30 Days and The Omnivore's Dilemma

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Speaking of discoveries . . . my 15-year old son sat my husband and I down to watch Morgan Spurlock's (of Supersize Me fame) new show called 30 Days. We are now the proud owners of the first season on DVD. The show's premise is that Morgan, or one of his colleagues, lives in someone else's shoes for 30 days and we get to watch. We viewed the segment where Morgan and his lovely vegan-chef fiancee live on minimum wage for 30 days. It's Barbara Eisenreich's Nickel and Dimed brought to life on film (Nickel and Dimed is summarized under the Bookworm category Social Commentary - see left column.) They walk to work, ride the bus, eat rice and beans, end up in the emergency room (twice!), live above a former crack house, work tirelessly, take a second job, and still end up at the end of the month with bills that would take them at least three months to pay - that is, if nothing else goes wrong. And they are young, healthy (at least going into the experience), articulate, well-educated and don't have children. It's an eye-opener. GREAT to watch with teenagers.

I am also reading a  book called The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. Here's what Dr. Andrew Weil says about the book:

“With the skill of a professional detective, Michael Pollan explores the worlds of industrial farming, organic and sustainable agriculture, and even hunting and gathering to determine the links of food chains: how food gets from its sources in nature to our plates. The findings he reports in this book are often unexpected, disturbing, even horrifying, but they are facts every eater should know. This is an      engaging book, full of information that is most relevant to conscious living.”

I'm currently on page 108, which finds the author about to eat meal #1 - fast food prepared at McDonald's and eaten in a moving car. OK, I know a thing or two about fast food but that knowledge has been eclipsed by what I've learned in the preceding chapters about CORN.

Pollan says "When I started trying to follow the industrial food chain - the one that now feeds most of us most of the time and typically culminates either in a supermarket or fast-food meal - I expected that my investigations would lead me to a wide variety of places. And though my journeys did take me to a great many states, and covered a great many miles, at the very end of these food chains (which is to say, at the very beginning), I invariably found myself in almost exactly the same place: a farm field in the American Corn Belt. The great edifice of variety and choice that is an American supermarket turns out to rest on a remarkably narrow biological foundation dominated by a single species: Zea mays, the tropical grass most Americans know as corn."

Did I mention that it takes between a quarter and a third of a gallon of oil to grow every bushel of industrial corn?

Also, now that we feed cattle corn instead of grass their digestive systems were intended for, we end up with all kinds of nasty consequences like cattle that need a steady diet of antibiotics and the introduction of super bugs like E. coli 0157:H7 (yes, the spinach E.coli) that developed because corn-feed cattle have a more acidic gut which have enabled acid-resistant E. coli to develop. So now, "these bugs can shake off the acid baths in our stomach - and then go on to kill us." Pollan says this new strain was not seen before 1980 and thrives in feedlot cattle, where approximately 40 percent carry it in their gut. Scary, indeed.

Then there's the average American's annual consumption of 65 pounds of High Fructose Corn Syrup!

Despite all this chilling news, the book is a fabulous read - Pollan's an exquisite writer. Next, he tackles organic and sustainable agriculture . . . I'll keep you posted!

 

Comments

[skytop supra]

The findings he reports in this book are often unexpected, disturbing, even horrifying, but they are facts every eater should know.

[Supra Skytop II]

Perhaps we have hurt, have pain, but life experience tells us that not long after the wound is healed, and still strong life!

[air yeezy]

No matter how gluttonous devouring all the time, we need to breathe at this time, and strive to win our reputation, the sickle of time can not hurt us. - William Shakespeare

[ClubPenguinCheats]

The findings he reports in this book are often unexpected, disturbing, even horrifying, but they are facts every eater should know.

[dr dre beats headphones]

so good!

[ugg classic tall]

Sorry to trouble you, but do you have a rubber?