1) where do you get the food from?
2) What are the nutritional requirements for fruits and vegetables?
3) Are french fries considered a vegetable here?
4) Has your lunch program changed at all over the years?
5) How much money does the school program receive to purchase foods?
6) How is the menu made up?

This past weekend I have watched clips from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Jamie Oliver started off in Huntington Virginia's school district due to the fact that city was labeled the most unhealthiest city in America. When he first walks in the school he sees the children are eating pizza for breakfast. Oliver than held up a tomato and ask the children what it was and the response was a "potato". In another clip Oliver took out the chocolate milk and strawberry milk because it contains more sugar than a can of soda. The next day the school brought the chocolate and strawberry milk back. Oliver was really annoyed with this and asked them why? The school district said that children need calcium and seeing milk that has an appealing flavor and color will more likely make them drink it. Oliver made one meal consisting of a pasta that included seven different vegetables, a fresh chicken breast, white milk, and a fresh fruit cup. The head woman in charge of the cafeteria said that was no an "approved" meal. and that the mandatory amount of fruits and veggies are a cup and a fourth. The woman then said he can add fries because it counts as a vegetable according to the food administrators. He argued that his fresh pasta that included a variety of vegetables, a fresh piece of chicken breast, white milk and a fresh fruit cup wasn't ok, but a chicken patty sandwhich with french fries and chocolate milk is the better choice?

In the Introduction of Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser informs his readers of the rapid productions of Fast Food restaurants and how they are slowly dominating the world in which we live in. Using a series of statistics Schlossar shows us the shift and growth of the fast food industry compared to that of a few centuries ago. The main example eh explores is McDonalds. Using this example he explores how it has become more than just a fast food chain but a part of life that stands out more than any historical event, symbol, or figure in the United States. Using supportive evidence Schlosser informs us makes his audience aware of how powerful our fast food nation as become consuming most of peoples money more than any other industry in the nation. We are living our lives under a now historical figure “Ronald McDonald” and other fast food chains, a dangerous place of underpaid workers, chemical and hormone produced meat, and packaged and processed foods that are slowly destroying human beings. Schlossar wraps his introduction up with a familiar but true statement: “You are what you eat”. 

Good,Clean,Fair: The rhetoric of slow food movement by Stephen Schnider is an article about the what the slow food movement is, it’s history, and what it’s main purposes and goals are. This program is used to educate society about what they are eating and the importance of eating “good, clearn, and fair food”. Carlo Petrini, the founder of the Slow Food Movement, identifies that food is more than just an object. It is “happiness, idenitity, culture, pleasure, nutrition, local economy, and surivival”. Because of the fast pace of modern society, and the demanding time that work entails, most people use the excuse of not having “time” to cook and focus on what they are eating. It is about being able to understand and identify what good, clean, food is and learning how to take a step back from the constant lightening speed of life, and slow down. The faster the pace of life picks up the more robotic people and systems become gaining control of everything in sight. People can make a difference and have the ability to stand up in order to save their health. Both Petrini and Schnieder want the people to be aware of the mind warping power of the rapid growth of industrializion and globaliztion and the more we conform to and go along with it, the more power and health destruction is too come. Their main goal is to educate people about what they are eating in every possible way they can in as many different institutions as possible.

10 Research Questions

1)      What is the truth behind food labels? Why is it that if less than a certain amount of an ingredient is in a product that the manufacturer can pretend that the product contains none of the ingredient and label it as “fat free, sodium free, cholesterol free..etc”?

2)      Is it possible to eat healthy in your local grocery store?

3)      Why are there no food nutritional labels on the fruits and vegetables in the grocery store?

4)      What are our students eating in cafeterias? Where do schools get their foods from?

5)      What are the statistics of people’s health fifty years ago compared to now?

6)      What were cafeterias like 25,40,50 years ago from now?

7)      If we spend more money on good quality food, would we spend less money on health care?

8)      Whose fault is it that obesity is one the number one health problems in America?

9)      Where is the healthiest place to live in the world and why? What are they doing to create such a a healthy environment?

10)   Are the fast food “healthy options” really healthy?

