Due to the over production, the result becomes huge/excess proportions and over consumption. In this chapter the author also discussed similarities in eating binges and drinking binges. The similarities being, turning excess corn into a non-perishable form with encouragements for people to eat more of it. Something interesting about this would be the play of human psychology here: When food is placed before people majority of the time people will finish it. This may be a result of parenting which teaches/encourages their kids to "finish their plate", whether its rice to vegetables which kids may not like but grow up with the urge to finish their plates. To conclude the chapter, the author places the blame of unhealthy Americans on their agricultural policies: “we subsidize high-fructose corn syrup in this country, but not carrots.” Until we change our policy, “the river of cheap corn will keep flowing.”(Gem)
Chapter 7, Omnivores Dilemma, Michael Pollan (Precis):
The author takes his family to a McDonalds to eat and enjoys their meal in the family car, and takes a closer look at the highly refined foods. One of the results of all this processing is that a brand new type of "food" has been invented, one which is no longer associated with the plant and/or animal it came from. Does the chicken nugget taste like chicken? Sadly the answer is no, rather it just taste like a chicken nugget. Does the patty in the burger taste like real beef? No it does not. Using McDonalds as an example of this over-zealously over corn, the author summarizes his thoughts on the corn-empire: "The farmers going broke cultivating it; the countless other species routed or emiserated by it; the humans eating and drinking it as fast as they can, some of them—like me and my family—in automobiles engineered to drink it, too"(Gem)
Chapter 8, Omnivores Dilemma, Michael Pollan(Precis):
Grass is as difrent from industrial farming as can be. There are many diffrences of these is the natural cycle that is made when animals eat what they were made to eat. Cows for example when they eat grass.In the cow-grass cycle there is no such thing as waste, firstly when they eat grass they make fecis and the fecis in turn goes to the grass as fertilizer making the cycle start over."We never called ourselves organic- we call ourselves 'beyond organic'. Why dumb down to a lesser level then we are?"(Gem)
Chapter 9, Omnivores Dilemma, Michael Pollan (Precis):
So the items labeled with the nice "Organic" sign on the store shelves are not what they seemed...
As it turns out, the mainstream organic should be called "Big Organic". Although it started as a bunch of organic farms owned by hippies in the 70's, which used no chemicals to grow produce things started to change as time went on. After experiencing growing pains and limitation in agriculture, they went to industrial machinery to help them extend business. This somewhat ironic that the same people that once "raged against the machine" eventually turned to it (industrial organic).
Thoughts:
"Are we the masters of corn, or is corn the master of us?"
"Will we ever be able to escape the fast food chain?"
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