Read"N"Seed 5: Fourth quarter of The Food Revolution

The fourth and last quarter of my book has taught me many new facts once again.  I still am amazed about what goes on in our society with our food industry and before this book I really had no idea.  The fourth part of my book included six chapters that once again went hand in hand with what we have been discussing in class.  The chapters include:

• Reversing the Spread of Hunger
• Pandora's Pantry
• Farmegeddon
• The Emperor's New Foods
• The Turning of the Tide
• Conclusion: Our Food, Our Future

They were all very interesting and full of information that I think that all of use deserve to know, after all it is what we are putting in our bodies so shouldn't we have control.  But as of now this is not the case.  The first chapter covered was, Reversing the Spread of Hunger.  According to the text nearly one billion people on the planet are not given enough food to eat and nearly one third of children in the world are close to starving, causing severe health problems in most of them.  It is easy to see that trying to fight world hunger is something we should all do, but is producing meat and opening McDonald's around the world the answer probably not.  According to John Robbins this method is not sustainable, and only the wealthy are able to afford the meat, singling out many populations whose meat is in turn shipped to wealthier nations such as the U.S.  Also when we use land to produce grain to feed the cattle we are taking away farmland, and grain that could be used to feed many starving nations.  It just doesn't make sense at all.  In some countries livestock eat three times as much grain as people and nearly double us in total weight, and the percent of grain produced in those countries that is given to live stock is nearly forty percent.  This chapter also gave some other very interesting statistics.  The number of overfed and underfed malnourished people in the world is equal at just over one billion, many of the over fed being in the United States.  He is trying to get us to realize that we are wasting resources and energy on something that is not sustainable and we need to rethink about how we really want to combat world hunger and what is good for all of us.

The next chapter Pandoras Pantry once again touches on the topic of genetically engineered food, and the benefits, that are most likely not benefits at all.  Many of the issues in this chapter were already brought up in class such as the first genetically engineered food, the "FlavrSavr" tomato, and the Infamous Monsanto Corporation.  According to the text the amount of genetically engineered crops planted has been steadily on the rise since it was first introduced in the early 90's.   Monsanto accounts for half of the global pesticide market, and own nearly twenty-five percent of the commercial seed market.  It almost seems as if they have complete control over everything that we eat.  They sell Round Up which we learned in class needs to be used in large doses in order for the crops to grow.  Overall we know what effects that this type of farming can have on us, but why are we still continuing to do it,  I think that its something that we all need to think about.

The next chapter Farmegeddon, seems to have a very fitting name for what its talking about.  The end of farming in a healthy way it seems.  The study of genetics is not necessarily a new topic of study , but the idea of genetics when it comes to food is.  According to Dr. David Suzuki,  he warns that genetics have enormous implications.  It is full of benefits, but it is not something that should be fooled around with.  When you put genes into something you exactly where they will end up, which can be a scary matter when you think of certain things mutating and crossing into others creating certain diseases and  changing the functioning of the organism which could lead to things that we do not know how to control.  Medical researchers estimate that twenty-five percent  of the population have food allergies of some kind much of this is thought to be linked to genetically engineered foods.

One of the biggest aspects of genetically engineered foods that is very alarming is the use of the Bovine Growth Hormone, which is used to stimulate mile production in cows.  Because the actual hormone was to expensive Monsanto created a cheaper genetically altered version called rBGH. rBGH does in fact increase milk production, yet it also has many other side effects.  That can cause increases amonts of milk that is not necessary and many of the cows are ordered to be killed because of the massive amounts of excess milk.

The next chapter Emperors New Foods once again talks about Percy Schmeiser, whom we watched a video about in class, and how he was effected my Monsanto and how they insist on putting patents on seeds.  His own canola got crossed pollinated with Monsanto's genetically engineered canola.  Something that is becoming much more popular now days.  The book introduces a term 'Frankenfoods' which is used to describe all of the genetically altered foods.  And due to lack of labeling most of eat these foods on a daily basis and most of us have not idea that these genetically altered products are even in the.

The final chapters of the book definitley sum up everything that the author was trying to say.  The turning of the tide shows us the uprise of the demand for organic food.  Now that more and more Americans are aware of the effects of our food industry, they want to put healthy and organic things in their body and not pesticides, or genetically modified food.  By the year 2000 nearly seventeen million acres of organic food was planted world wide.  And even the the number of U.S organic crops is only under one percent the number continues to be on the rise showing us signs of hope.  The author brings up a really good point saying the in 1980 there was no genetically engineered food, but in just a few years that completley changed.  There is still hope though for that to change again.

