Prepare A Meal

The first chapter in In Defense of Food try’s to make consumers think about the food one chooses when they look to buy a meal. Does one make a point of buying low-fat, low-cholesterol or high fiber foods? If so, do you look at the ingredient list to see how this is achieved? Do you think it's better for you to eat these more "nutritious" foods than the original versions? If you do look at the ingredient list, do you avoid those with the huge ingredient list of substitutes and just go for the originals? These are just a few questions that make consumers think and realize that the meal one is making could be made healthier just by buying a few alternative products.

A meal that I have prepared for myself consists of a appetizer such as a ceaser salad, an entre of chicken breast, and a small desert of like jell-o. The stages of this process would consist of me first going to a grocery store, probably the Madison Market, which is very close to where I live. After going to the store I would find a head of lettuce, ceaser dressing, chicken, seasoning, jell-o mix, and probably some milk to drink also that would end of costing 25 dollars. After taking what I bought back to Witte I would cook in the basement in the kitchen and cook the meal. It would probably take me a while, considering making each part of the meal needs to be taken care of at different times. Each step made my experience more irritating, it took a few hours to buy the food, take it back, and cook it and by that time I did not really even care what I was eating as long as it was food.

I agree with Michael Pollan’s statement that the “damaging innovations” America has become an acquired custom to this country and believe that as long as a food is low fat it is healthy. Though I do agree with Pollan’s statement, it ultimately does not affect how much I eat. Because I am an athlete here and work out up to five hours a day, I am not watching my weight as much as other people and do not worry necessarily about the nutrition of the food I eat but rather the carbs and proteins to help me recover from a workout.

An article I found, http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/guest/article_50282fa5-2d5e-5373-99ec-e1b10aeabe10.html states that Pollan’s book is “simplistic and unscientific”. Pollan’s idea that everyone needs to eat healthier and be more conscious about food is true, but so is people exercising daily and making other lifestyle changes to be healthier.

In Response To Kevin

In response to Kevin’s blog post about illegally downloading music, I am going to have to agree with the points he makes. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAS) does not understand that the amount of money itunes and Amazon ask for customers to pay for a single song is outlandish. There is no such thing as “virtual stealing” but rather “virtual sharing”; websites such as www.demonoid.com support the idea that people can download their music onto the website and others can use a Torrent (a file sharing application) that allows one to download the shared files. The technology that the 21^st century has given us has allowed the consumers to be in power of downloading music. Companies want to make a bigger profit than they can handle, and we as a people are stopping them. The point that Kevin makes that recording industries are making enough of a profit from going on tours, selling apparel and being a celebrity to make up for their lowering CD revenues is completely correct. With recording industries finding different ways to make money, why not give the people the legal ability to download or share files on the internet?

Kevin’s blog post ensures to look at the opposite end of the issue because the law is the law and ultimately pirating does not give back to the artists recording the music. Though they need to realize that if they want pirating, illegal downloading, or sharing, whatever it is called to stop recording agencies need to be more realistic. Kevin sympathizes with the industry while also stating that it is not as if he does not want to reward artists for their music, but would rather go see an artist live at a concert. Finding a common ground with how to approach music downloading can make music downloader’s and musicians to be satisfied with allowing everyone being able to hear their songs.

Response to Warren

Not only is Devin Hester an excellent person to endorse Under Armour, Under Armour is very lucky to have Devin Hester want to be endorsed by them. In Warren’s blog post he gave the background to Devin Hester and Under Armour but failed to mention two very important aspects that Devin and Under Armour both share; they’re both American grown. Under Armour was a company started in the U.S. and has kept factories open only in America, being able to wear “American grown” products makes me feel good knowing that I’m supporting our country and our countries workers. Devin Hester has also been living the American dream; he attended school at the University of Miami where he played college football all 4 years and graduated. With the average number of football players graduating from college being about 79%, it’s impressive because even though Devin was clearly a phenomenal athlete this shows how much Devin appreciates and cherishes what an education means. What I liked most about Warren’s blog was how he noted that athlete’s will be drawn to this product because they see superstar’s like Devin Hester wearing Under Armour; these consumers will also believe that they can achieve the same athletic ability as Devin Hester. While this might not necessarily be true, it still allows children and adults everywhere to want to train at the best of their ability and represent Under Armour as they want to.

Fish Farming: helping or hurting?

The two articles I were titled .">Fish farming can help feed the world and .">Fish farming is environmentally destructive. These two opposing articles were arguing if fish farms can help feed the all people of the world because of how versatile fish is to all different cultures, or if fish farmingis hurting the world’s economy, environment, and people that live in it. The article for fish farming states how the idea of aquaculture (fish farming) can help feed the one billion people worldwide who are dependent of fish as a major source of animal proteins. The more that the people working fish farms can feed the fish proteins to enhance their nutritional value the better off people can be because of how the supply of fish will not diminish. While this article is convincing that fish farming can be a good service to all kinds of people, it doesn’t do good in looking at the underlying facts of how fish farming hurts local commercial fishermen who are doing good for people and the economy. While in theory having fish farms would be more nutritious for people because what the fish eat can be controlled, that’s not the facts. Farmed fish are known to have higher levels of mercury which is very deadly to our bodies. Another problem with farm fish that the article Fish farming can help feed the world failed to mention was that by being held in a fish farm factory they are highly more susceptible to obtaining diseases than wild fish are. The opposing article I read Fish farming is environmentally destructive does well in looking at all sides of the issue and applauds fish farms for the attempt to try to do good for the world, though in reality nothing can beat how a wild fish is naturally born. Wild fish are never fed artificial preservatives and are not only limited to swimming in circles it’s whole life rather than embracing the ocean for what it’s worth.