The Course is over the Cause must go on (REVISED)

Spring semester of 2012 in LagCC is coming to an end and ENG101 class is nearly finished. During the semester we explored, in class, the secrets of industrial animal farming. We learned how the meat is being processed in the United States and analyzed the effects of that system on the animals, workers, community, and ultimately the earth. We talked about how animal farming has developed from the traditional farms, using natural agriculture techniques such as free grazing and animal husbandry, to the industrial scale farms, using unorthodox ways of raising and treating animals. New techniques are now being used such us spraying animals with hormones and proteins for making them grow faster and confining more and more animals into one place in order to produce more meat. In addition to that he animals' excessive amount of decomposing manure is accelerating the global warming effect. Unnatural food, extreme living conditions and new slaughtering techniques have made meat processing a dangerous but powerful industry in the United States. Also we saw scientific proof that salt, sugar and fat are causing to the brain addictiveness similar to marijuana and cocaine. Human race has made a step further using advanced 21^st century into agriculture. I think that step just crossed the line.

At the beginning of the class before going deep into analyzing the effects of industrial food system I was very skeptical if this was something “right or wrong”. I was convinced that industrial farming was something good that provides poor people with cheap meat. I only came recently to the States and didn’t knew much about industrial farming so I was interested to explore that issue. Throughout the course my point of view has completely changed, especially after watching a movie of people that died from E-coli because they ate a burger at a fast food restaurant. Now I know that industrial food is really dangerous. I have never walked into a fast food restaurant since that day. To be honest I have lost several pounds because I am afraid to eat meat anymore. Every time I eat chicken, drink milk, eat an egg I thing how it got there and I want to throw up. I even thought to turn into a vegetarian, but unfortunately I love meat too much. The only thing I can do is be more careful in my selections. I can’t wait to go back home and finally eat some real food. I am going to eat so much that I will not be able to move! My hope though is that all people who live in America wake up and stop buying such products. Start buying organic! This is the only way to bring the system down. I am afraid that moment is far away but I am sure it will come one day. Until then I wish you all to live well.

The 11th Hour (Documentary) (REVISED)

In this blog I would like to focus on a video I saw in class called, The Eleventh Hour.  It is a documentary film created, produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio and is focusing on the environmental changes of the planet’s ecosystem. The film is consisted of many interviews from distinguished scientists, politicians and environmental activists including world famous physicist Stephen Hawking and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai. In The Eleventh Hour many important issues are being discussed such as water pollution, species extinction, deforestation and global warming.  Also many sustainable solutions are provided in the documentary in order to change the destruction of our ecosystem.

          Global warming is a major issue that concerns scientists for decades. It is caused by trapping more heat in the earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane are greenhouse gases that are trapping the sun’s heat being reflected to space and make the earth a sustainable planet for life. According to Stephen Hawking, “One can see from space how the human race has changed the Earth. Nearly all of the available land has been cleared of forest and is now used for agriculture or urban development". Agriculture is believed to be the main cause of producing greenhouse gases especially methane. Even more greenhouse gases are produced by agriculture in United Stated than the entire world’s transportations emissions. In addition to that the deforestation is preventing the natural transformation of CO2 into oxygen, increasing so the rate of climate changing.  

           Some solutions are provided in the film such as turning into renewable energy sources and creating eco-towns. One of the speakers is the architect Paolo Soleri, the founder of Acrosanti an experimental town in Arizona that aims to be an eco-town minimizing the destructive impact on the earth.  But it would need much more than that, much more than creating eco-towns. We need to change the way we think. This is extremely difficult if we consider that human beings are products of about 500bilion of advertising each year. Corporations are the superior power in planet and they control the economy of planet earth. Kenny Ausubel, founder of the environmental organization called Bioneers, said, “Probably the greatest weapon of mass destruction is corporate economic globalization”. It is very difficult to change our way of thinking because we are being told what to believe in. I hope that people would one day wake up and realizing the damage we do in the planet and change our minds, but I am afraid this seems too optimistic.