Overall this book has been one of the most influential that I have ever read.  Before reading this I had no idea of the hearsh reality that went on in the food industry.  I had no idea the harm that such foods could do to my body, and most importantly I had no idea that it was such a problem in our society.  This book covered so many different topics including, global warming, cattle and poultry, pesticides, heart disease, and everything along with environmental health it seemed. But ultimately it all led back to the same things.  The first being that our earth at the way we are treating it is not sustainable and we need to make changes so we can have an impact.  We only have one and if we choose to abuse it we will loose it.  The second point that the book makes is that ultimately we do not have much control over what we put in our bodies, because of lack of labeling.  Everything is interconnected with politics, companies, food, etc.  We really need to take a stand for what we feel is right because every little bit helps.  The last but I feel the most important part that John Robbins tries to reitterate is that ultimately we are in control if we want things to change they can with time and hard work.  I encourage all of you to step out of your comfort zone and do what you deem is right.  John Robbins states, " Whether or not we like it, and whether we accept it or not, the choices we make, individually, and collectively, in the coming years will make an incredible amount of difference, perhaps more so than at any time in the history of our planet.  It is not just the quality of our personal lives and the health that depends,now, on the choices we make.  And we are each apart of how it will turn out"  And I could not agree more.  With that I encourage us all to continue to do what we can to help make our world a better place.

Read"N"Seed 4: Third Quarter of The Food Revolution

The next section of my book was nearly as interesting as my first.  A lot of the same information was covered, but in a different way.  After reading the last section of my book its really made me stop and think, so I couldn't wait to read the next.    Another thing that I think is really cool is that my book pretty much is going along with what we are talking about in class, and I think that is really cool because it really puts thins in perspective fore me. This next section covered four new chapters.  These chapters included:

• Misery on the Menu
• Eating with a Consequence
• Choices for a Healthy Environment
• Once Upon a Planet

Over all they once again provided me with some new, very interesting information.  The first chapter, Misery on the Menu dives into the topic as animals as food.  John Robbins talks about how we have dogs and cats as pets, and it would be so wrong to hurt them, but yet we insist on eating cows and chickens?  I never really though of it that way, but it is true and very sad.  One of the topics is dicusses is the horror of veal calves.  Veal, thought to be a Divine slice of meet, hardly live a Divine life at all.  Its sickening to hear what they go through.  Some of the things that they endure during their short lives include

• made anemic
• separated from mothers at birth
• chained for life in cages only 22 inches wide

Many may wonder why people would do that, but to many meat is still just meat.  Another topic that is discussed is the raising of chickens in mass quantities, which is also very alarming.  Most of them get de beaked and get their claws taken off.  They are kept in cages to small to  spread their wings, and are subject to forced molting (a method of starving to produce more eggs) if their their production is not high enough.  And many of these chickens are pumped with anti-biotics so much that they can no longer walk  due to obesity. Another sad statistic is that many chicks are killed and ground up daily because there really is no use for the males.

The next chapter, Eating with a Conscience.  The point of this chapter is really to get us to think about what we are putting on our bodies.  One scary story that John Robbins shares with us is about a meat packing plant in which more that 30% of the cows that are slaughtered are not knocked out, meaning that they can feel the pain as they are being slaughtered.  This just seems so cruel to me I couldn't believe it.  And according to research done every 24 hours there are 90,000 cows slaughtered.  It really does make you stop and think when you hear facts like that .

Choices for a Healthy Environment was the next chapter covered.  It talks alot about the ecological foot print and how our food choices can have a large impact on it. The scary part is talking about our good water supply and how it is disappearing due to the mass meat production in our country.  It takes 5,214 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef and a mere 23 gallons to produce lettuce, tomatoes, or potatoes.  And according to the author you may save more water by not eating a pound of beef than if you didn't shower for 6 MONTHS! It makes you realize how big of an impact  you actually have.  We need to conserve water more than we think we do.

The last chapter Once Upon a Planet  talks about global warming and the changes our environment are going through,  We are devastating it at an alarming rate.  The manure from cattle can produce harmful chemicals that in turn can deplete the ozone layer.  One fact from World Watch Institute states that "livestock account for 15 to 20 percent of all global methane emissions.  Much of that is from the United States.

Overall this book still continues to open my eyes to what I'm really putting in my body.  Every thing has a consequence and eating certain things can be a big one, not only for me but for my environment.  I think that it is important for us all to continue to be educated on our food choices.  Try new things and think about the earth when you do it.