The Pleasures of Eating by Wendall Berry is an article about the mind warping power of the food industry and its ability to hypnotize people from the truth inside their healthy advertising labels. The food industry does not care about the health of the people and the cleanest, healthiest, and friendliest ways to manufacture their products. The main thing that the Food Industry cares about is money. Vegetables and Fruits are injected with chemicals to make them grow faster. Animals are being injected with hormones and chemicals to make them grow faster and fatter and treated in the most inhumane ways.  The Food Industry will do whatever they have to in order make the most money, regardless of the health effects it has on people. Berry believes one of the main thing that contributes to the lack of concern from the people is lack of time.  People are always in a hurry and don’t have much time to carefully look into what they are eating, to grow their own food, and to go to a farmers market and pick out fresh grass fed chemical free foods. The healthier the food is the more expensive it will be. Berry gives a list of seven things one can do to lead a healthier lifestyle in which one can only benefit from. It doesn’t take much to learn how to eat “true healthy foods” but the first step is to actually care what you are putting into your body.

Turns of Thought by Donna Qualley is a book about how learners discover themselves as writers using different approaches. She talks about her experiences with writing and whom she learned different methods from based on her observations and different approaches. Most schools and teachers try to give their students a certain formula to writing to fit the system when in reality there is “no need for consistency”.  It is helpful to look at teaching writing and writing itself as a way of getting in touch with the world and how to make sense of it. This fits in the role of one of the most effective writing approaches called reflexive inquiry. “Reflexivity is a way of discovering and examining one’s own thoughts through a response triggered by another idea, person, culture, or text”. It is a way of connecting to your internal thought process and being able to grow, adapt, and see things through a different pair of eyes. The act of reflexivity also means being able to make sense of the multiple responses that travel down your stream of thought.  By being open to learning from other people’s ideas, cultures, lives, and history, it is a gateway for one to learn about themselves and gain new insight and understanding. It is important to not be afraid to “unlearn”. In fact, unlearning is one of the most successful keys to revision. The best way to learn is when the learner is thrown off balance and outside of their comfort zone.

     This Chapter helped me understand how to construct an interview and provided helpful guidelines to carry throughout. It is important to connect with the person you are interviewing. Make them feel comfortable and relaxed. Show that you are interested and engaged in what they have to say. I think it is helpful to think about how you would want someone to make you feel if they were to interview you. The more you connect with them the more they will open up. It is important to avoid yes or no questions. Actually, I take that back. Yes or No questions are ok. However, it is important to expand on them. Any question that involves feeling and interpretation will provide for an interesting question. Things that are hard to talk about such as challenges, conflicts, obstacles, tragedies are often the most touching and therapeutic for the narrator to talk about. Think about anything in life that has been a tough time for you and how great it feels to talk about it. It’s not always easy; in fact you may think breaking through a brick wall would be easier than talking about it. However, once it comes off of your chest it’s cleansing and therapeutic. Once you learn your relationship with the person you are interviewing you will be able to get a feel for what is appropriate to ask. It is important not to be afraid to ask daring questions. A few quotes from this chapter that helped me gain a good understanding of oral history are the following:

“I would be an audience before whom she could make an honest analysis of her life”

You are the audience. The narrator gets to re tell his/her story. The retelling of their story helps them see and analyze it in a different way than when it was actually happening. It helps them see how they got to where they are in life or how that event has shaped them in some way who they are today.

“Basic necessities are: a person who wants to tell their story, and a genuine interest on your part in what is being told”

If you have these two things then you have the two essentials in creating a well constructed interview. They will enjoy telling their story to you and if you have a genuine interest then you will be so engaged and enjoy listening to everything they have to say.

“The distant past becomes especially vivid as they grow older”

This quote kind of goes along with the first one. Retelling their story helps them catch pieces,glimpses, or feelings that they might have forgotten about because it was so long ago. Each time you tell a story  new memories and feelings might spark that you didn’t remember when you were actually going through it.  It’s like an oral revision in a way. You experience something. Time goes by. You talk about it a month after it happens, then a year after it happens, and then 50 years after it happens. You are going to have different feelings toward it each time and the bits and pieces you forgot will probably come up.

What is Oral History?

This article gave me a basic ground for what oral history is. I got the most from the summary.

