Hwk 7c

Chapter Eleven – The Animals: Practicing Complexity
Precis:
Rotational grazing is when the animals are basically doing all the work, while the farmers make sure everything is running smoothley. For example, in Joel Salatin's farm each animal has a certain role to play which will benefit other animals. This method causes every living organism on the farm to make a connection to one another. Some jobs these animals take care of in order to maintain a lively farm life include fertilizing and feeding.
Gems:
"I'm just the orchestra conductor, making sure everybody's in the right place at the right time." (212)
"It's all connected. This farm is more like an organism than a machine, and like any organism it has its proper scale. A mouse is the size of a mouse for a good reason, and a mouse that was the size of an elephant wouldn't do very well." (213)
"Koestler felt English lacked a word to express the complex relationship of parts and wholes in a biological or social system." (215)
"So much of the intelligence and local knowledge in agriculture has been removed from the farm to the laboratory, and then returned to the farm in the form of a chemical or machine." (220)
"One of the greatest assets of a farm is the sheer ecstasy of life." (225)
Thoughts:
When comparing the jobs of an industrial farmer to a organic or rational grazing farmer, at the end of the day the organic/rational grazing farmer would have done much more than a industrial farmer. Because of this reason America is more common to having industrail farmers. I think we are just too lazy, and we don't have enough heart. Industrial farmers do their jobs just so they have a certain role to play in their society and have some type of income, they tend to depend to quantity. Rational farmers such as Joel Salatin have more care about the quality of their food; they want to make sure that every plant grown and animal raised on their farm is in no way harmful to the consumer and the enviornment. Industrail farmers tend to take the easier way out of their job, while an organic farmer like Salatin is open to alternatives as long as it benefits the enviornment and the consumer.

Why are organic and rotational grazing farms not common in the United States? I think this is simply because no one is pushing this idea through. It's more of an option, instead of being mandatory. If the governemnt tries to make this idea mandatory for all farms throughout America, we will have more production of healthy foods causing the rates to fall, in return giving friendlier prices to buyers.

Chapter Twelve – Slaughter: In a Glass Abattoir
Precis:
In order to consume the animal, it must go through a messy process of slaughtering. Unlike most farmers, Joel Salatin ignores the criticism he receives from the USDA and slaughters his animals on the farm. The slaughtering process for animals such as chickens is tough. First the chickens are grabbed by their legs while they violentley move around, then placed inside cones in order to slice their necks.
Gems:
"I point out we don't have any walls at all, not to mention doors and windows, because the best disinfectant in the world is fresh air and sunshine." (229)
"After you gut a few thousand chickens," Galen said dryly after I'd torn another chicken, "you'll either get really good at it, or you'll stop gutting chickens." (234)
"We do not allow the government to dictate what religion you can observe, so why should we allow them to dictate what kind of food you can buy?" (236)
Thoughts:
Why does the government create so many strict rules for rotational grazing farmers? In the end of the day these farmers are trying to do what is best for the enviornment and their consumers. Why does the government seem to go against this idea?

In my opinion, the idea of animals being slaughtered in front of the soon to be consumer is great. Many slaughterhouses try to hide the slaughter process...what are they trying to hide from the consumers? Slaughtering animals in front of the customers gives the customer another reason to buy from the seller; they are not afraid to let the slaughtering process be viewed by the open public.

If more slaughterhouses were open to the idea of slaughtering their animals in front of their customers, would there be an increase in the number of people turning into vegans? I think ithere would be a slight increase. The slaughtering process opens the consumers eyes in a new way. It makes them realize much more than they had known before.

Chapter Thirteen – The Market: “Greetings from the Non-Barcode People”
Precis:
When purchasing food from the farm, the customer is well aware about the food they will soon consume; whereas when the customer purchases food from a market, they aren't well educated about the food. Food bought from farms such as the Polyface farm is likely to cost a bit more when compared to the prices in industrial markets; this is all to be blammed on the government. Farmers such as Salatin sell their products locally, since they keep their enviornment in mind at all times.
Gems:
"He believes the only meaningful guarantee of integrity is when buyers and sellers can look one another in the eye, something few of us ever take the trouble to do." (240)
"Don't you find it odd that people will put more work into choosing their mechanic or house contractor than they will into chosing the person who grows their food?" (240)
“I tell them the choice is simple: You can buy honestly priced food or you can buy irresponsibly priced food.” (243)
"The beauty of the internet is that it allows like-minded people to find their tribes, and then for the tribes to find their way to us." (248)
Thoughts:
I think that people are slowly becomming aware of this idea, and they want to change their food ways. But for some people this is tough, because even though they are willing to change their food ways, their pockets won't allow them to do so. They should blame the government for this; if prices for food that is grown in farms such as those owned by Salatin decrease, I predict that many people will be making drastic changes in their food ways.

