discussion question #6 - FOOD!

This was an interesting topic for me to consider for many reasons. Firstly, as a former athlete and the daughter of a fitness trainer, it would be safe to expect that i may have a lot of nutritional considerations when it comes to food; ironically, this is just the opposite, becuase in fact i eat fairly unhealthy.....

....on the other hand, it was also an interesting topic for me because last summer, i took an interesting seminar course, all about food. the predominate theme of the course, particularly seen with the semester long reading of Michael Pollan's book Omnivore's Dilemma. The book, among various food matters, examines the origins of food, the food production process (i mean literally, from hunting a deer or squeezing the egg from the chicken yourself!) to the paths our food takes to reach our plates, as well as animal rights questions. Since reading Dilemma, i certainly keep many of the considerations i took from it in mind when i am out eating. For example, i have a secret craving for McDonald's chicken mcnuggets and fries now and then - i wont fool myself and pretend that their are healthy, but, mcdonalds does something right if you look at the food labels which they give. But by Pollan's account, i am literally eating corn, corn corn (and maybe even some fake corn); the chickens were fed corn, then their meat was mixed with corn, which was coated in some corn and fried in some corn oil (and served to me with some corn and potato fries and some corn-syrup sweetened soda). now if this bothers some consumers, so be it, but it is how it is made. it is understanding the origins of the food though which allows a consumer, such as myself, to adjust the content of the rest of their daily diet to accomodate this corn intake. PLUS....I JUST LIKE NUGGETS SOMETIMES!

The second question of this weeks blog question is especially relevant for me actually, becuase in the past weekend i have encountered a few food situations where these exact issues came up! i was recently at a local deli/market, and i noticed that they had signage explaining how their fresh roasted chicken was not only hormone free, but also local sourced (driven in from maryland). upon further questioning it turns out the deli used the practice to cover many of their merchandise, such as the meats, vegetables, as well as dairy departments. this and my meal were interesting in the environmental impact concern because it covers some of the strongest aspects of the issue, the organic or non-chemically-altered element to the food, as well the distance factor, locally grown often being ideal becuase there is usually a high economic AND environmental cost associated with your pomegranates and grapes flying in from chile yesterday night. these such issues, when i have an active control over following them, are ones i highly agree with and try to stick to often. personally, i am not too too crazy about utterly non-natural means of say, getting my meat (feed-lots anyone? eww), and also, unless i am just dying for some raspberries one day, i try to shop and cook foods that are in season, locally grown, although ultimately, i will admit price is a MAJOR factor in some of my purchasing decisions.....

-amy