HW 7d

Omnivores Dilemma, Michael Pollan

Chapter 17:
Precis:
"The food we're eating once had feelings?....."
The phrase above might sound stupid but people nowadays are "just" now realizing this. The foods we eat were once animals and as living things they had feelings. The fact that we slaughter (note that I didn’t say kill, that be down playing the situation, I said slaughter) animals unrelentlessly and without restraint is sad, and it should come as no surprise that people would want to become vegetarians or would'nt want to pay no mind to the situation, because when given to much thought its disgusting (guess that’s why the author was reading an animal’s rights book in a steakhouse).

Gems:
"Nowadays it seems we either look away or become vegetarians. For my own part, neither opinion seemed especially appetizing; certainly looking away was now completely off the table. Which might explain how it was that I found myself attempting to read Peter Singer in a steakhouse"(page 307
"No other country raises and slaughters its food animals as intensively or as brutal as we do."(Page 333)


Thoughts:
 In kindergarten we were thought the word "Pig" and learned that it was an animal, but now were taught the word "pig" and learned that it’s a commodity. This not only goes for "pig" but for other animals as well not to mention plants. Although there is the inevitable fact that animals will be killed, (There will always be a person with a crave for fatty proteins, just as there is a crave for sugar) there is no need for it to be so brutal in abundance.


Chapter 18:
Precis:
 Hunting at one point in time was a natural way for humans to get food. Based on genetics also it would seem that it is somewhat hereditary in the way that. Besides this is the way things were done before the "magic" of agriculture came in the picture.

Gems:
"The fact that you cannot come out of hunting feeling unambiguously good about it is perhaps what should commend the practice to us"(page 361)
"Perhaps it is the joy of a creature succeeding at something he has discovered his nature has superbly equipped him to do, an action that is less a perversion of that nature, his "creaturely character'" than a fulfillment of it."(Page 361)

Thoughts:
As stated in another post the death of animals is inevitable, but when it comes to how it is killed that’s where it varies. The differences between a hunter's kill and a slaughterhouses' slaughter is huge. I’ve went hunting three times now (for turkey and deer) and one thing we were told was that we were never to just harm the animal and to kill it as quickly as possible firstly for the fact that an injured animal is a dangerous animal and for the fact that its just wrong to see in animal in pain or tortured. I remember my first kill: I shot a bird, clipping it underneath the wing. As I ran up to it to kill it, I remember feeling a bit weird since I was up and close ending a life(of course it ended a couple of seconds later after the adrenaline and praise from the others came in). I find this interesting because a hunter kills an animal that has been "living its life" until then, while a slaughterhouses animal has been "living a life set out for it" until it’s slaughtered.


Chapter 19:
Precis:
People naturally have urges to see if they still have the skills to provide for themselves wither it be hunting for animals or plants. Although people downplay plants when comparing them to hunting for animals, they in themselves are a challenge, mushrooms especially. Mushrooms unlike garden plants need to be hunted for. They don’t beg to be picked like an apple or orange that flashes its bright colors and is usually in the eye level area, while in the contrast fungi is not brightly colored and actually "hide" itself. Guess that’s why one hunts for mushrooms instead of harvesting them.

Gems:
 "An economy organized around a complex division of labor can usually get these jobs done for a fraction of the cost, in time or money, that it takes us to do them ourselves, yet something in us apparently seeks conformation that we still have the skills needed to provide for ourselves. You know, just in case."(Page 364)
"Oh, it can be hard work, hunting and gathering, but in the end it isn’t really the work that produces the food you’re after, this effort for that result for there’s no sure correlation between effort and result. (Page 389)

Thoughts:
When you take time to think about it hunting for mushrooms is no joke. Based on what was said in the chapter, you can get lost trying to find them. Not only that but when someone harvests food they usually don’t have to worry about dying if one eats the wrong kind. Make me wonder how it worked when humans first started eating mushrooms? (Trial and error comes to mind, but error would just be death. No pressure.)


Chapter 20
Precis:
What is a perfect meal?...
To some that might be mashed potatoes with steak, and others a BigMac with extra secret sauce. To the author, a meal in which one is totally aware to what they are eating. Although he is not trying to convince us to sharpen the spears of our ancestors he reminds us that people should eat "by the grace of nature", rather than in full ignorance, eat industrially.

Gems:
"It's impossible to prepare and eat a meal quite so physically, intellectually, and emotionally costly without thinking about the incalculably larger debts we incur when we eat industrially"(Page 410)
"For we no longer need any reminding that however we choose to feed ourselves, we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what were eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world."(Page 411)

Thoughts:
 Michael Pollan is one of the few people in America that in full consciousness ate a meal in which he knew what he was eating. What I mean by that is he knew where I came from, how it got on his table and what it truly cost to get it. Not a lot of people can say they caught, grew, and saw their food from start to finish! This really makes me consider what a world without fast-food would be like. A day where food is neither fast or slow but as the author puts it, food would be food, a time when people eat with a idea of what they are doing.