Summary: One Thing to Do about Food

In the forum, famous food writers shared their view about what single thing they think could change the US food system, practically overnight. I will summarize the main point of each author as below:
Marion Nestle: Obesity is the most serious nutrition problem among children as well as adults in the United States. The problem is most caused by under-regulated marketing of junk food and the best solution is to stop all forms of marketing foods to kids.
Michael Pollan: The “farm bill” is the source of problems in our food system. Currently, the content of the bill is mainly determined by large industrial food companies. The solution to the issue is that the general public should care more about food and be the policy makers themselves.
Wendell Berry: Americans are hungry in the sense that they lack a variety of food choices. The best way to change the system requires a lot more knowledge in the minds of a lot more people.
Troy Duster and Elizabeth Ransom: changing people's habitual behavior--from smoking to alcohol consumption, from drugs to junk food--is a mighty task. Individuals rarely listen to health messages and then change their ways. The most effective way is a long-term planning that will include going into the schools to change the way we learn about food.
Winona LaDuke: resuming food culture is the key to improving our food system.
Peter Singer: the government and police-makers are too much influenced by the large industrial food companies. Therefore, for the general public, the most effective way to change the system would be simply not buy factory-farm products.
Vandana Shiva: change the monocultural food system to multicultural food system.
Carlo Petrini: know more about gastronomy, and people will make a larger effort to solve the problems in our food system when they appreciate the pleasure of enjoying real food.
Eliot Coleman: target on the cause rather than the symptoms by going organic.
Jim Hightower: we are now turning our food-policy decisions over to corporate lobbyists, lawyers and economists, people who do not really know agriculture. The solution to it and to the many problems beyond it would be becoming policy makers ourselves.

Comments: The various points made by the many famous food writers are all convincing to me. However, I feel the central problem is still with the unawareness of the general public. For example, as Eliot Coleman advocates going organic, few people actually know that many large organic farms are not so different from the industrial factories, as Pollan points out in the Omnivore’s dilemma. Therefore, I feel increasing the knowledge of the general public is the key to the problems in our current food system.

Questions to consider:
1. How did the large industrial food companies end up with so much power in influencing food related policy making?
2. For the lack of knowledge among the general public, is it more likely a result of the people’s own reluctance to know or a result of the ruling ideology (e.g. large industrial food companies’ power of misguiding the general public)?
3. Considering the so many problems with our food system, is it really possible to solve all the problems with one or two changes?

Three Cruelest Chinese Dishes

I'm putting up descriptions to these dishes not to scary people. I'm doing it only because some people still eat them even after the practice was made illegle!
1. Monkey Brain:
Anchor the head of a live monkey to the middle of a table. Knock a hole on top of the head and eat the brain with a spoon while the monkey is still alive.
2. Three Chi:
Newly born mice (usually in pink color) are served alive in a plate with flavors on the side. When the chopstick gets a mouse, it makes the first "chi" sound. When the mouse is put into the flavor alive, it makes the second "chi" sound. When it is eaten alive, it makes the last "chi" sound.
3. Lively Boiled Donkey:
Anchor a live donkey to the ground with a large bowl of boiled water on the side. Consumers point to the parts of the donkey they want, and the server will shell the skin of that part and pour boiled water on the fresh meet continually until it is well "boiled". Then the server cuts the meet out. All these are done while the donkey is alive.

Summary: The Scarcity Fallacy

In this essay, the author tries to find the real cause and corresponding solutions to world hunger. According to Scanlan, the conventional wisdom about world hunger focuses on the problem of scarcity. However, his study shows that this is not the case today. He believes that “world hunger has less to do with the shortage of food than with a shortage of affordable or accessible food” (Scanlan 2010, para. 4). By this he means that “social inequalities, distribution systems, and other economic and political factors create barriers to food access” (Scanlan 2010, para. 5) are more responsible for the world hunger today. Following this conclusion, Scanlan argues that the current focus of the major food agencies in the world, which points to food scarcity, does not aim at the essential cause of hunger and thus will not be effective. He then points out that in specific, “poverty, inequality, conflict, and corruption” (Scanlan 2010, para. 27) are the actual crucial contributors to world hunger and all these factors “fit together, reinforce one another, and even intensify the impacts of … scarcity itself” (Scanlan 2010, para. 27). Finally, Scanlan argues that the only effective solution to world hunger is the one that focuses on these specific causes, and the solution, in essence, is “to create a more equitable and just society in which food access is ensured for all” (Scanlan 2010, para. 37).

