybe, but the ethics are clear—food going to waste is fair game to those who are willing to dig for it.
My dinner last night was composed of pasta, bread, tomatoes, red peppers, and bread—all from a dumpster. The only pieces of the meal that I didn’t salvage from eternal damnation and rotting in a methane-producing garbage heap were the spices I used to season the sauce I made form the tomatoes. Not every meal I eat is express from the “dumpster gods,” as we call them, but most have some connection.
I had gone vegan for Lent my senior year in high school. In Waconia, Minnesota, this was akin to giving up your chance to eat in the school cafeteria, but I wanted to try it after both of my parents became vegan after being introduced to some alarming statistical correlations between cancer, along with other “non-preventible” diseases, and animal protein. I read the book they did (The China Study) and was by no means convinced that there was a true connection. However, I wanted to give it a shot.
After Lent, I started eating ice cream occasionally (it’s so good), but had lost my taste for meat. When I found Singer’s book, I thought it might provide me with reasons to feed my incredulous friends and their families when I refused to eat hamburgers and hot dogs. What it provided me with was a long list of reasons to eat lower on the food chain, and enough information to never let me take the food I eat for granted again. Where my food comes from, how it was grown, harvested, produced, shipped, kept, sanitized, and sold; these all bog me down in an unescapable morass of questions which sometimes keep me from buying anything when I go shopping.
My food choices are influenced by four things—cost, taste, health, and environmental friendliness. I try to balance cheap food with healthy, tasty food, with a small impact on the environment. Last year, I found the ultimate way to get all of the above without compromises, complete with exercise, a clean conscience, funny stories, and good times with friends. I’m thinking about publishing a book about the new diet, but I know it wouldn’t catch on too well. I dumpster-dive.
And to cut off your objections before they start, let me say this: I have seen much more mold in refrigerators than I have ever seen in dumpsters. I have only ever seen one rat by a dumpster, but more than I care to count scurrying around AU after dark. I have never gotten sick of dumpster food. The legality of it is questionable, maybe, but the ethics are clear—food going to waste is fair game to those who are willing to dig for it.
My dinner last night was composed of pasta, bread, tomatoes, red peppers, and bread—all from a dumpster. The only pieces of the meal that I didn’t salvage from eternal damnation and rotting in a methane-producing garbage heap were the spices I used to season the sauce I made form the tomatoes. Not every meal I eat is express from the “dumpster gods,” as we call them, but most have some connection.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Food Choices
Though my size might not show it, I am someone who really enjoys food, and is always ready to try new cuisines and new delicacies. Simply put, I am a food fanatic. When I decide where or what it is that I want to eat, it is based mostly on my mood, how hungry I am and how much money I have, if I am eating outside of campus! While eating on-campus I try eat as balanced a meal with my meats as well as my vegetables. I have never been one to diet, so my choices of food are generally based on what I think my needs are in order to remain healthy, and never about restrictions. In short, I eat whatever it is I want to!
It is not till recently that I have really realised how big of an impact my meal choices have on the environment. As a college student who eats most of her meals at on-campus dining facilities, it is hard to only eat locally grown products, because it all depends on where the school does its purchasing from. However, there are definitely choices that each one of us can make to lessen out individual impacts on the environment, and while I know that I can never become a full-out vegetarian, I have tried restricting my diet so that I am only consuming meat-products only once a day.
Looking back at my meal choices in the past few days, I cannot say that I have followed my above rule very rigorously, but I am getting there slowly, but surely.I think that it is mainly the meat that I consume that has the highest impact on the environment. In addition, this meat is most probably not locally produced, adding more to the problem. I am mostly a milk drinker which would also have effects depending on where AU gets its milk from.
It is not till recently that I have really realised how big of an impact my meal choices have on the environment. As a college student who eats most of her meals at on-campus dining facilities, it is hard to only eat locally grown products, because it all depends on where the school does its purchasing from. However, there are definitely choices that each one of us can make to lessen out individual impacts on the environment, and while I know that I can never become a full-out vegetarian, I have tried restricting my diet so that I am only consuming meat-products only once a day.
