mmm sandwiches w10

     In my opinion, there are a variety of foods that can be considered a sandwich. When you first think about eating a sandwich, you immediately think that a sandwich is something you eat with your hands. In addition, most people think of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, lunch sandwiches such as Subway and hot sandwiches like Penn Station. Are those really the only food items that we can call sandwiches? I really don't think so. I believe that a sandwich contains ingredients that are held together by any type of breaded dough. This is what makes sandwiches creative, you can put just about anything together in a number of different combinations. I agree that a hot dog, hamburger, quesadilla, and even a crepe can be considered a sandwich.
     A hot dog is held together by a bun that you eat with your hands. A hot dog can come with a number of different toppings. The combination of the hot dog and toppings create a sandwich because the bun holds it all together creating a delicious combo that you can easily eat with your hands. Although people mostly think of sandwiches to be eatin solely with your hands, there are alternatives. Take crepes for example. They don't look like a sandwich and they aren't always eaten with their hands due to the mess they could make. I believe that they are still considered a sandwich though because it is holding together a combination of ingredients in between a breaded substance called a crepe.
     Quesadillas and Hamburgers can be considered sandwiches too. They hold together a mixture of complementing ingredients that come together to form one. This also goes for burritos and tacos. Just because they aren't called sandwiches doesn't mean they can't be considered one. The ingredients in a sandwich are not separated, they come together to form one item. Burritos and tacos bring together delicious Mexican ingredients that come together to form a sandwich. Burritos and tacos were created to hold the toppings and meat together, making them sandwiches.
     Others may disagree due to the fact that they stick to the original sandwich that is held together by two pieces of bread. Where is the fun in that though? I believe that a sandwich was meant to be creative and brings ingredients together to form one delicious combination of food. Whether it is a Chipolte burrito or a crepe you eat for breakfast, I see no reasons why they can't be considered sandwiches. I believe that the idea of a sandwich can be very versatile, and there isn't always a standard definition for it.

should we just stop eating beef all together?! w9

     I have been thinking a lot about the Taco Bell controversy over their beef. Taco Bell now has commercials stating that their beef is eighty eight percent USDA approved. I guess this claim is a step up from only about thirty percent beef. Although Taco Bell claims that they were wrongly accused of this fact, why would there be a lawsuit against them? It just makes me wonder who is lying here.
     The public has a right to know exactly what kind of beef from fast food chains they are eating. After everything we have learned about fast food industries, I really don't know if I can trust any of the meat anymore! The USDA says that beef has to be at least thirty five percent to be advertised as beef but is that even safe? I believe there should be a higher standard than that. What is the other seventy percent of beef? It can't all be seasoning and spices. This means that most fast food places are using fillers for their meat, in which we have no clue what those fillers are.
     After this class, I have been traumatized by secrets of the food industry and sometimes wish I lived in a different country. America runs to heavily on fast food. I use to eat so much of it, but now instead I am eating gross dining hall food along with unhealthy frozen foods from the market. In my position, I just can't win as of right now!
     I definitely agree with Gabby's presentation about how OU's food needs to change. I work at Boyd Dinning hall and I see how the food is prepared, and it wouldn't surprise anyone in class to how disgusting it is. I was washing pots and pans when a cook brought back two deep pans of burnt cauliflower that nobody in the grab-and-go line touched. The cook said "I don't know why we have that, nobody eats it."
     This made me think of how we are all choosing unhealthy choices here at the dining hall but that's because they put out nasty cheap vegetables out! Other than salad, the best they could come up with is cauliflower?! It just makes me wonder what are these fast food companies and cafeteria institutions in schools thinking!
    

w8 Myers and Foodies

     Myers spends time looking deeper into the world of foodies. To a certain extent his claims are legitimate but I feel like he gets a little harsh with some of his points. He is legitimate in the claims where he uses examples to show how foodies have a stuck-up attitude. He goes into detail to describe the foodies' lavish lifestyle, and what sets them apart from an average person. Myer's created a negative image of foodies for me. When looking deeper into the texts and examples, I reflected on why and how I should trust a foodie's judgment. Their judgment does seem to be very single-minded which Myer's makes clear throughout his text. I don't understand the reasoning for looking up to snobbish, rich, single-minded people for food advice when I am on a completely different level of a foodie.
     When I talk of being on a different level, I mean that I don't look for the same standards as a foodie does since their standards are so high and they have a lot of luxury compared to me. Myer's does a good job of painting a picture of famous foodies, with their quotes and images portraying them as nowhere near average people. Myers points out that its repetitive for a foodie to overuse dramatic descriptions of the food they taste. I agree with this because in this text and in class, I have noticed food writers tend to put food on a pedestal making it seem like its their religion.
     The only point I think that Myers goes overboard with is his claim; "is there any civilized value that foodies can't turn on its head?" he uses this to refer to how certain foodies like Bourdain, see it as rude when religious reasons come into play while eating a meal someone has prepared for them. I don't feel like the foodie is in any wrong here due to the fact that you should be able to respect someone else's cooking and especially if it is of great tradition in their family. I think that Myer exaggerated here and was trying to make a foodie to seem more evil then what they really are because I highly doubt the intentions were the same.
     Myers did a good job of giving me a negative image of a foodie, in which most I agreed because in some ways a foodie can seem a bit ridiculous. He does get a little harsh but still uses his logic to back up his claims. His logic can be either accepted or denied by the reader. If one thing is for sure is that Myers doesn't seem like he is going to jump on the foodie bandwagon any time soon.

