Omnivores Dilemma

Chapter 5 in the Omnivores Dilemma is all about how modern corn is broken down into different aspects in order to satisfy a multitude of needs of Americans. According to the chapter Americans eat very little corn in its basic form. In fact in an average year, Americans will consume only about a bushel of corn in its basic form. This may still seem like a lot but compared to the amount of corn products that are consumed in the form of sweetener in beverages or secondarily through live stock consumption the amount is very little. The chapter in this book also raised a very interesting argument which states that humans have finally found a way to in laymen’s terms, cheat Mother Nature. Conventionally humans had been restricted to diets of seasonal local foods. However with the creation of methods of storage and altering of food, humans are for the most part no longer fully enslaved by nature.

I believe that generally the belief above is valid. Personally being a chef, I have never found it difficult to find fresh produce like apples that haven’t been in season for several months. Because humans are no longer fully restricted by nature we have been able to broaden our culinary horizons, which in my opinion is always a beneficial thing.

American Identity

If you were to ask a person off the street what the cuisine of the United States consists of, you would probably hear things like hamburgers, apple pie, and barbecue. However when you sit down and think about it, the national cuisine of the United States may not even exist. When compared to the cultures like italian and french who set food in the center of their lives, the Mc Donald's just doesn't seem to be on the same level. This question plays to the main argument of the articles that we read for class today.

In my personal opinion however, although our nation may not have a set of foods that we build a diet around, I believe that the compilation of all different cuisines from different areas around the world create a unique culture apart. By mixing and matching influences we have been able to create a diet that is somehow completely different from anything else in the world. For example tex mex and "soul food" are mixes of many culture but at the same time a completely new cuisine.

American Identity

My Recent Trip

On my recent trip back home to Washington DC i went to a relatively well know seafood chain called M&S. This restaurant sells a wide variety of seafood from around the world. In the same place that you are getting fresh crab from Maryland, your dinner companion could be enjoying seater roasted Alaskan salmon. Now normally people would see the idea of eating foods from different parts of the world to be standard for any well to do American, however when you take a second and think what it actually takes to get that food on the table it astounding. The fact that we have access to all of this food that a hundred years ago would have been impossible, I believe has widened our culinary pallet and is better overall for the American People.

The Other White Meat

The article “The Other White Meat” discusses the question of cloning and its ethics and safety. Cloning is a technology that has been in existence since the mid 1990s when scientists successfully cloned a farm animal. Since that time, genetic engineers have been experimenting with the idea of cloning prize animals with superior traits in order to create a “supper breed”. The benefits of a super breed animal that had the most meat or milk production would of course be a huge asset for farmers with narrow profit margins.

Unfortunately however there are two major barriers that have stopped the mass use of these relatively new cloning technologies. First, technology scares the average consumer so much that they have all but destroyed the possibility of clones in the food system. The consumer feels that animals that have not been conceived in the conventional way are unnatural and are therefore unfit for consumption. Although there is no evidence that this is the case the FDA under strong pressure from consumers has discouraged the sale and distribution of any GM animals. Second, at this time the cost of cloning an animal is still prohibitively expensive. According to the article if a farmer were today to go out and get a conventional animal cloned it could cost in excess of twenty thousand dollars which compared to conventional methods is multiple times the price.

Discussion Questions:

1. What makes the average consumer so wary about the consumption of meat from cloned animals?

2. Do you believe it is ethical to clone an animal? If not, why not?

Note: all facts and statistics are taken from the article “The Other White Meat” in Best Food Writing/