Looking back at my meal choices in the past few days, I cannot say that I have followed my above rule very rigorously, but I am getting there slowly, but surely.I think that it is mainly the meat that I consume that has the highest impact on the environment. In addition, this meat is most probably not locally produced, adding more to the problem. I am mostly a milk drinker which would also have effects depending on where AU gets its milk from.
Monday, March 2, 2009
To begin by addressing the question-- whether or not technology is the answer and should always be viewed positively-- is admittedly not the focus of my argument. Yet, I will get it out of the way first to weigh both sides of the issue. Admittedly technology is the literally the bedrock of human society. It is the fusion of elements to expedite, manipulate, extract, synthesize, add, subtract, multiply, and inevitably elucidate the human mind to its own experience. It is in so many ways the opposite of nature, even if it can be designed to not affect it negatively.
At this point, we have pushed our society to the point where we need energy, and a lot of it. Thus the element of technology perhaps most needed is to extract. Extracting fossil fuels as fast as possible is what will likely carry us for a minimum of another 20 to 50 years. Certainly there is impetus and in some cases incentive now to move off fossil fuels and adopt more sustainable methods of transportation, raising livestock and farming, and fueling our buildings and homes, yet these are often expensive even when feasibly these methods should not be. Most worrisome is the model that developing countries with a greater number of people to carry out the lifestyle are following, which is the quick, cheap, and dirty method. Can we simply innovate and let technology lead us to the next century without frying up? Not likely. Quite simply the gains that technology claims to be ready to make soon are in many cases not so readily available, often theoretical, and truthfully no time can be spared emitting more considering that many of the effects of what we do now will not be felt for years to come.
The real issue concerns the mental ethic that arises from this trust in technology. "Knowing" that technology will innovate to save us means that we can always just plug something new into the system of our economic expansion. Not only is it likely that even with our endless innovation we will still exhaust the Earth's supply and ability to suck up degradation, but also plugging things into a system never change its trajectory by much. Thus, we are simply continuing to uphold our values of consuming and consuming to upkeep our false economy. There is not always a synthetic substitute for what the Earth can create, and we must realize the truth about our lifestyle.
What we will see in the future is the possibility to stabilize the destruction we are making through technology. However, should this be possible, we will have a world not beautiful in its natural splendor, we will have a synthetic system upheld in new systemic ways that nature had never intended. This is certainly acceptable to some, but in many ways it does seem to undermine the place nature has held in the human spirit, confirming us spiritually and creatively. Just waiting for technology to fix the problem we eschew our responsibility socially, politically, and personally to engage our roles in the environment.
At this point, we have pushed our society to the point where we need energy, and a lot of it. Thus the element of technology perhaps most needed is to extract. Extracting fossil fuels as fast as possible is what will likely carry us for a minimum of another 20 to 50 years. Certainly there is impetus and in some cases incentive now to move off fossil fuels and adopt more sustainable methods of transportation, raising livestock and farming, and fueling our buildings and homes, yet these are often expensive even when feasibly these methods should not be. Most worrisome is the model that developing countries with a greater number of people to carry out the lifestyle are following, which is the quick, cheap, and dirty method. Can we simply innovate and let technology lead us to the next century without frying up? Not likely. Quite simply the gains that technology claims to be ready to make soon are in many cases not so readily available, often theoretical, and truthfully no time can be spared emitting more considering that many of the effects of what we do now will not be felt for years to come.
The real issue concerns the mental ethic that arises from this trust in technology. "Knowing" that technology will innovate to save us means that we can always just plug something new into the system of our economic expansion. Not only is it likely that even with our endless innovation we will still exhaust the Earth's supply and ability to suck up degradation, but also plugging things into a system never change its trajectory by much. Thus, we are simply continuing to uphold our values of consuming and consuming to upkeep our false economy. There is not always a synthetic substitute for what the Earth can create, and we must realize the truth about our lifestyle.