Secret Family Recipe (W7)

     When it comes to family recipes, I usually don't question the ingredients because I just accept them for their deliciousness. I actually called my mom to ask her if there is any secrets in the recipes that her, my dad and my grandma may use. I asked her about my dad first and of course she responded with, "well your dad just thinks he has secret recipes but really doesn't." This was funny because my whole family knows that my dad tries to exaggerate the originality of his meals. He usually isn't exaggerating though, because I find almost everything he makes to be out of this world! I have mentioned his ribs before where he claims there is a secret technique to the cooking process. I am pretty sure it has to do with the timing because they are "fall off the bone ribs" every single time. I was sad to hear that my dad actually just cooked ribs tonight because its my favorite meal and my mom rubbed it in my face. She promised that when I come home for spring break she will have him make them again though.
     The question to my mom about the recipes also sparked some funny memories of my aunt's chili. My aunt (bless her heart) isn't the greatest cook. She is a nurse, so she is kind of a work-a-holic and doesn't have a whole lot of time to cook. When she does cook though she always makes a lot of food so my family comes over to try whatever it is that she made. She has a special chili she makes, and when she makes it right it is actually pretty good. My mom told me that her secret to the chili is grape jelly, which surprised me because I never really noticed. The reason why I haven't ever really noticed is because nine times out of ten the chili would be burnt. We would call her chili "ash tray chili" and has been a joke ever since.
     As for my mom, I noticed that her main ingredient for almost everything is cheese! My mom makes the cheesiest broccoli casserole ever along with the cheesiest lasagna. Her lasagna has beat the lasagna at every Italian restaurant I have been too. Every layer (including the very top and very bottom) has a generous amount of Velveeta cheese. I can't wait to have that again either!
     Lastly, I have to mention a punch that has been in my family forever. I first tried it from my grandma, and then my mom started making it for every one of my birthday parties. It's an orange punch that doesn't sound extremely special or anything but I would have to say that it's my favorite drink and would pick it over anything else if I had the choice. Whenever you decide you want to throw a party, I recommend serving this punch. Our family punch includes 4 packets of orange kool-aide, 5 cups of sugar (my grandma uses 6), 1 can of frozen orange juice and 1 large can of pineapple juice. This actually serves four gallons of punch, so my mom usually freezes the rest if it isn't all used. It makes a delicious Popsicle and you can even fill up an ice cube tray with it for some extra cool flavor too the punch.
    My family secret recipes may not be the most secretive and original but they sure do make an impression. I have to say that my dad wins with his ribs every time though and if he says its secret and original then I am going to believe it. My mom just likes to prove him wrong sometimes!

Food Injustice W6

      It was my first time watching Food Inc. and I have to say that it completely changed my perspective on the American food industry. I have known that the business is sketchy and we have had a lot of discussions in class, but to see it on screen was horrifying to me. Every time an animal was shown, I had to cover my eyes. There were a lot of points in the film that successfully persuaded me. The few that stood out most to me were the animals, how the farmers and workers are treated by the companies, and the story of the mom dealing with the death of her son.
     I am the biggest sap when it comes to the death of animals, so I basically had a frown on my face through the entire film. I'm not even a vegetarian, and sometimes I wish I was but I raised on eating meat. Anyways, I couldn't believe some of the images I saw. The two absolute worst were they showed how the chickens can't even stand up and the pigs were getting slaughtered by a "kill floor." Genetically modifying animals to fit our tastes such as making the chickens fatter than they naturally are showed a crueler side of the industry. When seeing all of those chickens starting to fall and breaking their legs, I was just thinking to myself how un natural and inhumane that was. The "kill floor" almost made me cry! I would of never thought that something like that existed. For the pigs to be slaughtered in a mass quantity, you just squash them all at once with the floor? I still can't believe it as I sit here and reflect on the sad image coming back to mind.
     Those images shown really made an impact on me because I am really sensitive to the fact of how our companies are treating the animals with so much cruelty. The film showed us the alternative to this, with a farmer who ran a small business from his farm and he definitely did not harm the animals in the way that the companies did. I just did not know the companies were that powerful and especially over the farmers and workers they control. It was so sad to see how the companies treated the farmers and the workers by making them work so hard for so little control and so little money. These companies are making a fortune, while having the farmers and workers doing all the dirty work for them. This really showed me how cruel the companies were. Not only do they treat the animals in such an inhumane way, they don't have respect for anyone such as the people working for them!
     In addition to the companies treatment of the people involved, another persuading concept that stood out was the story of the mother and son. The mother lost her son to a food illness that wasn't recalled until about twenty days after the little boy's death. This image was used to emphasize the important fact that our food contains so much bacteria and illness more than ever before. The film showed how the way the farms are feeding the animals corn now along with putting the animals in unsanitary conditions in which the disease feeds off of. So the conditions that the companies put the animals in are just harming us more, by the increase of ecoli and salmonella present. The story of the mother and son added a lot of emotion behind this fact that really made me think "why?" Why do the companies even put animals in conditions where disease is easily contracted? Why are they making food un-safe, rather than safe? It just doesn't make sense to me. I really liked how the mother continues to fight for safer food, because obviously something needs to change.
     The images of the animals, the workers and farmers, and more diseases successfully persuaded me to really hate the companies involved in this horrible business. The companies that control our food industry are suppose to make sure our food is safe, but ironically it's the complete opposite. They treat everyone around them with disrespect and I really hope we can continue to fight with these companies until there are some major changes made.

