Where Am I Eat Analysis

There is a lack of sympathy and anger toward the working conditions of people working in agriculture and aquaculture. In the film Business of Hunger we saw the displacement of people for agricultural goods such as, peanuts which are water and land intensive. In this film we saw how people in nations such as Brazil and Africa are not even acknowledged by the western nations who consume the food they export. Not only in agriculture are the workers exploited but my recent discovery of the shrimp industry has exposed the truth of slavery and child labor with the capturing of shrimp. Asking where your food comes is just one simply way of being a better consumer. When you go into a store and look for organic or certified food we argued in class that constitutes being good consumers, but what do those labels really mean? When more than half of the shrimp consumed in the United States comes from Thailand which has the most exploitative conditions, it would be hard to even believe the label. Before this course I had no clue shrimp was coming from exploitative condition and during the shrimp case study, I mentioned to my friend she should not eat shrimp due to the overexploitation of the workers and the environmental degradation of the land. She told me her mom worked in a shrimp farm while in Vietnam, I was surprised and asked her how she was okay with eating the shrimp after her mom told her of the harsh conditions and she responded to me “It’s Vietnam, what do you expect.” These

American agriculture can produce more food on less land and at cheaper cost than any other nation. Did anyone ever wonder why or how? The documentary Food Inc., produced by Robert Kenner, is designed to put the spotlight on the unsafe preparation of food products, the inhuman treatment of animals being used, and the unethical treatment of workers in corporate farming. Robert Kenner uses multiple rhetorical analysis to get his aspect across to his viewers. Throughout the movie, there are several claims to appeal of ethos, pathos, and logos in order to uncover the true secrets of the American food during its journey to the table.

As Gliessman, an agricultural researcher, says in Agroecology, “conventional agriculture is built around two related goals: the maximization of production and the maximization of profit. In pursuit of these goals, a host of practices have been developed without regard for their unintended, long-term consequences” (3). The industrial food industry has created a process to produce as many crops as possible in the quickest amount of time to put onto the market. The several ways utilized to achieve these goals are those that are harmful to the consumer. Two main threats are genetic modification, and chemicals. These issues are a spark of concern in addressing the health of consumers. Food industries often try to tantalize their audience with the promise of untouched, pristine produce when in reality these foods are heavily tainted by pesticides or are genetically modifieds. “One will find this obliviousness represented in virgin purity in the advertisements of the food industry, in which food wears as much makeup as the actors. If one’s whole knowledge of food from these advertisements, one would not know that the various edibles were ever living creatures, or that they all come from the soil… “ (Berry 147). People are informed little about the pesticides that we often ingest from products like these and little do people know the negative effects of GMOs.

Camille Kingsolver uses Taking Local on the Road to convey thoughtfulness surrounding the comfortability and sanctuary of local food product. Kingsolver discusses the vast removal the current generation has from food production; not blaming the individuals, but instead society’s appeared little pragmatic need for knowing about food manufacture. A large theme of the piece is identity. Kingsolver left her home “five months into [her] family’s year of devoted local eating” (Kingsolver 37) and had to adjust to college food—inorganic, frozen foods shipped from different regions around the world—while seeming to be the only person who noticed the unnaturalness of it.

One does not necessarily expect books about food also to be about bigger ideas like oppression, spirituality, and freedom, yet Pollan defies expectations. Pollan begins with an exploration of the food-production system from which the vast majority of American meals are derived. This industrial food chain is mainly based on corn, whether it is eaten directly, fed to livestock, or processed into chemicals such as glucose and ethanol. Pollan discusses how the humble corn plant came to dominate the American diet through a combination of biological, cultural, and political factors. The role of petroleum in the cultivation and transportation the American food supply is also discussed. A fast-food meal is used to illustrate the end result of the

As the world expands through time and business, the natural process of developing food is forced to adapt to the growing demands of civilization. Henceforth, the modern-day food industry is capable of producing a plethora amount of nutrients that sustains mass populations. However, is the modern tradition and technique of mass food production hiding a burdened truth behind the curtains of society’s unawareness? Is such truth more sinister than productive? Filmmaker Robert Kenner directed a documentary in 2008 where the methods of processing meats and harvesting crops were analyzed with their effects. As a result, Kenner’s documentary, Food Inc., has revealed that the ways foods are processed have consequently made them perilous for society. Through the use of

Chiquita, the oldest banana transnational in Latin America was the primary target of banana worker rights and environmental activists until 2001. The company has since teamed up with the Rainforest Alliance to roll out the Alliance’s standards to its banana farms in Latin America.6 Chiquita prides itself on its recent changes, which have involved revamping the company to promote “The Chiquita Difference”; this includes a philosophy of social responsibility, sustainability, community involvement and food safety.7 These changes arose from the use of political activism by consumers in response to poor workers rights, thus exemplifying the fact that people do realize where their food is coming from and are willing to fight for those who create it. This shows that the process of defetishization has begun for many. Production

