February 22, 2010

In chapter 16 of the Omnivore's dilemma, the author, Michael Pollan describes how and why humans are omnivore's due to the ability of our brain to mentally understand what we are eating and how our digestive track has adapted to the wide variety of food being put into our body. Pollan also goes on to explain that our ability to be omnivores is also somewhat evolutionary, such as rats. He states that "the rat and the human can live just about anywhere on earth and when their familiar foods are in short supply, there's always another they can try". This is very interesting to me because it has never occurred to me that humans really do have the ability to consume a wide variety of food compared to other, less sophisticated life forms.

In chapter 17, Pollan addresses the ethics in which we consume animals in a chapter appropriately named "The Ethics Of Eating Animals". In this chapter, Pollan quotes animal rights activist and philosophers such as Singer, who goes as far as comparing animals being owned by people in the same way that white farmers owned african american slaves. I find this a bit ridiculous and extreme and is my personal belief that the two cannot be compared on the same level because livestock are not the same as humans. The chapter also talks about animal cruelty in so called "death camps". However, I believe that the animals on these farms most likely live behind a veil of ignorance in that they don't realize that there is a better life outside the walls of farm because they have no knowledge of that life. And when addressing the issue of whether the way in which the animals are killed, the result is the same no matter how its done.

February 8, 2010

In chapter 12 of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan visits a farmer named Joel who raises and slaughter's his own chickens. Pollan goes into detail of how the process in which Joel raises and butcher's the chickens is more of a productivity process rather than a  humane process. It is a process more focused on producing a high yield than quality. This chapter was interesting because it shed light on the actual process of how  livestock are slaughtered and processed, which has made me think twice about eating food slaughtered on mass production lines. The process in which Joel slaughtered his mere 300 chickens seemed like an "assembly line" sort of process, and I can't even imagine how a large production slaughter house butcher's their chickens.

In the I Say, section of They Say, I Say, it gave helpful hints and ideas on how to effectively introduce your argument and help support your argument using tips and tricks such as agreeing and disagreeing with your argument. This section also provides ways in which to incorporate other's words and idea's into your own writing. I personally found the templates on page 60 very useful because I have always had trouble finding creative ways in agreeing and disagreeing with my argument at the same time in order to increase the effectiveness of my view.

February 3, 2010

In chapter nine, the author, Michael Pollan addresses and questions the validity of the title "organic" when pertaining to food sold in the super markets. Pollan argues that many of the food companies and producers of the United States that claim to provide "organic" foods are in fact no more "organic" than those of the mass food producers themselves. I agree with Pollan's arguments in this chapter in that stores such as Whole foods over price their foods for essentially the same product you could find at any other grocery store only because the label claims it to be "organic". Growing up on a farm and owning cattle, I don't trust store's claims for "organic" because you never really know where a cow was raised and what it was fed before being placed on the production line. On my farm, I know what foods the cattle ate and the conditions in which they were raised and only then do I consider the food to be truly "organic".

The writer's resource book is very informative in that it helped me understand how one can use visuals in an effective manner in order to support what one is arguing. It also provided a lot of useful tools on how to start a paper and help avoid common fallacies.