"Service Learning Reflection 3"

For this service learning experience I helped with the UNC Asheville cook-a-thon on campus. So basically I washed dirty pots and pans from the food that was being prepared. After the pots, pans, and bowls were dry I put them back in their cupboards and racks. So cornbread, chili, and apple crisp were some of the things that were prepared for the cook-a-thon that Friday evening. I think this service learning opportunity enhanced my academic growth. I felt like I was helping in the process of providing food for those who are in need and disadvantaged. I think these service learning opportunities give me a chance to learn more about how many people are negatively affected by a lack of fresh food options. I have learned that the community of Asheville is doing quite a lot for people who live in areas where fresh, healthy food is hard to come by. I haven't been this openly exposed to the different things there are to do to become involved in the fight against hunger in the community. My goals are to stay as active as I can in whatever activities are around the UNC Asheville community and the surrounding area, whether it be helping in gardens or going to soup kitchens and the like.

Blogging Reflection

I decided to leave my blog public this semester because I wanted to see who would read my posts and if my writing actually affected the people who interacted with it. My parents actually read some of my posts even though I didn't tell them about it. Since we're connected on google+ they basically stumbled upon my blog which was comical. To be honest I'm going to leave my blog up just because I don't really know what else to do with it but I'll only send it to community partners if its for something relevant that I'm doing in the future. I kind of wanted to start debates and conversations so my sense of awareness for my audience didn't affect what I was writing about. I decided to post this onto my blog because its a good conclusion to everything that I talked about this semester. Overall I had a good experience since this was my first serious blog and topics that matter.

Feeding the World

I really enjoyed Ryan Finley’s TED talk about the food deserts that exist in South Los Angeles. He said that “food is the problem and the solution” and that’s important because people need to understand what food does for the mind and body (Finley). It’s crazy to think that Beverly Hills, California is 8 miles away from South Central and has an abundance of fresh food options. Finley’s solution to these food deserts in South Central is for people to take control of their situations and plant fresh food options for themselves. Not only plant for themselves but take advantage of the 20 other gardens that Finley established in South Los Angeles so families have more nutritious food options. The rhetoric that Finley uses is Pathos driven because he wants to bring out positive emotion towards gardening and the benefits it has for communities. Ryan Finley is a leader in the South Los Angeles community and he’s doing important work to make more families have fresh food options. The more knowledge people gain from working in these gardens the healthier their lives will be. As I mentioned before there isn't an excuse for communities to be in food deserts when “the world already produces 22 trillion calories annually via agriculture, enough to provide more than 3,000 calories to every person on the planet.” Unfortunately “the food problem is one of distribution and waste” which is what journalist David Biello thinks (Biello 234). I agree with Biello because industrialized farming creates enough grain to sustain people across the planet, but poor families don’t provide the necessary market for this. That’s why the excess grain goes to the livestock because a profit will be made since higher-income people will pay for the meat. Frances Lappe, an environmental activist and author makes the same argument that it’s not that the world needs more food, it’s the distribution of food that makes it seem like it’s a scarcity. I like a quote from her essay “Biotechnology isn’t the Key to Feeding the World” where she says “hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy” (Lappe 250). The concern should be about how the excess food that goes to waste or ends up as feed to livestock can be distributed to those in need.

Debate about "The Omnivore's Dilemma" between Hurst & Pollan

I think this agricultural debate about farming techniques is interesting. Michael Pollan makes some good points in his essay titled “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” about how GMO’s and pesticides should be eliminated from farming practices. He also goes on to talk about how animal agriculture should be humane and free range. This sounds positive and progressive for farmers to be have more organic practices but Pollan fails to discuss how expensive such practices are. Blake Hurst, President of the Missouri Farm Bureau defended industrial farming techniques with his essay titled “The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals”. Organic farming techniques are more expensive which would raise the price of food altogether and make it difficult for lower-income families to purchase groceries. Also the crop yield would be less if organic practices would be used because crops would be more susceptible to weeds and insects. Also for animal agriculture the yield would be less. For example Mother Pigs eat their young sometimes and by accident roll over and crush their piglets if they’re not put into pens separating them. But Pollan is calling for free range animals and in this situation that would be a negative outcome as the pork yield would drop and thus raising the price of pork if free range pork became the norm. Another example that Hurst provided was how a neighbor of his lost 4,000 turkeys during a thunderstorm. They were free range turkeys but they are smart enough to know to find shelter during a storm and stayed out in the open, unprotected. Their beaks would be open and they would drown because of it. Overall, Hurst and Pollan have good arguments but I think that organic methods is an expensive alternative and not everyone has the monetary means to pay for the higher priced organic foods. Blake Hurst does well to defend industrial farming and I appreciate his perspective towards understanding real-world issues with agriculture. 

What Does it Mean to Eat Ethically?

