Hw 12 - Final Food project 2 - Outline

Thesis: An individual in our culture must recognize and respond to the nightmarish industrial atrocities at the root of dominant social practices in order to live a morally satisfactory life.

Major claim:  According to dominant social practices, an individual must understand the nightmarish industrial atrocities behind their food in order to live a morally satisfactory life.

Supporting claim 1:  Individuals don't have enough financial means nor access to a change in dominant social practices. 

Evidence: Number of farmers markets vs Fast food restaurants.

Evidence: Poverty struck individuals have more fast food than the higher classes.

Evidence: Healthier, Locally grown and organic foods are relatively expensive. 

Evidence: Organic, locally grown and healthy foods are less advertised than unhealthier options.

Supporting claim 2: Individuals' social practices are altered by the government as well as other individuals. 

Evidence: The amount of former Monsanto workers with government involvements. 

Evidence: The Bush organization. 

Evidence: The governments lack of enforcement on safe meat production.

Hw 11- Final Food project 1

For this assignment, I chose to use an experimental approach. I chose to change one of my meals a day to include No meat, and to be a much healthier food choice. The meal I chose to change is breakfast. Prior to the beginning of my experiment, my typical breakfast's consisted of either chocolate chip waffles with syrup and orange juice, 2 eggs with salami and cheese on a roll with orange juice, or a very sugary cereal such as Froot Loops or Captain Crunch. For this experiment and hopefully permanently, I am having either    wheat toast with a banana and orange juice or 2 egg whites without cheese on wheat bread with orange juice. With the change in my diet, I feel much safer and at east mentally with the knowledge that I am having a healthy breakfast, and I know eventually the physical changes will be apparent.
During the food unit, I've learned more about the industrial process behind producing meat and the dominant discourses behind having such unhealthy food such as Mcdonalds over fresh vegetables and fruit.   My experiment is directly linked to what I've learned in this unit, because I intended to put myself in the category of healthier dietary habits and to see if its effects on my body are worth the change for.
I can safely say already within a week of my experiment, that I've learned even a small step to better eating habits, such as mine can really make a difference in a short time, and in the long term, it will pay off even more, for you and the environment.
The idea of eating healthy to help the environment is important for the entire world, because industrial farms that produce the meat that we consume through mostly fast food, can be rendered almost useless if people chose healthier ways to eat, and stopped promoting the need for fast food restaurants.

Hw 10 - Food, Inc. Response

In Food, Inc, the main ideas are the overwhelming dominance that fast food industries have on the food aspect of the economy, and the image that food industries are trying to project to the public.
The movie offers deeper analysis on the negative aspects of fast food factories, throughout the entire movie, only the negative aspects of industries were shown from the way they treat the animals to the way they treat the workers. However, the book, "Fast Food Nation" shows both sides of the spectrum, not only are the way the corporations run their business shown, but also the success of the owners of McDonald's are shown also. The movie does offer more points of view from different people, than Fast Food Nation.
I feel almost scared, that the fast food industries that are so "Bad" and "unhealthy" for you are so powerful and dominate so much of the economy and the worlds meat distributors. I also find it very interesting that the government knows so much about the way that fast food industries treat their workers and animals, yet, just because of the power the industries have, the government chooses to act almost neutral in the matter.
A few questions that still remain for me, are; If the consumer chooses to eat healthy, organic and locally grown food, won't the fast food industry try to change to appeal to the consumers wants and needs? What would need to be done, if anything, to get the government to change the way fast food industries manage their workers and animals?