What we will see in the future is the possibility to stabilize the destruction we are making through technology. However, should this be possible, we will have a world not beautiful in its natural splendor, we will have a synthetic system upheld in new systemic ways that nature had never intended. This is certainly acceptable to some, but in many ways it does seem to undermine the place nature has held in the human spirit, confirming us spiritually and creatively. Just waiting for technology to fix the problem we eschew our responsibility socially, politically, and personally to engage our roles in the environment.
Technology: a means to an end...or a beginning
I agree with John, in that technology is merely a tool and it is up to humans to use it in way that will save us or lead to our own destruction.
there is no doubt that technology has assisted us in many aspects of our every day lives, and that without it, we would be very lost. In order just to write this blog I need my laptop, the Internet, music on my itunes, electricity, etc. Of course, one can argue that we do not necessarily "need" technology in our lives, but it would surely be hard to revert to not using gadgets we are so accustomed to using.
However, the technology being used to make the various gadgets we utilise on a daily basis, and the usage of those very gadgets themselves can sometimes lead to environmental damage. So, while it provides us with benefits now, many of these gadgets might result in very harmful affects in the future and we are in a battle between short-term gain versus long-term pain. The stratospheric ozone depletion is just one example of how we found short-term benefits from using certain products without realising the long-term harm that those products were going to cause us.
Fortunately, our knowledge has increased about the effects we are having on the environment, and we have come up with ways to combat those effects. Some of those ways to combat the negative effects have been through technology. Technological innovations such as hybrid cars and solar and wind power are just some of the ways that we poured our creative juices into developing. In addition, with the economic crisis in hand, green energy is one area where a lot of attention is going into. While the incentives behind it might not be the right ones, it is still reassuring to see that efforts are going to develop it.
Hence, I reiterate the point that John made: technology is a tool and it is up to us to use it for our long-term benefit or for our own eventual death. I have faith in human capabilities to create things that will be beneficial in all regards, both in the short- and long-run. However, attention needs to be given right now and focus must be made right now towards those areas, towards creating greener technology. If not, it might be a tad too late to save our planet. As the stratospheric ozone depletion case showed us, it is possible to remedy a wrong that we commit, as long as we take effective action immediately. It will take international commit and a large enforcement of changes, but it is quite possible to realise in the end.
there is no doubt that technology has assisted us in many aspects of our every day lives, and that without it, we would be very lost. In order just to write this blog I need my laptop, the Internet, music on my itunes, electricity, etc. Of course, one can argue that we do not necessarily "need" technology in our lives, but it would surely be hard to revert to not using gadgets we are so accustomed to using.
However, the technology being used to make the various gadgets we utilise on a daily basis, and the usage of those very gadgets themselves can sometimes lead to environmental damage. So, while it provides us with benefits now, many of these gadgets might result in very harmful affects in the future and we are in a battle between short-term gain versus long-term pain. The stratospheric ozone depletion is just one example of how we found short-term benefits from using certain products without realising the long-term harm that those products were going to cause us.
Fortunately, our knowledge has increased about the effects we are having on the environment, and we have come up with ways to combat those effects. Some of those ways to combat the negative effects have been through technology. Technological innovations such as hybrid cars and solar and wind power are just some of the ways that we poured our creative juices into developing. In addition, with the economic crisis in hand, green energy is one area where a lot of attention is going into. While the incentives behind it might not be the right ones, it is still reassuring to see that efforts are going to develop it.
Hence, I reiterate the point that John made: technology is a tool and it is up to us to use it for our long-term benefit or for our own eventual death. I have faith in human capabilities to create things that will be beneficial in all regards, both in the short- and long-run. However, attention needs to be given right now and focus must be made right now towards those areas, towards creating greener technology. If not, it might be a tad too late to save our planet. As the stratospheric ozone depletion case showed us, it is possible to remedy a wrong that we commit, as long as we take effective action immediately. It will take international commit and a large enforcement of changes, but it is quite possible to realise in the end.
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