Introduction: Our National Eating Disorder:
Pg 1: What should we eat for dinner? "How did we ever get to a point where we need investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from and nutritionists to determine the dinner menu?” Food has always been complex with the ingredients and nutrition, that nobody really knows what they are actually eating. An example from the book would be bread.
Pg 5: “Certainly the extraordinary abundance of food in America complicates the whole problem of choice”
“Americans have never had a single, strong, stable culinary tradition to guide us”. Since in America we have a variety of food options to choose from it is very hard to be satisfied with one. An example from the book would be the interest of the food industries to exacerbate our anxieties of what to eat.
Pg 10: “Our eating also constitutes a relationship with dozens of other species- plants, animals and fungi- with which we have co-evolved to the point where our fates are deeply entwined". Species and animals evolve to gratify our desires. so that they can prosper together. An example from the book would be the mushrooms we eat to the yeasts that leavens our bread.
Pg 1: What should we eat for dinner? "How did we ever get to a point where we need investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from and nutritionists to determine the dinner menu?” Food has always been complex with the ingredients and nutrition, that nobody really knows what they are actually eating. An example from the book would be bread.
Pg 5: “Certainly the extraordinary abundance of food in America complicates the whole problem of choice”
“Americans have never had a single, strong, stable culinary tradition to guide us”. Since in America we have a variety of food options to choose from it is very hard to be satisfied with one. An example from the book would be the interest of the food industries to exacerbate our anxieties of what to eat.
Pg 10: “Our eating also constitutes a relationship with dozens of other species- plants, animals and fungi- with which we have co-evolved to the point where our fates are deeply entwined". Species and animals evolve to gratify our desires. so that they can prosper together. An example from the book would be the mushrooms we eat to the yeasts that leavens our bread.
Industrial Corn Part 1-The Plant( Corn's Conquest):
Pg 17: “Except for the salt and a handful of synthetic food additives, every edible item in the supermarket is a link in a food chain that beings with a particular plant growing in a specific patch of soil (or, more seldom, stretch of sea) somewhere on earth.” Most of the items that humans find in the supermarket comes from a plant in the soil. An example from the book would be the rib-steak that came from a farm in Texas, and later fattened in a Kansas feedlot on a grain grown in Iowa.
Pg. 19: “There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and more than a quarter of them now contain corn.” Make a collage- showing the items that are made of corn in the average American supermarket. More than 25% of food in a supermarket have corn as one the ingredient. An example from the book would be coffee whitener, Cheez Whiz, frozen yogurt, TV dinner, canned fruit, ketchup, candies, soups, and snacks. Pg 19: Why are Mexicans (descendants of the Mayans) referred to as “the corn people”? Mexicans are referred to as the "corn people" because it has been part of their diet for more than nine thousand years.
Pg. 21: What is the C-4 trick by plants? C-4 gives plants in advantage, mainly where water is little to be found and temperatures are high.
Pg. 22: What does the higher ratio of Carbon 13 (isotope) to Carbon 12 in a person’s body tell us? The higher ratio of Carbon 13 to Carbon 12 tells us the amount of corn that has been in their diet.
Pg. 22: How much wheat flour do we eat compared to corn flour? (Americans) Americans eat more than 114 pounds of wheat flour compared to 11 pounds of corn flour.
Pg 17: “Except for the salt and a handful of synthetic food additives, every edible item in the supermarket is a link in a food chain that beings with a particular plant growing in a specific patch of soil (or, more seldom, stretch of sea) somewhere on earth.” Most of the items that humans find in the supermarket comes from a plant in the soil. An example from the book would be the rib-steak that came from a farm in Texas, and later fattened in a Kansas feedlot on a grain grown in Iowa.
Pg. 19: “There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and more than a quarter of them now contain corn.” Make a collage- showing the items that are made of corn in the average American supermarket. More than 25% of food in a supermarket have corn as one the ingredient. An example from the book would be coffee whitener, Cheez Whiz, frozen yogurt, TV dinner, canned fruit, ketchup, candies, soups, and snacks. Pg 19: Why are Mexicans (descendants of the Mayans) referred to as “the corn people”? Mexicans are referred to as the "corn people" because it has been part of their diet for more than nine thousand years.
Pg. 21: What is the C-4 trick by plants? C-4 gives plants in advantage, mainly where water is little to be found and temperatures are high.
Pg. 22: What does the higher ratio of Carbon 13 (isotope) to Carbon 12 in a person’s body tell us? The higher ratio of Carbon 13 to Carbon 12 tells us the amount of corn that has been in their diet.
Pg. 22: How much wheat flour do we eat compared to corn flour? (Americans) Americans eat more than 114 pounds of wheat flour compared to 11 pounds of corn flour.
Rise of the Zea Mays:
Pg. 23: Explain why some people regard agriculture as a brilliant evolutionary strategy on the part of plants and animals? People may regard agriculture as a brilliant evolutionary strategy on the part of the plants and animals because it was a way to get involved to get us to advance their interests.
Pg. 24: What was the “biotic army” that the white man brought to the new world? The white man brought his own "associate species" such as cattle, apples, pigs and wheat.
Pg. 25: Explain how corn won over the wheat people because of its versatility. Corn won over the wheat people due to its versatility because the plant supplied settlers with easy ready to eat vegetable and a storable grain, a source of fiber and animal feed.
Married to Man:
Pg. 26: Why is corn considered to be “married to man”? Man depends on corn as a food source, lifestyle, agriculture, etc. Likewise with humans, if humans didn't live there would be no corn.
Corn Sex:
Pg. 30: For to prosper in the industrial food chain to the extent it has, corn has to acquire several improbable new tricks- What did corn have to do? Corn had to adapt itself to machines, had to multiply its yield by an order of magnitude and develop an appetite for fossil fuels.
Pg. 23: Explain why some people regard agriculture as a brilliant evolutionary strategy on the part of plants and animals? People may regard agriculture as a brilliant evolutionary strategy on the part of the plants and animals because it was a way to get involved to get us to advance their interests.
Pg. 24: What was the “biotic army” that the white man brought to the new world? The white man brought his own "associate species" such as cattle, apples, pigs and wheat.
Pg. 25: Explain how corn won over the wheat people because of its versatility. Corn won over the wheat people due to its versatility because the plant supplied settlers with easy ready to eat vegetable and a storable grain, a source of fiber and animal feed.
Married to Man:
Pg. 26: Why is corn considered to be “married to man”? Man depends on corn as a food source, lifestyle, agriculture, etc. Likewise with humans, if humans didn't live there would be no corn.
Corn Sex:
Pg. 30: For to prosper in the industrial food chain to the extent it has, corn has to acquire several improbable new tricks- What did corn have to do? Corn had to adapt itself to machines, had to multiply its yield by an order of magnitude and develop an appetite for fossil fuels.