W5 More Fast Food Nation

     I am going to reflect on the chapters we read in Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. The sections about McDonald’s chicken nuggets have officially made the McNuggets dead to me. When you choose chicken over beef, you automatically think that you are making the "healthier" choice. This is not always the case, and especially when it comes to the McNugget. According to Fast Food Nation, the Mcdonald's McNugget actually resembles beef more than it does poultry! Okay, I thought we were buying "chicken" nuggets. These chicken nuggets also contain twice as much fat per ounce as a hamburger! The sad part is that parents let their kids eat these fatty processed chicken nuggets that have absolutely no health value.

     Fast Food Nation enhanced my awareness of how our Country relies heavily on fast food and how it lacks the whole point of nutrition we need for our bodies. Fast food comes from processed foods that contain so many chemicals that we don't know half of the real ingredients. Americans spend ninety percent of their money on processed foods, and it is the flavor industry in America that is responsible for this. In almost all of the food products we buy contain the words of either "artificial flavor" or "natural flavor." Surprisingly, natural flavor is no better than artificial flavor. These flavor compounds contain actually more ingredients than the foods given their taste. This is shocking to me, because I had no idea that processed foods contained chemicals we didn’t even know about!

    I have been ignorant of all the details shown in Fast Food Nation, so I am glad that I have more knowledge of what is actually going into my body. These readings make me wish for my own kitchen, because I know everything that I heat up in my dorm microwave is no good!  But then again our culture runs off of this kind of food so how can I escape it? If ten thousand new processed food products are entering the American market every year, then it makes it almost impossible for me to escape it. Sometimes I wish we could go back to the good old days and live off the land!

Fast Food Nation (w4)

     There is no denying that America runs off of fast food.When I was younger my parents mostly made dinner so I really didn't start having the luxury of fast food until I started to drive and have a job. I don't really have a childhood memory of fast food (besides happy meals here and there from McDonald's). When I got my own car I was seventeen years old and by that point my parents didn't care about what I ate anymore. Oh and did I eat it, a lot of it.
     First off, I started working at Dairy Queen when I was a sophomore in High School. The rule there was that we couldn't have food for free, and we had a slight discount of ten percent. This rule was broken constantly. Everyone I worked with made food for free and we would eat on the clock all the time. I know that this sounds bad but the only person that cared was the owner and he was barely there. Anyways, I ate everything and I mean everything. I worked there for almost four years and tried new combinations of food all the time. What I ate most of though, was the ice cream of course. For some reason the soft serve never got old.
     In addition to being addicted to Dairy Queen food, I also loved to drive around and go to every the drive thru in town . Like in every city in America, strips of fast food places surrounded us. This burned a huge hole in my pocket. Even though I was buying dollar tacos from Taco Bell and dollar sweet teas from McDonald's, it adds up quick when your buying it about every day. Luckily, I am mostly over my fast food stage due to the fact that it really isn't cheap.I am really looking forward to cooking a lot food in my apartment next year just because fast food does get old.
     I feel like America runs on fast food mostly because it does surround us so much and it is much more convenient to spend a dollar on a burger versus grilling out. It is also fast, Americans are both busy and lazy people. We have people who rush to work every morning, so they are picking up McDonald's for breakfast. There are also just plain lazy people who can't or won't cook to save their life.
     Even though I haven't traveled to a different country, my friend is from Beijing and she notices a big difference in food culture. China has fast food of course, but they don't rely on it as much as Americans do. She says that in her culture, it is more important to sit down with family and friends eating authentic food than anything else. I feel like fast food in America takes some of that away because it is so prevalent and convenient for us that we forget the true value of food. Of course we need food, but we should also take time to slow down our lives a bit and share food in a more traditional way with family and friends.