Chapter 10
Precis
It is sad to see that organic farms like Salatin's are going to eventually become non existent. But for the time being, Salatin is an excellent idol for farmers every where. Farmers who care about healthy living rather than living lavishly. Without using any modern technology, Salatin is able to re-create farming the way it is meant to be done, the way farmers did it 20,000 years ago. Farms such as Salatin's are rare now because of the high cost of maintaining a farm of that caliber with no help from the government. It is only logical to have an industrial farm because of all the more money you could be making.
Gems
“…if the sixteen million acres now being used to grow corn to feed cows in the United States became well-managed pasture, that would remove fourteen billion pounds of carbon from the atmosphere each year, the equivalent of taking four million cars off the road.”
Thoughts
The fact that government endorsed farms are affecting the environment so drastically is nothing short of repulsing. Companies that own the industrial farms need to wake up and realize that this planet is not theirs. They cannot just help destroy it so while they live, they can have fun and the people after them will need to suffer their consequences.
Chapter 9
Precis
Organic farming has spread from little groups of farmers to industries. These industries are a lot cleaner and healthier for both the animals and the people. The companies that own the industries charge the consumers more than the CAFO meat but less than Polyface farm owners such as Joel Salatin. The organic food industry is an $11 billion business. As more and more people are becoming health conscious, organic food is spreading to TV dinners and "fancy" restaurants. The animals that are slaughtered in industrial organic farms, are fed on natural grass so they aren't exposed to any GMOs hence no bacteria in their system that would need pesticides or antibiotics.
Gem
“So it happens that these organic blackberries perched on this mound of vanilla ice cream, having been grown in a complexly fertile soil and forced to fight their own fights against pests and disease, are in some quantifiable way more nutritious than conventional blackberries.”
Thoughts
As the world becomes more and more technologically advanced, farms like Salatin's will start to disappear. With population booming with it the demand for fresh meat as well, Salatin's manual labor will never be able to keep up with the high demand. Even determined people like Salatin will eventually need to give up and hand their land over to industries. I don't think they will ever hand it over to CAFO endorsed companies but they will to organic factories.
Chapter 8
Precis
We looked at the industrial side of the food industry, now we will be looking at the organic side or also known as the "good side". Specifically a Polyface farm in Virgina owned by one of the few traditional farmers in US, Joel Salatin. Salatin is disgusted by how government endorsed "farmers" operate. The very idea of the workers in CAFOs makes Salatin angry. All of Salatin's cattle and chicken feed on grass instead of corn. The process is very natural and environmentally clean. The cows feed on the grass, their manure has fertilizers which help the grass grow again. The chicken feed on the maggots and worms that grow around the cow manure. Thanks to this natural process, the animals never need to be exposed to any special chemicals used to kill bacteria that would normally stick to their skin in an industrial feed lot.
Gem
-“Polyface Farm stands about as far from this industrialized sort of agriculture as it is possible to get without leaving the planet.”
Thoughts/Questions
One question that Pollan never answered was why Salatin refused to send a sample of meat from his farm to him through FedEx. I think Salatin did this so that he would keep to his policy, he wouldn't break his ethics even for a journalist who might give his farm a lot of positive attention. Shipping meat cross country will use up fossil fuels and he also wants to keep his meat local, instead of it spreading all over the world because people would not understand his logic. Pollan portrays Salatin as one of the "good farmers" because his cattle and chickens have a "good life". Even though the animals are still slaughtered, they had a chance to live life like they were meant to by nature.
Chapter 7
Precis
One in three kids in USA eat from a fast food restaurant everyday. One of the most popular fast food chains around the globe is McDonald's. In 1983, McDonald's came with their ingenious and world renown McNuggets. Chicken McNuggets are 56% corn which includes the corn the chicken was fed on also including thirteen other ingredients made purely from corn. It also includes a corn based ingredient called TBHQ. Which if taken without paying heed to the amount, it could be lethal.
Gems
-TBHQ can cause nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse. Ingesting five grams of TBHQ can kill.
-Why do americans not realize how much corn is infused into our lives?
Thoughts
As most kids, I loved McDonald's. It was sort of a treat for me every time my parents would announce, "Dinner at McDonald's!" The greasy food of McDonald's was heaven for me and I would behave a whole month just so we can go again to the fat paradise. If I knew how unhygienic it was and how unhealthy it is, I would have never entered that place to begin with.
Chapter 6
Precis
Today's craving for corn is very similar to the alcohol craving in the nineteenth century. They are both the result of problem. Over production. In both time periods, the over production of the two substances has led to overnutrition, malnutrition, Type 2 diabetes, and various other health and environmental complications. According to history and the present, if one specific type of food becomes easily available, its value will dramatically decrease.
Gems
"The human appetite, it turns out, is surprisingly elastic, which makes evolutionary sense... Our bodies are storing reserves of fat against a famine that never comes."
Thoughts
In general, most people do not have a lot of self control and I do not understand why that is. I myself do not have a lot of self control. Even after thousands of years, evolution still hasn't made us to learn self control. People buy fast fatty foods because they like it even though they know it is unhealthy. The day mankind is able to control its desires, the world will be a much better and healthier place. Both physically and mentally.