I’m a pretty flexible person who’s open to trying new things. I eat meat but I consider my diet to be balanced because I also eat fish, rice, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and other starches. After reading an excerpt from an essay by Gary Steiner titled “Animal, Vegetable, Miserable”, I’m quite offended by his writing in this piece. I respect vegetarians and vegans lifestyles because I’m a very welcoming person and believe people should have the power to make their own choices about what they put in their bodies without judgement. I’m annoyed with the perspective of Mr. Steiner and any other strict vegans who think they are morally superior to people who eat meat or use animal products. This is the world we live in, to be quite honest we would have to regress as a society to prevent the use of animals in any of commercialized products. Animals can be credited with having specific qualities that are only found in nature that cure diseases and further medicine. There are awful things that humans do to animals and I understand that and I agree with Steiner in this regard as far as pertaining to collecting and processing animals into food for human consumption. Yes, I think is horrendous what domesticated animals have to endure before they become food for human consumption, and there should be policies put in place to ameliorate such terrible conditions. But I disagree with Steiner’s perspective on boycotting any materials using animal products. Animals have been used for clothing, medicine, food, and companionship for as long as humankind has inhabited this planet and shouldn’t be stopped solely because of ethics or morality. I believe that animals are being harmed during animal testing for these products and for food consumption. I think for the balance of this world we live in; humans, animals and the environment should coexist at a sustainable level. What I mean by that is animals and humans live off the land, humans also live off the animals and then once we die we become part of the earth again in a symbiotic relationship. So all three aspects of the relationship are interchangeable because humans would hinder our potential by only utilizing one food source but in reality there should be a blend of different things as we treat animals, and our environment properly so the earth is sustainable which at the moment isn’t happening. Gary Steiner’s perspective is an extreme one and I personally think his opinion is in the minority for a reason but he did discuss ideas that I could also agree with to an extent. 

"Service Learning Reflection 2"

I was able to go to the Lord’s Acre farm on Wednesday and volunteer with fellow classmates. The first thing we did was break apart whole garlic bulbs and put the cloves into buckets so they could be used to help with farming techniques. After that we went into the gardens and pulled out weeds, so they wouldn’t interfere with the growth of the plants. Once that was done we picked sweet potatoes from out of the ground. It was really fun to get into the red clay dirt and pull out these massive sweet potatoes. It’s amazing the yield of the crops that come out of the ground. It gave me a perspective of how valuable every morsel of food can be for healthy sustenance. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Lord’s Acre because it was a different experience from what I’m used to. I have very little experience with planting, gardening, or farming so this experience was pretty cool to get dirty and feel the earth between my fingers. I definitely appreciate good farming techniques to yield the freshest and most natural vegetables which support a healthy lifestyle as well. This trip gave me the idea of doing a little gardening myself and learning as best I can about ways to raise vegetables that I like to eat. I also watched as my other classmates picked Okra and then cut down the stalk after there was none left. I really love fried Okra and to see how it’s cultivated was cool to me. I have a newfound respect for the long hard hours that farmers and gardeners put into planting and harvesting food. I think this service trip helped me learn skills that can broaden my awareness of how food is collected before I see it in a store or market. Overall, engaging with other people and volunteering at the Lord’s Acre was a positive experience for me and I enjoyed doing it. 

Methods to Fighting Obesity

Obesity is an epidemic in the United States and is causing lots of money to be used for medical purposes to ameliorate diseases caused by it. After reading the article “Downsizing Supersize” by James Surowiecki, his display of an alternative outlook on how human choice is influenced by perceived options. The 2012 New York City bill to ban the selling of 32oz soft drinks is an example of  former Mayor Bloomberg trying to influence New Yorkers by “[offering] a choice in which one option is seen as default, [and] most people go for that default option” (123). This is a subtle way of battling obesity by influencing people’s thought process when they’re buying soft drinks. It would be more expensive to buy two 16oz drinks if the 32oz option was taken away and people would be indirectly conditioned to not want to drink as much soda. The rhetoric used by Surowiecki to emphasize his point is logos driven because his argument makes sense and he has reasoning behind the idea of this ban on soft drinks could be a step in the right direction towards combating obesity in New York City. The other text that I read was a piece by Dhruv Khullar titled “Why Shame Won’t Stop Obesity” and how the contemporary thought process to fight obesity is by shaming people into losing weight. In this piece he discusses how this mindset is ineffective due to the fact that “Americans today are exposed to an unprecedented amount of readily available high-fat, high-calorie, and low-nutrient foods” (127). I liked an idea that Khullar had about reversing this current trend by “[providing] monetary incentives to promote the production of and access to fresh, healthy food”, it would allow citizens to make healthier choices and be a real solution to the problem. Khullar’s argument was Pathos driven because he strategically addressed emotional aspects of obesity and shame in his piece. But he also used it in a positive way to inspire the millennial generation to want to make changes to status quo society.