Supersized… Lizard?

Upon reading “Supersized” by Morgan Spurlock and Jeremy Barlow, one particularly gross story stuck out to me. Picture a family, all eating at a sit-down restaurant.  Let’s call it “restaurant A.” It is a completely normal situation, until the grandfather notices a small green lizard head in his broccoli dish! This causes the waiter to run away with the urge to vomit… Now, is this real? My initial thinking- of course not! Who would ever think this kind of thing would happen.  Not exactly a pleasant story, but it shows people that these types of things do not only occur in fast-food restaurants. This kind of thing is all too real. In fact, it did actually happen. After employing a simple Google search I was shocked to find this out.

On May 2nd 2003 in Coralville, Iowa, a husband and wife were out to lunch. Suddenly the wife noticed her Santa Fe salad had a lizard head in it. Obviously she was upset, and a complaint to the Department of Health was filed. The president of “restaurant A” said this was an isolated incident… but was it? I would venture to say this type of thing has happened before, and it just wasn’t reported. Luckily the lizard tested negative for Salmonella, and the woman was fine. “Fine” being relative because she did still find a dead animal in her food- which is a traumatic experience in itself. But why does change have to occur only after something bad has happened? Because there is just not the correct amount of regulation in our food industry today.

While this type of thing occurs much more often in fast-food chains, this story proved that there is no limit to where it could happen.

Want to read more about this incident? Click here.

Annotated Bibliography #1

For my upcoming research project, I am covering Food Industrialization. One of my main focuses will be on food additives, and how they play a role in food industrialization. I feel that they play an important part of this issue, and they are simply in almost everything we eat. Below I will list my first three sources for this paper. Each of which will relate to this specific topic.

“Evaluation of Certain Food Additives.” WHO Technical Report Series.956 (2010): I,V,VI,VII,VIII,1,3,53,55,57,59-77,79-80. ProQuest. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.

This above source shows the globalization of food additives. It shows how they originated in the United States, but are quickly growing to other parts of the world. This falls right into line with food industrialization as additives are a way to achieve that.

Clemens, Roger, David Schmidt. “Conflicts of Interests in Approvals of Food Additives.” JAMA Internal Medicine. Feb. 2014. Web 23 Feb. 2014.

The above source is about the experts who judge the safety of food. These experts are trained medical professionals who regulate what is added into food. Despite this fact, many negative additives are placed in food that should not be placed there.

Guiltkin, Faith, Duygu Kumbul Doguc. “Allergic and Immunologic Reactions to Food Additives.” Clinical Reviews in Allergy and Immunology. Volume 45 Issue I, pg 6-29. Aug 2013. Web 23 Feb 2014.

The above source is about the many issues that food additives possess. One of the biggest being allergies caused by these foods, as well as immunities caused by them as well. With something so common, like additives, it is highly likely that these issues can be directly traced back to these additions to food.

In The End?

This past Wednesday, I met with my English professor to discuss the quality of my recent works. I was pleased to know that overall I was doing well, but I also learned that there are still many things I need to improve on. In writing one is never perfect, but that writer can work to continually be as perfect as possible. That is exactly what I plan to do from beginning until the end. My goal is to strive for perfection, regardless of the impossibility of that same idea. I feel that this will help me tremendously.

To get where I want to be, it has become apparent that I need to focus my writing. I’m not going to lie, I have little-to-no time to do much of anything. However this is not an excuse because I signed up for this. I knew what I was getting myself in to. Ultimately I need to prioritize my time so that this English course has the amount of time needed for it to be successful. I believe the reason my previous paper slightly suffered was due to the issue of time. That is why this next time, I will try to make the necessary time to produce the highest quality content.

To get to the end I would like to be able to be proud of my works created during this course. I do not want to be afraid to show anyone the things that I have done. If I can just prioritize, and organize my time, I believe I will be able to do great things. I want to come out of this course and truly feel like I have accomplished what is required to get to the end.

Reshaping, Rethinking

An example of food industrialization; a processing line.

For my original research project, as you saw, I wrote about Food Sustainability. I included food processing, governmental regulation of food, and population issues in that paper. For this upcoming paper my topic will shift slightly from Food Sustainability to Food Industrialization. While they are very similar topics, they are slightly different as well. Sustainability is more focused on how one can maximize the output of food effectively, and efficiently while being green. Industrialization of food is very similar in it’s goals, however it does not focus on being green.

My sustainability research paper was focused on explaining, and arguing both why being sustainable is important, but also explaining how to do so. In this new paper, I will focus on explaining what industrialization is, what should be done about it, and how it is essentially the opposite of sustainability. I tend to think of food industrialization as being a sort of “false” sustainability. This is because it is being sustainable with money, and not the environment- which is actually what really matters. Especially in the long run.

For my first paper, I used various sources ranging from governmental sites to scientific articles. Many of the sources I used for my first paper could actually be used for this next one as well. Specifically the FDA site and “Problems With Processing”, an article on whistleblower.org will most likely be used again. Many of my other sources were focused more on how to be sustainable, and that’s really just not the route this next paper will be taking. While they may not be used, they were definitely a good source of personal research.

The first research article I discovered on Food Industrialization really caught my eye. “Our Failing Food System” from ucsusa.org. The article was written by “the union of concerned scientists” basically saying why they are opposed to how food is produced. Noticeable absent are any governmental websites on food industrialization. Is this a coincidence?- I think not. That immediately says to me the government most likely knows our food is unhealthy, but it’s not necessarily at the top of their list of priorities. A scary, scary thought. Despite this small issue, there are thousands of articles slowly spreading the word about food industrialization and its problems.

My brain is simply spinning with ideas. I find this next paper to be slightly more interesting to me than the first because this is a real, ever-growing problem. I cannot wait to continue to learn more, and come up with sub-topics and learn those various areas as well. I am sure processing will again be one of those. Sometimes I stand in disbelief at what goes on in the world, and to think, one of the most evil things is what we consume. Our unhealthy, unnatural, indulgent, inexpensive food.

The First Step

Thursday we did a fun activity, this was the result: My First step in this new research project.

The above picture is a crudely drawn me throwing my laptop into a swimming pool- how I feel about research.

Cicero

Cicero was an ancient Roman philosopher, lawyer, and statesman. He was one to realize that communication didn’t always have to consist of text and writing. In fact he believed that even public works like architecture and design could communicate a thought or idea. This idea was adopted, and is still true to this day.

In the above picture he looks stern, and in deep thought. This is quite the contrast from the picture of Cicero on page 51 of “Understanding Rhetoric” where he looks rather scared as he runs from danger. His picture can be seen below.

As one can see, Cicero is visibly scared. This is because of his current situation. He was about to be arrested on arbitrary political grounds, which would indicate his scared expression. The first image suggests that Cicero was a tough individual. His facial features suggest someone who has faced difficult times. However, the drawing smoothes out most of the flaws, mainly to draw attention to the fear and not Cicero himself. While the drawing and the picture are very dissimilar, it is quite clear that they are both him as the connection between actual events and animation is evident.