Read "n" Seed 3: Second Quarter of The Food Revolution

Well before I start to rant about all of the interesting, and alarming new facts that I am learning about in my book I just want to say how intrigued I am by it. I also want to apologize for this post being so long, there is just so many things that I thought were interesting.!!! To be honest I haven't sat down and got caught up in a a book like this for a long time!  Anyways for the second quarter of reading I read up to page 183.  This included chapters five through ten, covering a variety of topics including:

• A healthy plant based diet
• Got BS?
• Unsafe on any plate
• policing the pathogens
• The pig farmer
• Old McDonald had a factory

As a stated before I cannot believe all that I am learning from one one book.  Its keeps me interested to the point where I have a hard time putting it down, even when I'm not supposed to be reading it in class. OOPS!  However I feel that it is teaching me a lot of different beliefs and facts that I had no idea existed until now.   I have learned so much that I think that it will be easiest to summarize what I have learned by breaking the information down according to chapters, which correspond to the bulleted list above.

In the chapter A Healthy Plant Based Diet, it focuses on many issues of American increasing trend of obesity and how our diet plays a huge role in determining that.  According to the text it says that there are some school districts in the U.S which still have contracts with coca-cola and other soft drink companies.  And to much alarm these schools actually have to promote their students to drink coke products, even though we know the harmful effects.  However on a positive not there are some schools in Berkley, California which only offer organic food at there lunch programs, which is even grown by the students!!  It also goes into detail on what a plant based diet would look like.  And it states that around 60 billion dollars go towards medical costs stemming from meat consumption.  I couldn't believe that, it even surpassed the amount from smoking.

The next chapter Got BS touches on the topic of milk and the amount of calcium that it really has.  According to the texts a Dr. V said in class it really doesn't have as much as we would like to think that it has.  Brussels Sprouts and broccoli have almost 20% more calcium than what is actually even able to be absorbed from the calcium content of  milk.  In addition to that new research has found that milk may not event prevent osteoporosis in women.  Many people speculate that vegans will have low calcium levels however this is not the case, as most of them attain more than the average American because of the amount of vegetables that they eat.  It is more concerning that they get adequate vitamin B12 rather than calcium.  Over all lots of interesting things I could go on forever.

Unsafe on Any Plate was the next chapter that I read.  It was probably the most interesting and the most alarming.  It went on to discuss the different food borne illnesses caused by animal products including E coli 0157:H7, salmonella, listeria,  and Mad Cow Disease and how they may stem from irradiation.  Which definitely has some serious health effects.  I always knew about E coli but I had no idea of how terrible the condition was, it basically destroys your intestines  It may clean up bacteria according to the text however it does not clean up the  feces or pus that the animal may be surrounded in.  I couldn't believe most of this! 

The next chapter, Policing the Pathogens dips into the topic of how animals are injected with antibiotics to increase production,  However is is vary alarming because of these antibiotics such as fluoroquinolones injections many animals are producing harmful bacteria that is resistant to it, hence causing many of these food borne illnesses. Fluoroquinolones are considered to be the last resort to kill these forms of bacteria. The U.S is one of the only countries to continue to do this at such high rates many countries such as Denmark do not use any.  Mad Cow Disease, which we talked about earlier, is a disease that is caused by feeding cow remains back to cows.  It essentially makes the cow go crazy by attacking the central nervous system and deteriorating the brain.  Its a very painful way to die and many are concerned of the the disease passing from animal to human causing Creutzfeld-Jacobs Disease, which in humans causes a 100% death rate.  It can be contracted by eating meat which was infected with the disease.  Many people confuse the symptoms of CJD and Alzheimer's disease, and according to the book, a study done on patients that were though to have died from Alzheimer's disease nearly 5.5 percent of these people actually had CJD, that I found to be very alarming.


In the last chapters it discusses the issues that even farmers do not always agree  with what they are doing when it comes to how they treat there animals.  Many of them do it because they too are trying to survive and support their family.  It also addresses the issue of big corporations and how they run their slaughter houses PETA has made great strides tying to get large fast food chains to abide by the FDA's guidelines when it comes to minimum requirements for how they need to treat animals.  Although there are rules many of the animals are still stuck in small cages, trapped in their own and others feces and slaughtered alive.


Overall this book still continues to open my eyes to many things.  It has taught me that it is much more that just what I eat, its us meaning our society collectively as a whole.  It has seriously got me thinking about trying to not eat meat as much as possible, not only would it make me feel better about what's in my body it would also make me feel better now that I know what goes on to the animals.  I believe that with the help of one another we can make changes for the animals and for the environment.  It helps that we are getting more education on the subject.  Its hard to change when we grow up eating a certain way and seeing what other people eat.  I grew up eating meat and dairy products, knowing nothing of what actually went on to produce them.  Now as I learn more the more I want to adapt my diet and the others that are close to me.  Although John Robbins said this quote in referral to a pig-farmer turned vegan, I think it is appropriate for all of us when he says, " we can depart from all these cages that we build for ourselves and for each other, and become something much better."