Farmers that work in rotational grazing farms seem to have a good relationship with their communities. They build a trustworthy relationship with their customers. This is why the community which surrounds Polyface makes their food purchases from their farm because they trust their food, and the farm has nothing to hide from their customers.

Chapter Fourteen – The Meal: Grass Fed
Precis:
Much of the food we consume seems to have the same exterior, but what about the interior? We don't realize the difference between the food grown in farms such as the Polyface farm, and food grown in industrial farms. The Polyface farms feeds grass to their animals, which in return gives many healthy benefits. This food has higher quality because no chemicals are involved when growing it; the animals are not forced to consume corn. Grass fed food is much more nutritional since it has it's own unique taste and benefits such as scaring diseases away.
Gems:
I had made pretty much the same meal on several occasions at home, using the same basic foodstuffs, yet in certain invisible ways this wasn't the same food at all. Apart from the high color of the egg yolks, these eggs looked pretty much like any other eggs, the chicken like the chicken, but the fact that the animals in question had spent their lives outdoors on pastures rather than in a shed eating grain distinguished their flesh and eggs in important, measurable ways. (266)
"When chickens get to live like chickens, they'll taste like chickens, too." (270)
“Every meal we share at a table recapitulates this evolution form nature to culture, as we pass from satisfying our animal appetites in semisilence to the lofting of conversational balloons.” (272)
Thoughts:
While reading through this chapter, I kept questioning myself, what exactly is the "real" taste of a certain food? Have I been living off food that doesn't taste the way it should? Even though we assume that a certain type of food is supposed to have a certain taste, we should be well aware about different tastes for one type of food. I don't think there is a "real" taste for each type of food out there; the taste of the certain food will always vary depending on the way it was brought up and how it was cared for.

I liked the way this chapter was written, the way the food and the setting were described. I could almost picture some scences in my head. I suddenly wanted to take a part of the scene where they were consuming the food.

Chapter Fifteen – The Forager
Precis:
The hunter/gatherer technique is not as common as it was before, so I decided to get a feel for this technique. I wanted to learn how it feels to be in charge of creating and capturing my own food. I want to go out to teh wilderness and take part in a first hand experience on how it feels to grow my own food , and kill other creatures in order to make my own food from scratch. In order to become a legal hunterer, I will need to obtain a license by taking a course and completing a test.
Gems:
"She made it sound like it wouldn't take much for a kid to get himself killed snacking in the woods." (278)
“Like other important forms of play, it promises to teach us something about who we are beneath the crust of our civilized, practical, grown-up lives. Foraging for wild plants and animals is, after all, the way the human species has fed itself for 99 percent of its time on earth; this is precisely the food chain natural selection designed for us.” (280)
"When I moved away I would call for recipes and for memory of smell and taste, and now I'm trying to replicate what I left behind." (283)
Thoughts:
How would our lifestyles change if we all suddenly became hunter/gatherers?

After becoming aware of Pollan's desires for having a hunting gathering experience, I am becoming curious with this interest as well. I want to experience it for myself; I want be able to depend on my self if an event occurs where i am stuck in the wilderness and in need of such skills. A hunting/gathering skill is always nice to have under your belt, you never know when you will need it.

Chapter Sixteen – The Omnivore's Dilemma
Precis:
Humans and rats are very similar creatures, in the sense that they are both omnivores. But these creatures have many differences as well; one of the major differences being that humans make their food choices relying on advertisments and scientists unlike rats. Humans want to consume food not only to consume food, but to get a pleasure out of it; we want our food to be affordable, ethical, pleasing to the culture, etc... We make our decisions regarding food based on the way it tastes or how familiar we are with it.
Gems:
"Eating might be simpler as a thimble-brained monophage, but it's also a lot more precarious, which partly explains why there are so many more rats and humans in the world than koalas." (290)
"Cooking, one of the omnivore's cleverest tools, opened up whole new vistas of edibility. Indeed, in doing so it probably made us who we are. " (293)
"Being an omnivore occupying a cognitive niche in nature is both a boon and a challenge, a source of tremendous power as well as anxiety." (295)
Thoughts:
Would humans be able to depend on one type of food in order to survive? Or have we become so used to having a vast variety of foods that we are not capable of having such a thought?

I found it interesting that rats and humans have so many similarities. I thought it was a unique way to learn about rats and how they relate and differ with humans. I didn't know much about rats before this reading, even though some parts were a bit disgusting it was indeed a different way to learn about an omnivore other than the human being.