Share and Voice: Can a Happy Meal Grow Old?

Over the past couple weeks in class we have been talking a lot of meat production, fast food industries, and overall food production in our Country.  The other day  I was on CNN news website and came across something very fitting.  Every one all over the world is familiar the one of the biggest fast food chains ever, McDonald's.   According to the McDonald's website they have been cooking up food and smiles since 1955.  They strive to offer many different things nutritious food, or their new sustainability plans.  However most of know that their food is not the most healthy. Its not surprising that it is sodium packed and full of preservatives.  But just how much preservatives is a good question and many are starting wonder the same thing.  A New York photographer thought he would do a little experiment.  He set out a happy meal and simply took a picture of it.  He wanted to see what happened to it as it aged.  He left it out for six months and wanted to take another picture of it.  To his surprise, the happy meal had not aged at all, there was no mold or signs of decomposition.  It really makes you wonder ?

http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2010/10/15/happy-meal-stays-forever-young/

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.

New Blog Header

Here is the new header I created using picnik.  I think that this is a really awesome way to edit photos and it provides a lot of neat ideas.  I love black and white pictures, and my chucks so I chose this one from my computer to make a header out of.

Share And Voice: Red Mug

I always like to explore new places and I love coffee, so a lot of times I find my self at different coffee shops around the area.  I decided last week that I needed a new place to sit down and read my book.  I was over in the Superior Area and was trying to think where to go when a friend suggested to me to try out the Red Mug.  I wasn't to aware of it before, so I thought why not give it a shot.  Much to my surprise it was a very neat place.  It was very trendy and had a very green feel.  They offer many art shows and different musicians each week.  Not to mention some very good coffee.  According to their website they serve only local, organic and fair trade coffee.  And when making their soups, salads, and other baked goods they try to use as many organic ingredients as possible.   Best of all they also use biodegradable cups!  Overall it was a great experience and if your ever in the are and like coffee or art, it would definitely be worth while to stop by.

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."

EYE OPENER: CSPI

For the they activity for the Eye Opener I chose to take a tour of the food supply, simply because I thought that it would go along well with my book that I am reading.  I thought that maybe I could become a little bit more educated about what was going on in the food industry by reading it.  Before I read about different parts of the food supply activity I have to admit that I was pretty naive on the subject.  The first section that I read about was air pollution.   I was absolutely shocked about my findings.  I had no idea that hydrogen sulfide was such a dangerous gas that can cause a variety of health issues including vomiting and even death.

The next part that I read about was the different aspects of manure.  I had no idea that it had so many detrimental health effects.  I never really thought that it was that bad for you.  However from the text I found that I was completely wrong.  Even the odor can lead to health effects such as headaches and depression.  It also causes a great deal of pollution to our world especially when it gets into our water and on our crops.  Not only is manure a major, so is how we a treating our animals.  Animals that bread just for the purpose of livestock endure many harsh conditions.  There are not laws protecting these animals, like the ones we have for animals that are used for scientific testing.  Instead they are confined to tight living spaces, and other terrible conditions that include:

• Chickens being debeaked 
• pigs getting their tails cut off
• fed sewage
• branded 

These are just a few of the harsh realities for them.  In some rare cases cattle remains were fed back to cattle for food which in turn caused mad cow disease.  This was recently banned, but it is still very alarming.  

One last issue that seemed alarming to me was the issue of pesticides on our crops.  I always knew that they were harmful but I wasn't fully aware of how bad they were.  They are attributed to many heart attacks and may contribute to hight cholesterol.  Overall these are all topics that I would enjoy finding more information on.  They really opened my eyes to some new things.

Image from http://planetgreen.discovery.com

Reflection of Weeks 1-4

Reflection

When asked to sit down and reflect on what I have learned over the last few weeks I couldn't believe how much came to mind.  Starting out in this class on day one I was very excited and ready to learn more about it.  I had heard great things about this class and also have an interest in the environment so I was very optimistic coming into it.  However after the first day I have to admit I felt a bit overwhelmed. So much information was being thrown at us and I was fairly new at blogging so I was nervous.  After a few days things did get better as I got the hang of things. The list of things that I have learned about blogging so far include: 

• how to create a blog
• blogging etiquette 
• how to create a gadget
• format of a blog

These are just some general things I had learned about blogging, I have also learned a lot about my fellow bloggers and some important environmental issues as well.  One thing that sticks out in my mind what I have learned is about Industry and how much they actually control what we think about our world,  what we eat, and how we feel about whats healthy.  It's very scary to think about it almost seems like in a way that we are being controlled by the norms of our society.  I know that its comfortable to follow those norms but I also think its very important to be educated before you make decsions.  Since reading my book The Food Revolution, many important issues regarding my diet has been brought to my attention.  I never really realized how much eating certain foods actually effect not only ourselves but our world around us.  I think that this is a great book and actually unbiased in the way its written.  It includes many scientific facts and I definitley think its a book you should check out.

Another thing that I have learned during the first four weeks of class is how great it is to interact in groups such as our blog groups. I love reading each persons posts because I feel like they give me an idea of what they personality would be like and kind of tells me their own interests. Each group is very diverse, which helps to give an array of topics to talk about.  After reading all of my group members posts I feel as if so many new issues have been brought to my attention and even sparked my interest in some.  I have learned about each of their different books with topics that include:

• Drunken Girlhood
• Children and nature
• Fast Food
• How to survive in emergency situations

each of their posts has really taught me new things that I think are very interesting and I look forward to reading them every week.

In addition to learning about my group members and there books I have also learned about the environment and my self.  One thing that I thought was interesting was the ecological footprint topic.  I couldn't believe that our class had such high numbers.  After talking about it though we all realized different ways that we could be more eco friendly and make our footprints smaller, which is great to see that we all want to make progress.  Other topics that I learned about that were of interest to me were:

• opinions of west Duluth
• more smoking bans in Duluth
• the great pacific garbage dump video
• how the white house controls what information can be released about the environment

I think that the biggest thing that i learned about my self is that I really do have a passion in certain things, whether is be environmentally related or not, its important find more out about it because you never know what you might find.