Book Club - Fall Selection - Omnivore's Dilemma

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Comment by MariaD on October 28, 2009 at 7:53pm

Cool meeting today - let's pick the next book and do it again! I will try to get some local people to participate, as well. My one friend who read and liked Omnivore's Dilemma is defending her PhD tomorrow, so she wasn't available, hehe.

Thank you for organizing it, Kim.

Comment by MariaD on October 28, 2009 at 7:29pm

Talking about vegetarianism - here is from Pollan's interview at http://www.progressive.org/mag/intv1108

Q: You seemed to struggle with the concept of vegetarianism and arguments against meat eating.

Pollan: I’m a pretty harsh critic of 99 percent of America’s meat system, but there is that 1 percent I think is important to defend, because first there are good environmental reasons to eat meat in a limited way.

If you believe strongly in building up local food economies, there are places where meat is the best way to get protein off of the land. It’s too hilly, too dry. Having animals is very important for sustainable agriculture. If you’re going to have animals on the farm, they’re going to die eventually, and you’re going to eat them.

But I have enormous respect for vegetarians. They’re further ahead than most of us. They’ve gone through the thought process in making their eating choices. They’ve just come out in a different place than I have.

I think we’re going to focus on meat-eaters the way we have on SUV drivers. There will be a lot of pressure and education to show that a heavy meat diet is a big contributor to climate change, and that there are many good reasons to eat less meat.

Comment by Sarita Pillai on October 28, 2009 at 2:09pm

Also, here is an interesting interview with Joel Salatin (owner of Polyface Farms):

http://www.indyweekblogs.com/arts/2009/04/08/the-full-frame-interviews-joel-salatin-from-food-inc/

Sarita

Comment by Terese (Terry) Herrera on September 21, 2009 at 3:36pm

I was wondering if teachers might spur math discussion on the topic of food we eat and food we grow, so I looked into the latest [2007] census on agriculture. Here is one page that offers "food for thought" http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/Online_Highlights/Custom_Summaries/Data_Comparison_Major_Crops.pdf

Information here on the number of farms nationwide, who runs U.S. farms, and farm economics is all presented in terms of which crop is cultivated: corn, sorghum, soy, or wheat. If your students have become interested in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, they may want to check the author’s claims. Is it true that corn is such a dominant crop in our country? You might tell them that in 2007 there were 2,204,792 farms; of these, 347,760 produced corn. Is this a large percent of the total?

Or they might prefer the fact that 922,095,840 acres of land make up all the nation’s farms; of these, 259,065,885 acres comprise “corn farms.” [What the census meant by “corn farms” exactly could make another good discussion.]

And they might be interested in “government payments received” by each type of farm. For example, corn-producing farms received nearly $8 billion, while wheat-producing farms received less than $3 billion. Why is that fair?

Comment by MariaD on September 21, 2009 at 9:29am

4.5M just for promotion purposes can build a nice social web site with active salaried maintainers where farmer market people can share know-how, and maybe support a few conferences, online and offline, as well as videos, brochures, and other broadcast-type media. At least that's how I would spend the money :-) What "they" will do with it, who knows.

Comment by Kim Lightle on September 19, 2009 at 2:32pm

Farmer's Market Fit For a First Lady - this article was in the NYT today. It says that U.S. secretary of agriculture. Tom Vilsack showed up and announced $4.5 million in grants to promote farmers markets nationwide. It sure doesn't sound like a lot of money. Wonder if it can have any impact.

How many of you frequent your local farmer's markets or have joined a CSA?

Comment by Caroline Hall on September 18, 2009 at 10:46am

On a related note, check out the June 2009 issue of National Geographic: "The End of Plenty". It's an eye-opening special report by the NGS on the global food crisis.

Comment by Terese (Terry) Herrera on September 14, 2009 at 2:13pm

If this book compels you to look for more information, you might try the movie documentary: Food, Inc. Again, it's about the food we eat. the focus here is on who grows it, who controls production. Most illuminating is the number of people who would give the film makers no comment, some because they were afraid to do so!

Comment by Kim Lightle on September 14, 2009 at 9:49am

Maria - Thanks for the link - I didn't realize that the book was available for free - great!

Comment by MariaD on September 11, 2009 at 9:54pm

FYI: Full text on Scribd http://www.scribd.com/doc/7241828/The-Omnivores-Dilemma-a-Natural-History-of-Four-Meals-Michael-Pollan

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