HW 12 - Final Food Project 2 - Outline

Oversarching Thesis- Many of the normal routines we are accustomed to preforming actually include nightmarish and industrial atrocities that we fail to acknowledge

Major Arg1- What the "normal" routines are and we preform them
           Chunk- The fast food restaurants and the targeted customers and the food corp.
           Chunk- The "bad" what they fail to tell us and the treatment of the slaughterhouses, where the food comes from, everyone doesn't have enough money to care about the food.
           Chunk- The "Romantic" alternative, Michelle Obama, organic foods but the high prices compared to the low prices of unhealthy food. Should be the other way around.
Source- Notes from movie (Food Inc. and FFN)

HW 11 - Final Food Project 1

I changed my diet, I haven't eaten fast food products or ground meat in about five weeks and Ive been drinking organic milk instead of regular. I also printed out lil sheets of paper with information about the food industry and put them on top of the meat in the supermarket. The sheets said "A single portion of hamburger meat bought in most supermarkets isn't from meat ran through a grinder. it is a mixture of various grades of meat from different parts of many cows and even from different slaughterhouses"

HW 7d

Chap. 9

Precis: Address the possibilities of defected meat if it isn't cleaned properly, and  fast food meat is more prone to getting diseases.

Gems/Thoughts-  

"She was admitted to the hospital on Christmas Eve, suffered terrible pain, had three heart attacks, and died in her mother's arms on December 28, 1992. She was six years old." Page 199 

This reminded me of Kevin's Law and it baffles me that no one is doing anything about it, they just continue to try to sweep it under the rug and pretend everything is ok.

Chap. 10

 

Precis- "American Realization" more and more people are starting to realize that although fast food is cheap and easy to get its definitely not the healthiest thing to be eating and it leads to obesity and diseases 

Gems/Thoughts-

"After almost finishing the book its obvious that McDonald's has more cons then pros, so why do people put so much money,time and effort into it?" - Steph

To response to steph question I think that everyone has money on the brain, from the consumers perspective they want to save money and mcds is cheap fast and convenient. But from the sellers perspective its all about making money, they have target buyers so they chose certain advertisement and propose different deals so that the buyers keep buying. No one has time to care about food.

 

Epilogue

 

Precis- Its all up to the buyer, you can chose to continue eating the healthy food in mcds burger king and taco bell or you can walk over the the farmers market and get locally grown food. Its up to you.

 

Gems/ Thoughts- it is up to us to decide if we want mcds or a homemade meal but I feel like its the food companies responsibility to make sure they food isn't tainted and swimming with disease, poop and urine.

HW 7c

Chapter  7


Precis: This chapter addressed the meat packing industry and the treatment of immigrant workers. The policies, working conditions and the treatment of the workers were a little less then humane.

Gems/Thoughts- I think that its gross that many people know that the workers aren't getting treated well but yet still nothing has been done to stop it.  Most of the time the employers don't record the employees injuries because its going to bring attention to the horrible conditions.

Chapter 8

Precis- This chapter focused on the injuries and conditions of working in a slaughterhouse. Many companies dont like to bring attention to their companies so they dont record injuries that occur during work hours. They hire illegal immigrants so that they are less likely to report them.

Gems/Thoughts- Since most of the workers are usually illegal  immigrants not many people care (sad but true) and hiring illegal immigrants are way cheaper because you can usually pay them below minimum wage. Even though a lot of people know about this they dont do anything about it because its not that important to them, which again proves that most Americans are selfish money hungry pigs.

HW 10

Precis- This film addresses the health issues regarding the food , the we eat today the production of the meat (cows, chicken and pigs) and the cleanliness that missing from the production of the meats. Also speaks about the food industry and the requirements rules and regulations the farmers are given from the food companies. The FDA and the USDA are failing to fix these problems and are ignoring them.


-The movie offers visuals, and since a movie cant be to long or else you'll loose the viewers attention it doesn't have as many details as the book does. Of course reading a book is better then watching a movie but doing both will allow you to fish out the key points and have visuals. You can imagine what the factories and the farms and chicken coops look like when you read about it but once you see it, you know its the truth. "You have to see it to believe it"
- My insights have changed after watching this movie and reading FFN I always knew that the meat that we eat isn't the cleanest but I never really cared. After reading the book and watching the movie Ive changed my eating habits, I no longer eat fast food (going on 5 weeks now) and I don't eat ground beef. I don't think I could ever go full vegetarian but a few changes would be for the better rather then continuing to eat the dirty stuff we call fast food.