Read "n" Seed 2: First quarter of The Food Revolution

This was my first week reading The Food Revolution by John Robbins.  Needless to say I am completely caught up in this book already and I can hardly put it down.  Its amazing how interesting and how knowledgeable the author seems.  For the first part of my readings I read chapters one through four and through page eighty-two.  The first four chapters were as follows:

1. Introduction: What is the Food Revolution?
2. Healthy Heart, Healthy Life
3. Preventing Cancer
4. The Great American Diet Roller Coaster

The array of topics in this book are seeming endless but also very intruging.  The facts that he presents in the book and the stories he has shared thus far have made me reconsider a lot about my eating patterns already and its only a little way into the book.  The main topic of the book is basically how there is proven facts and scientific records that eating a vegetarian based diet not only fulfills your daily nutritional need, but also helps to prevent heart disease, stroke, obesity, and cancer.  In addition to this it discusses the topic about how the meat industry pays a lot of money to convince us that meat should be the staple of our diet as it is right now.  It kind of goes back to the topic that we talked about in on monday at the nature class room saying how industry controls every thing.  One thing that I find very interesting in this book is the amount of facts and research studies that this book credits in supporting its examples.  For instance I always knew that eating a vegetarian diet was better for you but reading this book is starting to convince me to do it.  Reading about some of the things that go on with hearts disease and cancer makes me kind of scared and is convincing me to be proactive about while I still can.  He includes many real life instances about how meat based diets have caused chronic illnesses.  One example he includes is that his uncle Burton Baskin ( founder of Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Co.)  died of a heart attack at only the age of 50.  This was due to his diet of diary every day in large quantities, but this however is not the only thing that stuck out.  Many eye opening facts are included in this book:

• According to  William Castelli, M.D., Director, Framingham Health Study Stated, " Vegetarians have the best diet; because they have the lowest rates of coronary heart disease  of any group in the country"

Not that this is the only determinate but it is very eye opening.  I think that this  book really should make every one think about what they put in their bodies.  There is a lot out there that we can do to change it and this book helps to give you a better idea what to do. Overall Im very excited to continue reading and learn more about the book.

Read "N" Seed 1: The Food Revolution

This book was published in 2001 and was written by John Robbins It includes a variety of different topics related to the environment and how our diet can effect this. Due the the array of different topics I feel that this book would be very interesting to read and hopefully can open my eyes to many different new issues that exist in the world. According to the summary of the book it states that making healthier food choices such as eating vegetarian cannot only help you but also animals, others around you, and your external environment. It also may help to give us the idea that our small individual choices will effect our environment more that large changes made by industry and retailers. I chose this book because I hope that it will give me a better idea of how my diet can effect both me and the others around me and hopefully help me choose better eating patterns.

This book has 340 pages and I plan to read 85 pages for each assignment and break it into four sections. This way I wont get behind and I will be able to enjoy the book as I read it.

MORE INFO:

You can find out more about John Robbins and his book by visiting his website: http://www.foodrevolution.org/bio.htm

Also you can read parts of this book by visiting google books and following the link

College Vegan also has a review of the book that is very interesting you should check it out! http://www.collegevegan.com/vegan-book-review-the-food-revolut

Welcome to Sustainability With Sam

Hi my name is Samantha Jenson and I am a Senior Health Education Major. I love being around people and being able to strike up conversations with complete strangers. I think that getting to know people is very important in life so you can better understand who they are. I also enjoy going outside, enjoying nature, listening to music, and living an active lifestyle. I love to exercise and I love enjoying the outdoors. I just learned how to blog this year, but I am getting very excited be able to do it on a regular basis now. In this class my blog will be about why its important to sustain the environment and the resources that we have as well as many other important issues regarding nature, recycling, and environmentally friendly lifestyles.

There are 6 possible types of posts on my blog. They include:

1. Advocacy Project
2. Eye Openers
3. Reflections
4. Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change
5. Read "n" Seed
6. Share and Voice

If you notice at the bottom of this post, the categories will be listed as labels. This post is has been labeled with all five kinds of posts. You will also see the number of each kind of post in my Labels Gadget at the top of the page. All post titles from now on will begin with one of the categories above.

The members of my web group are:

1. Brenda@Bare Foot in the Backyard With Brenda
2. Dane@ Dane's Trail of Health
3. JD@ Earth and Me With JD 
4. Alicia@ Out and About With Alicia
5. Matt@ Matt's Smoke Free Zone
6. Molly@ Molly's Rico Eco

You can subscribe to my blog by clicking the subscribe gadget in the gadget column. You can also follow my blog by clicking "Follow this Blog" in the gadget column. I am subscribed to all the blogs in my blog list gadget. You can see my complete profile and all the blogs I am following by clicking on "See Complete Profile."


Overall I think that this will be a very good experience learning how to blog this semester.

I look forward to reading every body's blog posts and others reactions to them. I think that it will be a great and new way for our class to interact together and look forward to the results.