Animal, Vegetable, Miracle _ Blog 5

I have to admit, before taking this class I knew little to nothing about our present situation regarding the Farm Bill and food in general.  When Mr. Pollan so blatantly educated me on the main ingredient in almost all the foods in my dorm room, I was more than surprised, I was afraid.  Afraid that I would no longer be able to find a single piece of sustenance that would make me feel satisfied in every sense of the word:  physically, emotionally, mentally, and politically.  I don’t quite know yet if I feel comfortable knowing that for the rest of my life I will picture corn in probably ninety-five percent of the foods that I put into my mouth.

However, there is hope for those with my same dilemma yet.  Barbara Kingsolver, in her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, uses argument to define a different way of eating that may serve as an alternative to those who cannot seem to fathom the idea of eating corn every day, whatever form it may be.  As our lovely book Everything’s an Argument explains, there are different ways of defining through argument.  It seems to me that Ms. Kingsolver is applying operational definitions throughout her book (at least as far as I have read), to delineate the conditions and ideas that fashion the locavore movement, while simultaneously creating the boundaries which would constitute an industrialized eater.

It is obvious through Barbara Kingsolver’s explanations, for example, that a locavore’s basic definition might be a person who only consumes foods made locally.  With further in depth explanations, Kingsolver is able to extend this definition of a locavore by explaining the methods by which locavore’s prefer to obtain or even produce their food.  In order to set forth the limits and conditions to this term, she along with her family goes through the journey of local eating.  Becoming a farmer herself, she sets conditions for the term locavore and implies a preference for natural, unindustrialized foods, as opposed to foods that have been transported and have thus caused a high consumption of oil.  The Kingsolver’s definition of locavore is made clearly stronger by the inserts authored by husband Steven and daughter Camille, which further provide logical, ethical, and emotional grounds to those conditions.  By providing these explanations for the local eater, Kingsolver is allowing her audience to inference that an industrialized eater is probably consuming much more oil that the local eater as well as eating foods which are unfamiliar to them.

There is no question in my mind that the setting, tone, and atmosphere created by Kingsolver to define the conditions creating the locavore movement and therefore defining the boundaries which create an industrialized way of eating, is one to which I have gravitated more favorably than say, Mr. Pollan.  Both authors have provided me with awareness; however Ms. Kingsolver has further provided me with an emotional connection to the foods I choose to eat.

  

King Corn _ Blog 4

King:  a person or thing preeminent in its class.  Corn:  a tall cereal plant, Zea mays, cultivated in many varieties, having a jointed, solid stem and bearing the grain, seeds, or kernels on large ears.  King Corn.  The title says it all.  Cheney and Ellis work eloquently throughout their documentary to portray to us the unfortunate circumstance that we as a society and as a nation find ourselves in.  We are living in a country that is ruled by the corn crop and its overproduction.  The word king implies omnipotence and supreme power.  And those who have seen the mountainous regions of corn, the immense elevators that can no longer fit all the excess produced corn, as well as the vast fields of the crop that can literally engulf a person and render him useless to himself should he lose his sense of direction, will hopefully agree that we should simply start genetically modifying corn to grow crowns and sit on a throne since it has gained the power to dictate such a large part of our lifestyles.Cheney and Ellis, however, took a major step in the right direction.  After interviewing a man with diabetes who explained how his decreasing levels of grape soda consumption allowed him to lose a large amount of weight, and that practically every member of his family either had diabetes or passed away because of it, the two friends realized that their one acre of corn could mean somebody’s life. 

Their final decision:  to buy the land of a fellow neighbor whose land was about to be sold and most likely used to plant corn, and play baseball on it instead.  By doing so, Cheney and Ellis yelled out to the nation that their king was taking advantage of their bodies and using them as storage for its wastes.  The two friends took a stand and rebelled against an almighty king who had forces surrounding them on all sides.  However, Cheney and Ellis did not seem to mind.  And it is this daring attitude that will serve as the most powerful force of all towards possibly making changes to the overproduction of corn, our king.

Chapter 6 Toulmin Argument _ Blog 3

Claim: Corn is going into everything, which is causing an obesity epidemic in America. Because calories are becoming cheaper, we are consuming more.

 

Grounds: 3 of every 5 Americans is overweight, 1 out of every 5 is obese, since 1977, Americans daily intake of calories has jumped by more than 10%, UN reported that in 2000 people suffering from over nutrition (1 billion) outnumbered the people suffering from under nutrition (800 million), Research has shown that with one dollar customers may buy 1200 calories of potato chips and cookies but only 250 calories of carrots with that same dollar – calories are cheap.

 

Warrant: If the government can allow farmers to nearly go broke over-producing corn to eventually produce unhealthy foods that is causing “a threat to public health”, then they should also be able to produce less food with higher quality and better nutritional value to make America a healthier nation as a whole.

 

Backing:  Because of health risks associated with obesity, diabetes, and other health problems, today’s children are in danger of being the first generation of Americans to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.  The Supersize it method is today’s breakthrough secret to getting rid of corn, and “expanding the (supposedly) fixed human stomach.”  “Since the Nixon administration, farmers in the United States have managed to produce 500 additional calories per person every day (up from 3300 already substantially more than we need)”

 

Qualifier:  “It makes good economic sense” that those with limited money would be the most attracted to spending their money on the cheaper calories, more so since those are the products that make the claims of the most appealing nutritional values.  “Most researchers” found that obesity in America started rising at around 1970, which is also around the same time that America began overproducing corn and gearing toward “cheap food.”

 

Rebuttal:  Along with corn, soybeans are also another source of “cheap energy” in today’s supermarkets – although corn is the most important.  In the end it is the choices that human beings have made throughout the years that have served to make these calories so cheap.  Americans have the free will to use and make of the foods in the supermarket what they wish.  Although foods today are not always healthy, straying from the supermarkets for food supply would not be the most practical.