HW 9

What intellectual moves serve as the basis of "Freakonomics"? Just as Allen Iverson relied on his crossover dribble to beat bigger and stronger defenders, intellectuals such as the protagonists in "Freakonomics" have a "tool box" of particular ways of looking at the world: figuring out topics, asking questions, finding evidence, and evaluating truth. Please describe the 3-5 "tools" that the film repeatedly shows in use, with an example of a moment from the film for each one.

- They focused on using scenarios, every single opinion or statement had a dramatization added along with it. When they were talking about how the name of a person could effect their lives they showed different outcomes and situations (temptress, loser, winner,) The film wasn't bias either, they showed both opinions and viewpoints but never said which one was "right" or "wrong. An example of this was the debate between the two men being interviewed about the names, they showed both of they're opinions on the matter, switching back and forth to each answer giving during they're interviews.

- They also used statistics for example when they were speaking about the corruption in the sumo wrestling industry they gave examples with statistics and showed actual stories of matches that were discovered to be fixed.

What sources of evidence do the Freakonomics authors most rely on? Why is this innovative?

- They relied on research and statistics and real world examples.When addressing the issues of the outcome of your life based on your name they spoke about, statistics and the percentage of success when you live in the projects vs a nicer area or being raised by your mother and father or just single parenting. 
- For the real world examples they showed two students that were apart of the program where they pay students to get good grades, they interview two boys with the same requirements and showed the audience the outcome. Nothing (I hope) was fake it was all real examples

Freakonomics serves as an inspiration and good example to our attempt to explore the "hidden-in-plain-sight" weirdness of dominant social practices.

a. Agree or disagree.

b. Explain why.

c. Use an example or idea from Freakonomics and relate it to our investigation of US foodways.

 

 a) Agree

b) The movie showed things that happen daily but we just dont realize or want to realize the negative side to it. It showed how oblivious our nation is, we dont question things or try to change things because it isn't the "norm" without even realizing that what were doing or what were letting happen is negative or a contradiction.

c) Paying people to eat right, they already have plenty reality shows and game shows about being fat and winning money after you loose the weight. Relates to paying kids to get good grades

Sprouts!

My uncle owns a farm and eats the food he grows, Ive visited his farm many times so growing the sprouts wasn't to out of the ordinary or fascinating, I'm a tad nervous about eating them since there not expected to taste good.I think that living in the city its harder for people to grow they're own foods and people cant live on sprouts they're whole life, but growing your own food can and will save you a lot of money in the long run. I didn't mind the process, its not that hard to water a plant two times a day, although sometimes I would forget it wasn't a struggle for me.

Reading Response

"Fast Food Nation" By, Eric Schlossen
Chapter 1 and 2

Chapter one is about the growth of the fast food industry and its pioneers, it highlighted the major events that changed the way the industry is ran today. A lot of the creators of fast food restaurants were named such as Carl N. Karcher, Harland Sanders and Glen W. Bell. The time line of their lives and a little bit of their history was included.
A "gem" that I noticed in the book was , "The Golden Arches are now more widely recognized than the Christan cross" I realized that its completely true, there's thousand of McDonald's everywhere worldwide. This book has made me realize the amount of control the fast food industry has over America, we have to eat and not everyone has them time to cook a meal. Fast food is convenient cheap and fast, your able to eat it on the go which is appealing to many.


"Fast Food Nation" By, Eric Schlossen
Chapter 3

A lot of the fast food restaurant's saved money by paying the workers poorly, there was bill called "McDonald's Bill" which allowed them to pay 16 and 17 year old kids half minimum wage.Tried to find any way to cut cost for them such as buying for example Coca Cola syrup and diluting it with water so they only pay .9 cents when they charge over a dollar for a drink.

Gem- Most of the people that steal from fast food restaurants are employees and ex employees, they feel cheated

Chapter 4

Precis -People notice how much the Fast food franchise is making and they're attracted to the money, they invest in the fast food franchise and gain a profit. Since there's so many investments the franchise becomes even more popular

Gems-
"In 1969, Donald and Doris decided to sell jeans like Mcds, Burger King and KFC sold food"
now theyres Gaps all over the world, baby Gap, Gap kids, Gap and Gap Inc

Thoughts-  Years ago all you needed was a good pitch and a reasonable prices and the chances of your business being a success was large but now its very slim because of the competition.


Chapter 5

Precis- Franchises make it harder to be successful when dealing with a private owned business

Gems/Thoughts-  I think its interesting that many of these fast food companies purchase they're food for very cheap prices and sell it at a higher price. For example Mcds buys french fries for 30 cents a pound but sells them for about 6 dollars a pound. Also they buy soda syrup for 9 cents and dilute it with water and charge the public over a dollar. Its all a big scheme