Personal comments:
In both my biology class and my other DSOC class, we have talked about the problem of world hunger. The main arguments of this essay is in more accord with what we learned from the other DSOC class, in which the professor addresses that the essence of hunger is poverty, and the essence of poverty is social inequality. Thus, he proposes the solution to the problem is social reforms. In our biology class, however, the professor focuses on Multhus’ idea that population tends to grow geometrically while the food supply tends to grow arithmetically, and therefore the population could outgrow the food supply. It is interesting to notice how the same issue is viewed differently from these two perspectives. I personally agree more with the sociological perspective.

Questions to consider:
1. With respect to the issue of poverty and inequality, I believe the social structure do play a role in it, but as many economists and psychologists point out, there may be genetic factors which determine some groups have an innate advantage over other groups (e.g. males are more muscular than females). If this is the case, are social reforms trying to promote equality a contradiction to nature?
2. In my DSOC 1101 class, the professor proposed a quasi-socialistic model with the focus of improved social welfare for social reforms in the US. However, as the model has already failed in East European countries in the 1960s, how can we solve the problem of free riding and lack of incentive to work if we push too far in using improved social welfare as a means of promoting social equality?

Cons about the GE modified papaya

In class, we talked about GE modified foods in general. In my biog1110 class, we are also talking about GE in food industry, and we are focusing on the GE modified papaya in specific. The following is an abstract from an article that discusses the cons about the GE modified papaya. Many of the points made here are in accord with what we learned in class. You may also click on the link to read the full article.
Contamination by Genetically Engineered Papaya in Thailand
It has been two years since facts were made public that a research station under the Thai Government had illegally sold and distributed genetically engineered(GE) contaminated papaya seeds to farmers. Subsequent investigations by an independent constitutional body and by NGOs found GE contamination in the environment. These revelations compelled the government to admit the contamination of papaya farms, after which it ordered the destruction of GE papaya trees in the experimental plots.
Unfortunately, necessary steps to decontaminate Thailand’s environment have not been taken. The Department of Agriculture (DOA), which started the controversial genetic engineering research in question is ironically the same agency mandated to enforce the quarantine on GE papaya. The DOA claims that it has completely destroyed all GE papaya that has spread outside of the research station. However, later investigations by Greenpeace as well as by other independent organizations like the National Human Rights Commission, of papaya plots on farms that received suspected GE contaminated seeds proved otherwise. Over the past few years, GE papaya contamination has been discovered in several provinces.
Despite this, the DOA still refuses to deal with the ongoing contamination of Thai papaya farms. Instead, the agency is seeking a reversal of an earlier cabinet resolution banning all GE field trials in an effort to cover up for its sins and legitimize the spread of GE papaya to the environment.
GE papaya has never undergone proper assessments for either human food safety or environmental risks. As such, the Thai people run the risk of eating GE papaya without their knowledge and consent, thereby serving as guinea pigs for an experiment that is spiraling out of control.

Summary: Sweet Charity? (Ch. 2-3)

In these two chapters, Janet Poppendieck discusses the issues around the emergency food. In chapter two, she focuses on the issue of “who uses the emergency food program”. According to Poppendieck (1998), “the answer to our question is almost too simple for words. Who eats emergency food? Poor people, and people very much like them” (p. 51). These “poor people” are further divided into four categories: 1) some people are poor because employment-related factors, including recent unemployment, long-term unemployment, and seasonal unemployment. 2) Some people are poor because of the high shelter costs and “once a person becomes homeless, he or she almost automatically joins the ranks of the hungry” (Poppendieck 1998, p. 63). 3) Some people are poor because of the inadequate public assistance, including the inadequate government welfare programs. 4) Some people are poor and they do not have access to food stamps. These people include those wrongly denied stamps, those who are in need but not technically eligible, and those who are receiving stamps but cannot make ends meet. In chapter 3, Poppendieck focuses on the issues of “how did the emergency food program rise” and the “social constructionists’ perspective on hungry”. According the Poppendieck, the emergency food programs rose in the early 1980s, primarily as a response to both the economic recession and the “long, slow erosion of public assistance benefits … overshadowed by a major assault on domestic social spending [by the Reagan administration]” (Poppendieck 1998, p. 82). She also says that according to social constructionists, hunger is actually a label used to describe the problem of poverty. “Hunger” is preferred as the label because people in poverty are likely to experience hunger prior to other consequences like homeless.