” To summarize: oral history might be understood as a self-conscious, disciplined conversation between two people about some aspect of the past considered by them to be of historical significance and intentionally recorded for the record. Although the conversation takes the form of an interview, in which one person--the interviewer--asks questions of another person--variously referred to as the interviewee or narrator--oral history is, at its heart, a dialogue.”

When you think about oral history as a dialogue it seems much more appealing. Reading written documentation is informative but you don’t get the same out of it as listening to it orally form the narrator. You connect much more on a personal level when you are able to communicate with the narrator. You get to see facial expressions, hear tone of voice, and communicate and respond back. For example. I am really interested in the Holocaust. I am very engaged while reading and written documentaries provide me with a good idea of how that person felt. However, interviewing someone that was in it would be a completely different experience. I would get so much for feeling and interest from discussing it face to face. I thought it was helpful to view oral history as “what it all meant then and what it all means now”. It is like looking back on any experience. When one is going through something they are going to feel and look at the situation completely different when a long time has passed and they are reflecting on it. It is going to mean something different. Talking about a topic is a great way for the narrator to reflect on what they went through and often times feelings and new insights will stir.

               When I first started reading “Situating Narrative Inquiry” I immediately thought I was going to hate it. I thought “Ok, Nicole give it a chance you only read the first paragraph, your judging it to quickly”.  After it took me a half hour to break down the meaning of the first few pages I was crossing my fingers that my black cloud would storm and kill my computer somehow so I wouldn’t have to read anymore. It was miserable I was trying to understand what they were saying and it was all over the place. They were going on, and on, and getting nowhere. Their rhetoric was boring, irritating, confusing, and directed towards people who seem to understand technical language. For something called a “narrative inquiry” there didn’t seem to be too much narrative going on. “The four turns are a change in relationship between the researcher and the researched, a move from the use of number towards the use of words as data, and a change from a focus on the general and universal toward the local and the specific, and a widening in acceptance of alternative epistemologies or ways of knowing”. I can understand this. That’s why I decided to give it a chance. However, it does not take 34 pages to make this point or get someone to understand it. It took forever to get to the point. Not only that, but they were so repetitive. After the first 15 times of telling me the four points of what this article was about, I think I get the hint. “What narrative researchers hold in common is the studies of stories or narratives, or descriptions of a series of events”. The article should have then went on to describe a story or gave examples that people could relate to and identify with.  As a reader I want to understand the point they are trying to make and be able to identify. I don’t want to hear a “careful scholarly, detailed analysis and theoretical defense of narrative knowing or an argument for two ways of knowing in the human sciences”. I want to hear real life stories and real experiences from everyday people. I really hated this article.  I would rather be stuck in a sauna smothered in a 500 pound mans armpit who lived in cavemen times and never discovered deodorant than read this entire article.

               Because I was so bitter about the first article, I was really debating on even opening up this second one. I’m glad I did. I realized why we were assigned to read the other article first. I think it was to see the difference in language and the way it is used to communicate to the readers. This article was making the exact same point but communicated in a completely different way. This article used real life stories and experiences to help the reader understand the point they were trying to make. I was interested in the stories and was able to identify each specific point to the moments in each individual’s life.  This article really made me aware of the difference language makes while reading any article or story.

               Narrative is so important while writing and one learns so much from other peoples’ narratives which leads one to continue to grow and add to their own. Narrative Inquiry is “personal and social (interaction); past, present, and future (continuity); combined with the notion of place (situation). Any type of research has to do with narrative inquiry. It shapes your view on life and helps you to understand more about yourself and your view on what you’re writing about. One’s past, present, and future shapes your psychological view on things and the way you feel and think about life and everything you write about. The “inward,outward,backward,forward” concept really is a great way of understanding narrative inquiry and is an easy way to apply narrative inquiry to writing. I was able to understand each individuals stories through using these terms. By explaining the terms and breaking them down applying them to each story, I was able to really understand and analyze each particular view of each individual. The repetition in this article was beneficial because the language was based on real life experiences. Two stories were given and both stories were broken down piece by piece. Then the reflective note at the end really brought the whole article together.

This telling of ourselves, this meeting of ourselves n the past through inquiry, makes clear that as inquirers we, too, are part of the parade. We have helped make the world in which we find ourselves…..Being in this world, we need to remake ourselves as well as offer up research understandings that could lead to a better world………Working in this space means that we become visible with our own lived and told stories. (10)