Berry begins the article by pointing out the consumer’s ignorance as they do not realize the connection they have with the agricultural cycle. Many believe that eating is an agriculture act, however, they do not associate themselves with this act because they do not have direct contact with the actual food production process. Berry explains that the reason why people think this way is because “they just buy what they want - or what they have been persuaded to want” without a second thought on the qualities and the states of the products (3). He appeals to the reader’s emotions as he describes the nature of the consumers because it demonstrates the reality of how little people nowadays care what they consume into their body. Berry further enforces his appeal on the audience’s emotions by claiming that “food is pretty much an abstract idea” to most of the urban shoppers (4). Shoppers understand that food is produced on farms, but have no knowledge on the locations of the farms, the type of farms, and the techniques that are involved in farming. This statement supports Berry’s claims on the consumer’s ignorance because it points out the important role that consumers actually play

Imagine living in a country where you know you could die at any moment but don’t know how much longer till it happens. That was how much of the population of El Salvador used to feel when the government could not control the big coffee corporations. These out of control corporations, highly feared that the people would want to revolt against them so they hired murderers to kill innocent people to spread fear in the minds of the people of El Salvador. Fear, hate, and sorrow were the common feelings felt by the poor and innocent major population of El Salvador caused by the evil wrongdoings of the government during October 1979 – 16 January 1992. This is how the main character, Jose Luis, of the novel “Mother Tongue” by Demetria Martinez, felt before escaping his beautiful yet over constantly dangerous country, which depended on its cash crop, coffee beans to sell on a foreign market as the country’s main income. However, following the stock-market crash of 1929, a drop in coffee prices became apparent and affected everyone in El Salvador, but the poor especially. Making things worse, the glorious United States was funding the men whom were doing all the innocent killings with more weapons and money to increase their military power. So for Jose Luis the safe haven that he had escaped to was also blatantly funding the war that was killing so many innocent people he knew and had forced him to escape for his own safety. With nowhere else to go in order to find safety the United

Holmes’ purpose in conducting his fieldwork with the migrant workers (specifically the Triqui of Mexico) of California and Washington fruit agriculture was to gain understanding from a perspective many do not consider and that has not been assessed in this way before. Similarly, the goal of this book was to pass that understanding to the common reader, the average American, those who are affected directly and those who are believe they are unaffected by the migrants of American agriculture—and to distinguish that they are not unaffected. Doing so creates the potential for change, even if by only a small factor like

After realizing that all of the food and water consumed by their family was either piped, shipped, or driven to them in the middle of the desert, novelist Barbra Kingsolver and her family decided to pick up their lives and move from Tucson, Arizona to to her childhood home of tobacco and dairy farms in southern Appalachia. Kingsolver and her family intended to spend the next year living in a more connected way to their food and where it comes from, and this book is the result of that experience. Part journal, part academic inquest, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, tells the story of their project to live sustainably in a place “where rain falls, crops grow, and drinking water bubbles right up out of the ground” (p. 3). Their year would consist

In almost every culture, one of the most cherished pass times is food. We eat to sustain or health, to celebrate, to morn, and sometimes just to do it. Yet, how often do we question were that food comes from? Most everyone purchases their meals from the grocery store or at a restaurant but have you ever wondered where that juicy steak grazed? How about how those crisp vegetables? Where were those grown? The Omnivore 's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, analyzes the eating habits and food chains of modern America in an attempt to bring readers closer to the origin of their foods. Not only where it comes from, but where it all begins, as well as what it takes to keep all of those plants and animals in

Traditional markets are replaced by the supermarket. “Market products are invariably indigenous and grown locally” (344) they remind us the kind of agriculture practiced in the area. Blemishes and the odd shapes of fruit and vegetables remind us they are still grown by traditional method. Foods are grown naturally without any pesticides, herbicides and antibiotics which are healthy for our lives. Technology has enormous benefits we can produce any kind of products even it’s not the season. The use of pesticides supplies higher crop yields, reduces the cost and labor of farming, and produces relatively unblemished, visually appealing produce. However, some scientists think that pesticide residues in conventional foods could, over many years,

In Slaughterhouse Blues, anthropologist Donald Stull and social geographer Michael Broadway explore the advent, history, and implications of modern food production. The industrialized system behind what we eat is one of the most controversial points of political interest in our society today. Progressions in productive, logistical, retail, and even biological technologies have made mass produced foods more available and more affordable than ever before. This being said, the vague mass production of ever-available cheap “food” carries with it several hidden

More and more health-conscious individuals are scrutinizing the source of the food their family consumes. However, even the most conscientious consumer is not fully aware of the exhaustive efforts and struggle to get a juicy, ripe strawberry or that plump tomato in the middle of winter, even in Florida. These foods are harvested and picked mostly by seasonal and migrant farm workers. Migrant workers hail, in large part, from Mexico and the Caribbean, and their families often travel with them. Migrant farm workers must endure challenging conditions so that Americans can have the beautiful selection of berries, tomatoes, and other fresh foods often found at places like a farmer’s market or a traditional super market. Seasonal and