Annotated Bibliography
Duffield, D. (2011, April 6). Duffield's Farm Market Interview. (T. Martinelli, C. Ernst, & N. Flesch, Interviewers)
During this interview we talked to Debbie Duffield who is one of the owners of Duffield's Farm Market. She told us about the nutrition of their produce, and how they partner with schools to educate children about being healthier. The produce they sell is hand picked every day so they do not use the preservatives that industrialized food chains use. As for the school trips, they had to revamp them a few years ago because the schools required the trips to be educational. One of the things they do for third grade is that they go into the schools and teach a lesson about planting seeds. They they bring the seeds back to the farm, plant them, and then when they are grown the students come back and pick the squash that has grown. That is what led to the lesson plans that they have on their website. During our interview, we found out that the Washington Twp. school district is beginning to incorporate into their curriculum programs to educate the students about better nutrition.
Pollan, Michael. "The Omnivore's Dilemna." Penguin Press (2006): 1-21. Web. 5 Apr 2011. <http://www.sabatinomangini.com/uploads/4/5/9/6/4596832/the_omnivores_dilemma_--_michael_pollan.pdf>.
The Omnivore's Dilemna by Michael Pollan addresses the question "what should we eat for dinner?" (3). He says this simple question has evolved to be so much more as American's diets have rapidly changed over the years. We rely on our senses, memory, and culture in deciding what food is best for us to consume. We have so many choices that it actually becomes a bigger ordeal for consumers. We are sustained by three food chains: the industrial, the organic, and the hunter-gatherer (6). Between all three is the tension between the logic of nature and the logic of the human industry. Though this is nothing new, it represents our ties to the natural world (8).
Chapter Two discussed the Naylor farm in 1919. Farmers like him were the most productive humans to ever work, making enough food to feed 129 Americans (10). However, despite this, the farm is now barely making enough to sustain the family. Throughout the years, the dynamics of the area changed. The land became fenced in, and the addition of cheap corn made it profitable to feed cattle with feedlots instead of grass and to raise chicken in factories rather than farms. Corn became the new and only crop to plant to cover all expenses (12). Corn eventually pushed the animals and people off the land, as less labor was necessary. However, it was the discovery of synthetic nitrogen that changed everything in the food system and the way life itself is conducted (14). It has been speculated the Haber- Boesh process for fixing nitrogen is the most important invention of the twentieth-century. He even says two of every five humans on Earth would not be alive without it (14). With this invention and the addition of fossil fuels, corn is being produced economically (16). Influenced by Earl Butz, the American government began subsidizing how many bushels of corn a farmer could grow (19). However, in order to grow cheap corn, the land is degraded, the water is polluted, and the federal treasury is depleting to subsidize the corn. Though the checks go to the farmers, the treasury is really subsidizing the farmers (20). Humans are in between going broke from producing such corn and consuming it as quickly as possible (21).
YouTube - Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Episode 1 Part 1." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Mar.-Apr. 2010. Web. 08 Apr. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7eaHytpJWQ>.
Jamie's goal to get into schools across the US and try to change the food that we are feeding our children. Huntington, West Virginia is the town that he focused on being that it is known to be the unhealthiest town in the entire world. His goal was to show the town healthy options instead of eating processed, broken down food.
Throughout the first two episodes Jamie came encountered with many struggles trying to achieve this goal. He had many people against what he was trying to do and achieve for this town. When he went into the towns elementary school he was baffled by what he saw being served to the children. Everything that was being put out for them was process or had loads of unhealthy preservatives in it. He decided to conduct a test and make a fresh cooked meal from healthy non processed foods and give the children a choice to choose which meal they would like. The turnout was shocking to Jamie, almost every child chose the processed food over the home cooked meal. This disappointment just gave him more incentive to make a change in this school and was determined to get these children to enjoy healthy food.
"School Lunches." Personal interview. 17 Apr. 2011.
Sitting down with the local cafeteria manager of a local elementary school I was able to find out some helpful and interesting information about the way a school cafeteria is managed and ran. We asked the manager a varierty of different questions surrounding what type of products they buy wether they are fresh produce or frozen. She gave us indepth answers to all of the questions we asked. She informed us that much of what they buy has to be frozen but they do use a vendor that buys all of their products from local farms within the state. We also disucssed the beverages that are being served to the children in the elementary school and how that the flavored milks are as high in surgar content as a can of soda is. When confronted with this information the manager was quite taken back but realised that this probably an issue within many of the school throughout the United States. She discussed how many children unfortunately dont even know the differences between different vegtables they are being severed for lunch, and how she believes that children should be taught these lesson within the classrooms of their schools.
"Don't Eat Anything Your Great-Grandmother Wouldn't Eat" Personal interview. 20 Apr. 2011.
The author of The Omnivore’s Dilema, Michael Pollen, says “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food”. I have been working at Vesuvios’s Pizzaria and Restaurant for almost five years now. It is owned by the DeSimone family, Sal, Luisa, and Sal JR. Before, I heard this quote, I was recently talking to my bosses mom, who we call “mama” Luisa DeSimone, who is like a grandmother to me. I swear anything this woman makes will take your tastebud to heaven. Everything she makes is so fresh and flavorful. We got to talking about her family history one day and what life was life when she was growing up in Italy. She said that eating was so different. Everything was so fresh. All the animals they ate came from a farm and were caught and killed right before they were going to eat them. They hunted for all their meat. Her family grew all their own fruits and vegetables. Her mother took care of the house and cooked dinner every night while her father did the labor work. One thing she said she will never forget what one woman said to her while she was on her way to America. The woman said Luisa had the prettiest pink color to her cheeks. Luisa nodded her head politely and said “Thank you”. The woman then told Luisa that she would lose that color in her cheeks now that she was going to live in America. Luisa said not too long after living in America she came to find that the woman was right and that the food here in America was so different than in Italy.
