Response to Carrie Edmunds "Fake Foods" Post

Carrie talked about how when she was younger she used to eat real butter, but now that she is in college, she eats the "fake food" of butter, margarine. This is because she buys her own groceries now. Carrie prefers margarine over butter solely because it is less fattening. She makes the assumption right away that then is more healthier because it is less fattening but she needs to be careful. There are no tests out there right now that directly relate real butter to heart disease or chronic illness, just as stated in Michael Pollan book, "In Defense of Food". The article that Carrie founds states the opposite of Pollan in that butter does relate to heart disease, but it shows no evidence or proof with it. This means Carries article is not credible enough to much such statements and I am not convinced. I do agree with the reasons that Carrie has switched to buying the "fake foods" because they are the same reasons that I have switched to eating some "fake foods". The reasons are for less fat and calorie intake, and convience Taste does not have much to do with it.

Apples to Apple Sauce

Through the years that I grew up on my family dairy farm, we had an apple tree in the backyard. On my way walking to the barn and walking back from chores, that is where you found me every summer morning. I would grab an apple to eat. Throughout the day I would also make a trip out there sometime to grab another apple. There was nothing like picking and eating a fresh apple from our apple tree. As I got older and entered high school and college, my consumption of apples became much lower and the consumption of applesauce started to take off. According to Micheal Pollan, apples sauce is the "fake food" of apples. Applesauce is much more convenient to eat and it stores for a much longer period of time. As Brandon Whitney agrees with Pollan, Americans eat for connivance, not for nutrition or leisure. He also explains how we are eating the "fake foods" more then the real foods because it is cheaper to do so. I agree with both Pollan and Whitney because I am a college student so I eat the cheapest foods, which is usually the "fake foods". I also agree because it is much more delicious to eat applesauce because there is sugar added to it and even cinnamon sometimes. It is not just pure sugar though. There are a lot of the same nutrients and vitamins in apple sauce as there is in apples such as Vitamin A, protein, and Vitamin C. I still eat apples, but just not as much as applesauce. When I am home I eat nothing but apples because my family does not but many "fake foods" such as applesauce.

Self- Evaluation on Demonstration Speech

As I watched my demonstration speech over again to critique myself, I noticed a few areas to improve on and I noticed some strong points. First off, my introduction was a little flat but I was interacting with the audience by asking them questions to answer. From the answers to my question I right away knew that they whole audience could related to my topic because they all said that they drank milk. This means I picked a topic relevant to everyone, which is very good. I think I presented my information well despite the fact of the lack of visual aid. One area that I need to improve on is finding more visual aid for my topics. I only had a bottle and picture of a baby calf. I was not able to bring a calf to class, so that is understandable, but I still could have brought more pictures of the process or something to that sort. My delivery was overall pretty good. I did not have to use note cards so that is a plus but I think I should have practiced a couple more times to get it perfect. My closing also could have been a little better because I just stopped abruptly. I could hear myself and understand myself just fine so I don't need anymore improvement in that area. Lastly, I would definitely chose this topic again because I had a lot of fun with it and I love sharing agriculture with others. Next time, however, I would love to try to bring in a real baby calf and then demonstrate it because I think everyone would get a lot more out of it and have a lot more fun with it. (By clicking on the title, it will provide a link to a video of my demonstration speech.)

Response to Ashley Wagner's Blog Post

Ashley Wagner mainly focuses on the “Western Diet” that Pollan discusses in his book, “In Defense of Food.” The western diet is where we eat food that our bodies are not meant to digest. We eat a lot of unusual foods that are much higher in fat. Ashley also brought up the point I wrote about, that we eat foods that are “imitations” of the real food. I agree with Ashley 100% on her entire response because I basically wrote the same thing. Something that she brought up that I didn’t was the fact that we have complete control over what we eat, and fast food is high on our list. We eat what is convenient to us and what is delicious. We forget about getting our daily nutrients or we just don’t have time to get them. The article that Ashley linked too talked about Pollan. It basically discussed that Pollan’s main topics of his 5 books are about the farming world related to what we eat.

Preparing my meal

I decided to make a meal for my friends last night. I am a beginner at cooking so I stuck to easy meals. I wanted to make spaghetti with garlic break and salad. I figured this meal covered a lot of the necessary nutrients in a person’s diet. First I had to go to the store and get what I needed. I couldn’t find any garlic bread that I liked at the market so I bought a loaf of wheat bread instead with garlic salt. This way I can just make toast and sprinkle garlic on it. I also had to buy long spaghetti noodles, tomato sauce, and garden salad with French dressing. When I got back, I immediately started to boil the noodles and mix the tomato sauce. I kept the salad in the bag, so my friends can take out how much they wanted. It took about 30 minutes for the noodles to cook and for the sauce to cook. Eating was the best part because it was a delicious meal and I got many compliments from my friends! Overall, it was a great experience for me to take the responsibility to make a meal for others.
Michael Pollen describes in his book, “In Defense of Food” that we base what we eat solely on taste and not what is in the food. I agree with this statement for the most part because I am an example of it. I only eat what tastes good, but I am lucky that healthy foods taste delicious to me, such as salad. This article also agrees with Pollan and me. It says that we eat what is quick and convenient for us and we have also lost the value behind eating. We used to eat as family and eat with culture and now we forget what that is all about.