Personal Response:
In the DSOC 1101 class that I’m taking, we also talked about the issue of poverty, especially the inner city poverty of African American people. The conclusion from that class is also that the poverty is mostly resulted from the social structure, and only social structural reforms could essentially solve the problem. Another issue addressed in that class is that American people tend to blame the inner city poverty on the poor themselves. (E.g. in a survey, people listed the poor people’s laziness as the primary source of their poverty.) The generally public’s inability of realizing the social structure as the ultimate cause of poverty is a big obstacle for effective governmental welfare programs to be implemented.

Questions to consider:
In the book, the economic recession and the assault on domestic social spending by Reagan administration are listed as two primary causes of poverty. My questions are:
1) Was the problem of poverty alleviated by the Clinton administration (with the economic prosperity)?
2) Will the Obama administration, dominated by the Democratic Party, further alleviate poverty issues?

Summary: The McDonaldization of Society

Essay summary:
In this essay, the author argues that our society is undergoing the process of rationalization as is exemplified by the McDonaldization. There are five main characteristics of rationalization: 1. Efficiency: a great deal of emphasis is put on finding the best or optimum means to give any given end. 2. Predictability: it involves the effort to ensure predictability by emphasizing on discipline, order, systemization, formalization, routine, consistency, and methodical operation. 3. Calculability or quantity rather than quality: since quality is much more difficult to evaluate, the society emphasize more on quantifiable measures; calculability is the most defining characteristic of a rational society. 4. Substitution of nonhuman technology: people are now placing human labor with human robots, and so we can expect the human robots will be further replaced by mechanical robots in the future. 5. Control: at the most general level, rational systems are set up to allow for greater control over the uncertainties of life. The McDonaldization is a typical example of rationalization, since with McDonaldization, “speed, convenience, and standardization have replaced the flair of design and creation in cooking, the comfort relationships in serving and the variety available in choice” (Ritzer 2010 pp.406). In the end, the author also mentions that progressive rationalization has created a number of problems, the various irrationalities of rationality. He finally says that “what is needed is not a less rational society, but greater control over the process of rationalization involving, among other things, efforts to ameliorate its irrational consequences.
Personal responses:
The author argues that one “irrationality of rationality” is that people in the rationalization process tend to omit the joy of live. However, I do not agree with it. In my family, both my parents are busy working, and we almost always eat out. However, we feel such lifestyle brings us more joy: busy working makes us feel enriched, and eating out conforms that we are doing relatively well economically. Thus, to me, the joy of life could come from the rationalized life style, and I feel bored and less satisfied when holidays like the spring festival come and we have to stay and cook at home. (I cannot remember exactly, but there is a psychological team “flow” which describes the state of lost in the work but finding great joy at the same time. I think this applies to my family when we are busy working.)
Discussion questions:
Following my personal response, I feel that many people like my parents are currently “lost” in the rationalization process, but they are happy about their life style. I wonder if rationalization (e.g. busy working and eating out) is the joy of life for these people. In other words, if people find more joy eating out, which is interpreted as being wealthy by themselves, than cooking at home, then why do we assume the joy of cooking would be better for them? How can we assert that “rationalization tends to … [leave] much of our lives without any mystery or excitement” (pp. 413) if we find the rationalized society brings us more joy?

Summary: Mindless Eating

*This reading is not due until after the spring break, but since it’s relevant to the food lab, I will put the summary on the blog early partly for reference of others and myself.

In this essay, the author mainly talks about the “mindless eating”, its effects in our everyday life, and its potential application in helping people to lose weight. In the first part of the essay, the author argues that mindless eating is universal in our everyday life. One example is that we eat large amount of pop corns in movie theaters even though the pop corns used in the experiments had very low quality. Another example is that when the same wine is labeled differently, people perceive it differently, and they eat less food when they perceive they are given the wine with worse quality. Such discussion leads to the conclusion that mindless eating is universal in our everyday life, and “we overeat because there are signals and cues around us that tell us to eat [rather than because we feel we are full]” (Wansink 15). This conclusion then leads to the second part of the essay which discusses the issue of losing weight. The author argues that many dieters who put conscious effort into losing weight fail because “1) our body fights against them; 2) our brain fights against them; and 3) our day-to-day environment fights against them” (Wansink 25). In contrast, the author suggests that an unconscious way of losing weight is more effective. Just as people mindlessly gain weight by small amounts every day, they can do the same with losing weight. If they try to consume 100 calories rather than 1000 calories less every day, neither their body nor their brain would fight against their efforts, and they are more likely to succeed this way.

Questions to consider:
Since we read this essay before we participate in the lab, we are consciously aware of the mindlessness of eating. With such consciousness, would our lab results be biased?