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/

The Swine Flu Crisis lays bare the meat industry's monstrous power

The article written by Mike Davis in 2009 discusses how such diseases viruses like the swine flu and SARS are created, and spread. As Davis says, the majority of the illnesses like the swine flu are created by forcing farm animals to live in very close quarters with already compromised immune systems. When this happens, viruses jump back and forth combining and eventually becoming immune to the antibiotics. Furthermore given enough time, all of the viruses are able to jump from pig to human, thereby creating a virus that is immune to most major antibiotics and have the ability to spread to humans.

In a time when industrial feed lots and mass production are the way things are done Davis brings up the questions of screening, prevention and cooperation between governments. Davis believes that more money needs to be spent on prevention of naturally occurring diseases like the swine flu rather that the billions that are being spent now on fears of bioterrorism. In the same vain, because there was little cooperation between the US and Mexico, it took about a week to identify the swine flu, and another week for the US to be informed by Mexico of the potential pandemic.

Discussion Questions:

1. Would the use of early surveillance have been able to pick up on the imminent swine flu outbreak?

2. Should the Feed lots use strong antibiotics in their feed? If not how do you recommend they keep their animals alive and their company economically viable?

The Salami Maker Who fought the law

The reading in Best Food Writing discusses a situation that occurs relatively often in a time where the guarantee of food safety is a number one priority. With the outbreaks of e-coli and other food born pathogens, the USDA has made sweeping changes to standards of production, especially in the meats and produce sector. According to Sarah Digregorio, these regulations are written with the intention of regulating large companies like Hormel or Kraft who are already held to a very high standard because of the volume and potential fallout from a mistake. Unfortunately for the corner butcher who has been curing his meats for years, these regulations force him to show proof of safety that naturally he can’t.

Many major government regulating departments are seem to not understand the scope of their actions when the institute new regulations. They become aware of a specific incident like an outbreak of e-coli and instead of investigating thoroughly how this situation occurred they pass blanket laws that kill the little guys. In fact the only way that Marc Buzzio was able to continue to sell his salami and other aged products was to spend almost 100 thousand dollars and get a lab to individually test it. What happens to the other butchers who can’t afford that? They stop selling their products and possible go out of business.

Discussion Questions:

How can the Government act quickly and deliberately against any food born pathogens but at the same time with enough control that they don’t leave “destruction” in their wake?

Why Vegetarians are Eating Meat

Traditionally vegetarians have decided to abstain from meat for three major reasons. First, in the industry today there are some questions raised about the ethical treatment of livestock. In laymen’s terms the question is “How are animals that are being raised for human consumption being treated during life as well as death?” The second major reasons that people abstain from meat consumption are health reasons. Health concerns can be associated with the amount of fat that most meat has, or it can also be related to questionable use of antibiotics and genetically modified crop to insure the health and weight of the product. Finally there are some people who just don’t believe that meat should be eaten because it means killing a living animal.

This essay discusses two of the three major reasons that people become vegetarians as well as how purchasing local and organic meat may be an answer to these concerns. As stated in the article, unlike conventional farming animals are allowed to roam free as well as are fed a diet more in line with their natural diet. Furthermore because organic farming does not allow the antibiotics and growth hormone, the product is considered to be lower in fat and all around better for you. For these reasons the author argues that people should consider giving organic meat a chance. They may be delightfully surprised.

Discussion Questions

With the recent move towards healthy green living where does organic meat fit into the spectrum?