Do we really know what we are eating? Although the author, when following the industrial food chain, expected his investigation to lead to a variety of out lets, majority of comes from or is corn. Ever since the food line processed food is not what it seems:
"In recent years some of this supermarket euphemism has seeped into Produce, where you will now find formerly soil encrusted potatoes cubed pristine white, and "baby" carrots machine-lathed neatly into tapered torpedoes. -page 16"(gem)
From our so called chicken nuggets and the soda we drink to wash it down to the very store we purchase these items from corn is there.
Chapter 2- The Omnivores Dilemma, Michael Pollan(Precis)
The people of America are corn. I mean that in every sense of the phrase. Chapter 2 explicitly shows that although we American would like think that we eat a diverse diet everything from burgers to Twinkies, when we look at what makes up our food on a molecular level majority of it is processed corn. Most importantly we have become what we eat, corn with legs.
Chapter 3- The Omnivores Dilemma, Michael Pollan(Precis)
Corn is not just a food anymore, its a commodidty. Chapter 3 tells how some corn went from being a crop grown by farmers who actually gave a .... about what they grew to corn that is grown just to apease the masses. In fact there is corn made that actually has little to no nutritional benifits.Somthing that stood out to me was on page 60 was:"A commodity is like a filter stripping qualities and histories from the harvest of a particular farm an farmer."(gem) This made me wonder, when did we start to put quantity over quality in food?
Thoughts:
1. When did we become so dependent on this one crop?
2. Is this corn issue a triumph of capitalism or failure of imagination? or both?
3.when did we start to put quantity over quality in food?
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