Attending the event "You Can do Anything with an English Major!" (REVISED)

Last Tuesday, May first, I attended an event at LaGuardia Community College. The event was based on how English major can help you in your future career. Different kinds of people gave a speech. Among them where people that made it into Business and Law with an English major degree.

First of all they argued that pursuing a degree in English will help you learn how to write efficiency. Very important if you want to make it in a career that has a lot of paperwork. You also learn how to research, analyze and come to a conclusion on your own. It helps you develop a personal voice and learn how to give a proper presentation.

Someone said in the event that ‘’ When you learn English you learn how to learn’’. If you consider that we are living in a society that everything is changing so rapidly it is essential that we know how to keep learning in order to adopt ourselves.

I have to say it was a very interesting event and really enjoyed it.

"The End of Overeating" by Dr. David A. Kessler (REVISED)

In his article The End of Overeating, Dr. David Kessler explores the mystery behind the psychological and biological reasons behind our desire to overeat. He proposed that foods unnaturally high in sugar, fat and salt can be very addictive to humans. Dr. Kessler repeats an idea that when food with fat, sugar and salt is given to us stimulate the reward centers in our brains. This will lead to an addictive behavior towards those foods. According to the writer many other reasons contribute to the addiction of food such as the visual cue. Giving the example of M&M and how rewarding that could be if we eat it is suggesting that visual cue can stimulate the urge we call wanting (32) and make us unable to resist.   Also studies show that rats will work almost as hard for hyper-palatable food high in fat and sugar as they will for cocaine. I think food reward is a major factor in obesity because it will always makes you want more and more even if you are completely full. This is why people after eating dinner seek escape in something sweet like candies and cakes or something salty like chips.

The systematic effort of the food industry to maximize those ingredients into foods for increasing their sales is a fact. Everywhere you go you will find food companies promoting their abundant in sugar, fat and salt food. For example French fries (high amounts of salt and fat), dipped in ketchup sauce (amounts of sugar) is a desirable food hardly to resist. Obesity occurred because of this powerful force of wanting more and more. People in the food industry are taking benefit from that desire. The more you want the more you will buy and they know it. Through a process of balancing the right amounts of salt an sugar in food they succeed to maximize the desire. The taste must not be too salty neither too sweet. I believe by cutting our portions and turn to food that are nutritious and not addictive will be the best way of fighting obesity and many other diseases caused by fat, sugar and salt.

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FROM FARM TO FRIDGE (REVISED)

 

THIS IS WHERE YOU THINK YOUR FOOD COMES FROM

AND THIS IS WHERE IT REALLY COMES FROM

In this blog i will summarize the contents of a video called ''FARM TO FRIDGE'' by Mercy For Animals. You can watch the 4 minute video (here).Ironically the video is called ''farm to fridge’’. The ironic about the title is that you don't actually see any farms. What you see in this video is large factories concentrating and raising animals in large spaces, treating them with such cruelty and barbarity that could be shocking. The vast majority of meat, dairy, and eggs come from high-volume factory farms and slaughterhouses, to meet US demand of 9 billion land animals per year. Many of the cruelties, such as grinding up newborn male chicks at hatcheries or cramming pigs are taking place in those farm-factories.

Chickens and turkeys are confined by large numbers in small areas. This means that they do not have enough air and they are not exercising. Sometimes this unorthodox way is making animals sick. Sick animals have their neck broken or killed with a club. Because male chicks don’t lay eggs they are thrown into large grinding machines hours after their hatch. Chicken’s beaks are cut off with a hot blade so that they don’t hurt each other when being confined into small cages. Dairy cows in those factories are going through painful amputations of tails and horns without a pain-killer. Piglet tails and testicles are cut off also without pain-killers. These animals are raised into small cages sometimes smaller than their own size. Now domestic animals are referred as products, simply a number not a life form.
In the book ‘’Slaughterhouses’’, by Gail A. Eisnitz, the author interviews a worker of a slaughterhouse named Tommy Vladak. Here you can learn from first-hand how the conditions in slaughterhouses are. Vladak is giving specific facts in detail about how they work and you can see how it is connected with the video.  

From Farm To Fridge (DO NOT WATCH IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE)