I've finished my annotated bibliography and the website is done. I have an outline of what I'd like to say during my presentation. I just need to practice it a few times. I am in a very odd place. Because it feels like everything that is necessary is finished. But, I know I can still go farther with it. Nothing is ever truly finished. You discover that a lot with plays. I feel like I should keep researching, keep trying to find something new. We shall see.

Very Nearly There.

All right blog,
it's been a while but I have been very busy. I have taken all of my information and compiled it into a kind of faux app. It is organized by price and distance. I will also have it organized by farm distance on a separate page if people prefer to search by farm instead of by product.
This week I need to:
1. organize the farms page
2. Find the missing info. on a few of the products (carrot and orange)
3. Put together my annotated bib.
4. Decide what research I'm going to use in the presentation.
I would also like to find someone that may be interested in funding my app. maybe.
I need to have some one that knows things about graphic design to look at my iweb document and tell me if I've organized it in a sane and reasonable fashion.
I'm still wanting for a bit more research. My data shows that one can buy local produce at a reasonable price but why should they pay the extra 10 cents. I have a few answers but my WHY needs to be super strong!!impenetrable!!

Some Business.

New food saftey bill advances in congress http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sc-dc-food-safety-20101117,0,7628729.story
because of the most recent egg-recall...yess the eggs have been recalled AGAIN http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-egg-recall-salmonella-20101109,0,5009507.story
Salmonilla is the cause once again. Salmonilla is found in the chicken's dietary tract, it comes from poop, and can be harmful if eggs are undercooked. http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/divisions/dfbmd/diseases/salmonella_enteritidis/#eggs
In the Omnivore's Dillemma, Micheal Pollan states that salmonilla out breaks are mostly caused by overcrowding and unclean hen houses. While  reading some Micheal Pollan articles I came across this one and was particularly grossed out http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/the-way-we-live-now-cattle-futures/ We feed our cows chicken litter? ekkkk.
This is another article where Micheal Pollan discusses how local food is better for us and the e. coli outbreak in 2006. He states that is wasn't afraid to eat the spinach sitting at his farmer's market while the whole country was panicking over the pre-washed bagged spinach in the store.

Contamination.

This is the website for the washington stae healt department http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/food/recall.htm
There are a number of thid that have been recalled in the past couple months. And while I was looking at the site I began to think about HOW food becomes contaminated. I know about salmonilla and E. coli. and that most of the time it's from over crowding. But, I wonder if I could look into the specific food and see if I can find the actual cause instead of just information about the disease. I'd like to look into that this week while continuing my previous proposal. I just really want to have research to back up WHY we should know where our food has been. I'm still working on finding research that backs up my claim that local food is healthier for you. I found this one about local food being less susceptable to bioterrorism. http://fogcity.blogs.com/jen/2005/06/buying_locally_.html It's a tinsy bit of a stretch. Still searching. This week I am going to be in DIRECTED STUDIES MODE. Nothing can stop me.

Why is this project important?
I've been reading articles on the peanut contamination debacle
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/us/29Peanut.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/16/peanut-butter-probe-expan_n_158689.html
These articles talk about the shabby conditions of the factory and how long it took to find which plant the infected product came from.
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/MajorProductRecalls/Peanut/default.htm
This is the FDA site with all of the contaminated products. There are actually new contaminated products added almost everyday.

What's happenin

This week I went to QFC and catalogued and compared various produces with the full circle farm produce.  By next week I really hope to go to Trader Joes and Madison Market and Whole foods to compare them as well. I also need to start looking into foods other than produce, such as meat and maybe even more processed foods. However I don't know how accomplishable these goals are because this week is tech week for American Clock. BUT I'm setting these goals in good hope that I may get at least one of them done. I still need to figure out how to present my research. I do have iweb, but it's a bit confusing. I'm going to work with it a little more today. If I am still at a complete loss I may be able to use photoshop or powerpoint instead, I'm also going to start carting my computer around with me in hopes of maybe doing some work during lunch and dinner breaks. I really feel that I will be able to kick it into gear once the show is over (Nov. 15th here I come!) But I will not let the show be an excuse to not get any work done. Gotta just keep on truckin!

The QFC

Organic Green Peppers 93120
Siri and Son
$2.19 each
187 mi


Green Peppers 4065
Pam Pak
1.69 each
924 mi


Ocean Mist Spinach 4090
1.79/ bunch
893 mi


Kroger Baby Carrots
3.29/ pound
Distibuted from Cincinnati, OH 2,327 mi


Organic Carrot Bunch 94094
Cal Organic
2.49/bunch
1,045 mi


Organic Green pears 94416
Ranier Org


2.49/lb
Distributed from Selah, WA 140 mi





D'Anjou Pears 
usapears.org
1.99/lb
128 mi
120 mi
152 mi
166 mi


Red Seedless Grapes 4499
2.99/pound
Fowler Packing Co
932 mi


Melissa's Dutch Yellow Potatoes
6.99/3 lbs
1,144 mi


Red Onion 4082
Hartley's Best
1.99/lb
815 mi


Walla Walla Sweet Onion
1.99/lbs
Peru

Full Circle Farm

This week I'm going to focus on comparisons. Full circle farm to the farmer's market to QFC to Trader Joe's. Tonight I will start with Full Circle.

Fuji Apples, Earth Conscious Organics, Brewster, WA - 206 mi.
Bunched Carrots, Lakeside Organic Gardens, Watsonville, CA - 741 mi.
D'anjou Pears, Nicholson's Orchard Fresh, Peshastin, WA - 128 mi.
Green Bell Peppers Siri and Sons, Clackamas, WA- 183 mi.
Dapple Dandy Pluots, Okanogan Producers, Okanogon, WA - 232 mi.
Red Flame Grapes, Delano Farms, Delano, CA - 833 mi.
Romaine Lettuce, Lakeside Organic Gardens, Watsonville, CA - 741 mi.
Spinach, Full Circle Farm, Carnation, WA - 29.5 mi.

I'd like to calculate price as well but it's a little difficult because I buy it by the box. But other sources will be easier to compare.
For all of this plus celery, red onions, delicata squash and Yukon gold potatoes I pay $32. If I were to divide it up evenly per piece of produce (I know all produce is not priced equally) it would be about $1.17 per piece of produce.

Sunday Afternoon

I failed at making it to the farmer's market this morning. SO that means that I mustmustmust call Charley's Produce this week. I also would like to go down to Pike's Place Market and see if their produce goes through just as many miles to get here as the produce at QFC...I have a hunch it might.
I made a pumpkin soup last night. I thought I'd explore where it came from.
My pumpkin, a pamper'd pie pumpkin, was grown at Van Groningen and Sons farm in Ripon, CA. At least the main farm is located there. They spread around CA and into AZ as well. I bought this pumpkin at Trader Joe's meaning that it traveled from Ripon to Fontana, CA. Then it went to Everette and then Seattle.  

Last night I calculated, roughly, how many miles the food had to travel to get to the grocery store:
Pamper'd Pumpkin - 1,604 mi.
Wilcox Eggs - 56.6 mi.
Oceanmist Artichoke - 1,522 mi.
Butternut Squash - 1,201 mi.
Cara Cara Australian Orange - 12,968 mi.
Washington Apple - 148 mi.

I am the Egg-man

Wilcox grade AA brown eggs. Wilcox family farms is located in Roy, Washington. Surprisingly their website http://www.wilcoxfarms.com/consumer/index.html shows chickens walking around outside! That is basically unheard of...at least that's what I thought after the reading I've done. So far I'm impressed. They do have some chickens in cages, but they are working on becoming completely cage free. So these eggs started in Roy, went to Everette and then they were delivered to the Trader Joe's on Capital Hill where I purchased them. Now, these seem pretty sustainable. You can even have your wedding on the egg farm! That seems a bit weird. To each his own.

But, I feel like I should compare a different brand to these. Just your regular white eggs. Coming soon!

This week I hope to make some phone calls to Charley's produce and find out if they get their produce from a bigger distributor.

I also want to explore the differences between organic and non organic products.
I feel like I need to start investigating a few more processed foods. I just don't usually buy them.

Tomorrow I'm going to go to the Broadway farmer's market and hopefully find out where the farmers get their seeds...hopefully.

So...about the website.
I do have iWeb. I just opened it and it's a little over whelming. I'll play around with it for a couple days, but I have a feeling I'm going to need some help. I've been taking my own pictures of the produce so I'm going to need to go into photoshop and crop them. I'm wondering how much time that will take. Eeeep! I need an effective way to show my research. Maybe I should start kinda low-tech...just get a really big map and mark out the food's course with different colored strings. I like that. Or maybe I could calculate the mileage. Hmmm.

Trader Joe's Squash and Artichoke.

Uggh I've been sick all week and haven't achieved much. But this morning I managed to drag myself out of the apartment and hike up to Trader Joe's. As soon as I walked into the door an artichoke called to me. Only 99 cents! It doesn't matter that I have no idea how to cook an artichoke. It was too good of a deal to pass up. Also the artichoke was in the box from the farm it came from. Ocean Mist farms. And just like that I had my first clue. Upon inspection of their website http://www.oceanmist.com/ I found that Ocean Mist is a farm that specializes in artichokes (they even have a recipe on how to cook an artichoke. Brilliant!) and they are head quartered in Castroville, CA. But in the off-season they also grow throughout California (Castroville, Huron, Oxnard, Coachella and Imperial Valley), in Arizona (Yuma) and in Mexico. This particular artichoke came from one of the California farms because they are currently in season in California. I'm also pretty sure that this particular artichoke is their "Hybrid Annual". It looks much skinnier than their other varieties. It is not an Organic artichoke. But according to their website they "are able to provide products that are free of microbial, chemical and physical contaminants." I think that means they are not GMOs. But I'm not entirely sure. Are farms required to state if their vegetables have GMOs?

Now on to the Butternut Squash! On the label of my squash it states that this squash came from Quality packing and shipping. That doesn't really sound like a farm... I tried to find a website for it. But there doesn't seem to be one and the google maps picture just looks like someones house. So I went on to the Trader Joe's website to see if I could find out a little bit more about my butternut squash. Not much there either. However the Trader Joe's website http://www.traderjoes.com/pdf/trader-joes-timeline.pdf does state that they do not use any GMOs in their privately produced products. Also, after talking to one of the employees, I found that Trader Joe's buys straight from the farmer and then all of the produce goes to their warehouse in Monrovia, Ca. Then a truck picks it up and takes it to the warehouse in Everette and then another truck brings it to Seattle. Most of their products come from California and they have a few WA local products. (She said they were working on getting more local products soon) The warehouse is as far back as I can go. I know the squash is probably from CA, they're in season there anyway and the label does say it is a product of the USA, but as for the farm it came from I have no idea. I tried looking up the PLU. But everything just leads me back to the packing company. I guess that kinda says something.

Where did you come from!?

Well since that squash was so disappointing. Let's do another squash.

 

This is a delicata squash which I received in my Full Circle farms box this week. This squash was grown on the Alverez family farm in Yakima Valley, WA. Then it went to Full Circle Farm in Snowqualmie Valley to be put into a box. And then it was brought to my house to be made into squash soup. Hurrah!

Aha!

This is very interesting!
http://www.oppyproduce.com/citrus_vars.cfm?page=citrus_var_navel
The cara red orange is usually grown in California but during August, September, and through mid October the orange is grown in Australia
http://www.oppyproduce.com/offices_businessdev.cfm#a  The Oppenheimer group carries my orange's specific PLU and it has an office in Washington. Could it be Charlie's provider? Or is it just another delivery service for Washington? It does seem like a much bigger company than Charlie's it delivers through most of the United States.

The Cara Red Navel Orange

Aha! I found a website for the Australian Orange! http://oranges.com.au/the-orange/product-information/
The website says that most of their oranges are grown in Riverina. This is probably where my orange came from. But they're not very specific...So I can't be 100% sure. Hopefully I'll be able to trace the code (3110) somehow.
http://www.citrusaustralia.com.au/aspdev/projects/documents/NationalPlantingsDatabaseReportSummary.pdf This is a graph that shows what kind of Oranges are grown where.


"Horticulture Australia Limited (HAL) in conjunction with Australian Citrus Growers (Citrus Australia) has finalised a review of the current commercial importer arrangements and are pleased to announce that DNE World Fruit Sales (DNE) has been selected as the sole importer of Australian citrus to the US." http://www.citrusaustralia.com.au/aspdev/marketing/export/usa_req.asp This is the website for Australian Orange export.


This is the Website for DNE World fruit sales http://www.dneworld.com/FreshCitrus/ByRegion/Australian/tabid/231/Default.aspx
They ship from Long Beach, CA. They have navel oranges from Australia. But they don't have the specific PLU that mine has. I wonder if it changes in transit.


I found my orange's PLU here http://www.ceceliapack.com/caracara.html
But these oranges say they are from California. Not Australia. The sticker on my orange clearly states that it is from Australia and the California company does not say that they export any of their growing. I'm not sure who to believe!

The QFC Adventure Part I

Alright. This morning I ventured into QFC in search of an apple (Gala, Washington, 4135) and an orange (Red Navel, Australia, 3110) . Upon making my choice I gazed at the labels to try and find a clue as to where my produce came from. I found that my apple is from Washington and my orange traveled all the way from Australia. In  fact, all of the oranges are from Australia. That's quite a ways for my orange friend to travel. I sought out a man that was organizing the grapes and asked him who distributes the produce for QFC. He stated that everything comes in on a Charley's Produce truck. I've seen these truck around City Market and Seattle U so I feel as if they are probably one of Seattle's main produce distributors. http://www.charliesproduce.com/ here's their website. They deliver both organic and regular produce to Washington, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Alaska. They are also attached to another company called Rogge (but I think Rogge mostly distributes in Alaska.
I just googled Australian oranges and Orange farm Australia, but there wasn't a list of any farms like there is for Washington Apples. Charley's does have a contact number so I may call them tomorrow. I feel like there are many more links to be found in between Charley's and Australia.
In the Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan creates a meal from only things he has hunted or gathered. As I walked home from QFC I wondered, "Is this even possible in Seattle?" There is a little garden next to an apartment building (The Heights) that provides a few options. Eggplant, tomatoes and some sorry looking lettuce. I noticed that someone had taken it upon themselves to trample half of the garden. Lovely. There's also the neighbor's apple tree and I could capture some yeast and make bread. Ultimately it's not a very feasible option.
I find that the most challenging feat of this project will be calling people. Because I loathe using the telephone. Ugh. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

The Noble Washington Apple

http://www.bestapples.com/growers/index.aspx
This is the website for Washington Apples. The chart above shows the apples' growing season. Which is surprisingly a year long. Is that natural?
You can actually go and visit the orchard. Which would most certainly be a lovely fall activity. I'd like to ask them where they buy their seeds and what kind of process the apples go through after they are actually picked. I also wonder if the farm is as quaint as it seems on the website.
The apple is a Washington local. And it's even apple season. (I've been eating apples off the neighbor's tree). I wonder how close to home the Washington apple actually is. My boyfriend says that when he was in China the apples that were sold there were actually Washington apples. That's kinda funny seeing as the apple plant originally came from Asia...must not have been in season when the boyfriend was there. I wonder what other places in the world the Washington apple manages to creep into.

Berry, Wendell. "The Pleasures of Eating - Wendell Berry | Center for Ecoliteracy." Education for Sustainability | Center for Ecoliteracy. 1990. Web. 26 Sept. 2010. <http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/pleasures-eating>.

Essay by Wendell Berry about what consumers can do to eat sustainably.http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/pleasures-eating

Berry, Wendell. "In Distrust of Movements." The Irresistible Fleet of Bicycles. Web. 26 Sept. 2010. <http://thegreenhorns.wordpress.com/essays/essay-in-distrust-of-movements-by-wendell-berry/>.
Another Berry essay about escaping the need to create a movement.
http://thegreenhorns.wordpress.com/essays/essay-in-distrust-of-movements-by-wendell-berry/

Wes Jackson is a friend of Wendell Berry and he began The Land Institute that encourages sustainable farming through mimic of nature's natural ecosystems.
Jackson, Wes. New Roots for Agriculture. San Francisco: Friends of the Earth, 1980. Print.


I'm making pretty good progress on Omnivore's Dilemma. Which is good because I have so many other books I want to read that I have no idea how I am going to read them all. The more I think about it the more I would like to be able to create a website where you click on the food in question and a complete history, from farm to table, is given. I'm not entirely sure if this has already been done. I just searched google really quick and didn't see anything like it. My other problem is that I have no idea how to make a website. Also, if I did make a website, I would want it to look nice...not like a third grader made it. This week, or maybe next since we have individual conferences, I might ask one of our lovely graphic design students. They would be able to tell me how impossible my idea is. I put several books on hold at the library. But, mostly I want to really focus on Omnivore's Dilemma and hopefully finish it before next weekend, so I can start a new book. If I go through with the website idea (or really it could be a blog because blogs are free) I will need to talk to a lot of people regarding exactly where the food has been. I feel like the beginning and end will be easy to find. But the middle will be trickier. I'm still wrestling with adding the treatment of animals in slaughter houses and feedlots into my study. I'm very passionate about the animals. But, I really want this to be a science based project instead of psychology. But, there may be room in the history of the food we eat to also give a glimpse into what the animals have to go through.
Michael Pollan says that anyone who eats meat should be able to experience the killing of an animal with their own hands at least once in their life. They should know what it feels like to end other animal's life to provide sustenance for yourself. I would never be able to kill an animal myself. I got queasy when he wrote about killing chickens...I guess that's why I'm a vegetarian. But, I respect the person that is able to hunt for themselves.

The Omnivore's Dilemma Part I

As i started reading I begin thinking about what my final product might look like. I know it's not quite time to decide. But, here are two of the ideas I came up with.

I could map out where exactly food comes from. I could take several different foods and trace them back to their origin. This could be done on an actual physical chart. Or, ideally, it could be a website. However I have no idea how to make a website.

Another idea I had was to not eat anything with corn in it for a number of days or weeks and document my experiences.

Anyway, here are my notes from the first part of Omnivore's Dilemma. I planned to get a little farther in my reading than I did today. But, alas, I fell asleep.

NOTES:

• Even though the French eat large quantities of fast food they are still skinnier than Americans (3)
• Over abundance of food in America complicates the process of deciding what to eat. (4)
• Researchers have argued that the "open endedness" of the humans diet may contribute to both our civility and savagery. (6)
• What we eat can represent our connection with the rest of the world. "Our eating turns nature into culture" (10)
• "A chicken nugget piles corn upon corn" (18)
• There are forty-five thousand items in the supermarket. And 17,000 new items each year (20)
• Most plants create 3 carbon atoms. Corn produces 4 giving it an ecological advantage. (21)
• Few plants can create as much organic matter as corn. (22)
• If isotope ratios are examined in humans. North Americans contain the most corn. (23)
• Corn has a much higher yield than wheat. (25)
• Nearly all of the corn farmers grow corn simply for livestock feed. (34)
• "By the 1980s, the diversified family farm was history in Iowa, and corn was king" (39)
• Corn has become a "welfare queen" in Iowa because of the mass subsidizing by the government. (41)
• "The free market has never worked in agriculture and it never will. The economics of the family farm are very different than a firm" (54)
• Corn impoverishes farmers and destroys the land while the government spends 5 billion a year subsidizing cheap corn. (54)
• Although some corn farmers choose to not use GMOs all grade 2 corn ends up in the same place. (58)
• 3 of every 5 kernels end up in the factory farm (64)
• "Corn the plant has colonized some 125,000 square miles of the American continent, an area twice the size of New York State." (65)
• "The urbanization of America's population would never have happened if not for government subsidized corn.
• Cows raised on corn grow much faster than those raised on grass. (71)
• Corn fed meat is less healthy for us. (73)
• Feedlots are allowed to feed cows "feather meal and chicken litter" (76)
• Most health problems in cattle can be attributed to their diet. (77)
• Corn produces large quantities of gas in the cow's stomach. Which can lead to bloating that may cause death. (77)
• Corn diets may also give the cows acidosis. Which is like heartburn and can also cause the cow to die. (78)
• The acidic quality of corn eats away at the cow's stomach and allows for the growth of bacteria. (78)
• Cow manure is put into shit lagoons. It can't be used for crops because of its acidity. (79)
• 40% of cattle carry e. coli in their stomachs
• If the cattle are fed grass a few days prior to slaughter the amount of e. coli in a cow's stomach is reduced by 80% (82)
• Wet meal corn is turned into things like soda or cereal. (86)
• Breakfast cereal: 4 cents worth of corn= 4 dollars worth of product. (93)
• Adult onset diabetes changed it's name to type II diabetes because it is now increasingly seem in children. (102)
• Today's children may be the first generation to have a lower life expectancy than their parents (102)
• "Since the Nixon administration, farmers in the United States have managed to produce 500 additional calories per person everyday" (103)
• "530 million bushels of the annual corn harvest--turning it into 17.5 billion pounds of high fructose corn syrup." (103)
• Soft drinks contain the most high fructose corn syrup. (104)
• "People presented with large portions will each 30% more than they need" (106)
• "A dollar can buy 1,200 calories of potato chips and cookies; spent on whole food like carrots, the same dollar buys only 250 calories" (108)
• 19% of American meals are eaten in the car (110)
• TBHQ is an antioxidant that is derived from petroleum found in chicken nuggets and other processed food. It is a form of butane and a carcinogen. FDA allows for no more than .02% in our food. 1 gram of TBHQ  can cause, "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation and collapse" 5 grams can kill a human. (113-114)
• "That perhaps is what the industrial food chain does best: obscure the histories of the foods it produces by processing them to such an extent that they appear as pure products of culture rather than nature--things made from plants and animals. (115) 

The Botany of Desire

The Botany of Desire was interesting but not very useful. However I did learn a few things that may be relevant to my cause. Apples, apples, apples! I finished reading Animal Liberation this morning...Notes from that coming soon. It's too dark in my living room to type them right now. I don't feel like turning on the lamp. My biggest worry right now is that I don't know what direction I want to go with my topic. As I said before I just finished reading Animal Liberation. Basically, it is an animal psychology book that explores animal suffering and intelligence. It has a chapter on animals in the meat industry which is very informative. I just don't know how to tie in the actual process with the animal's experience and include vegetables in there somewhere. I was thinking maybe something like:

I. In the Lab

    a. Plants

        i. GMOs

    b. Animals

        

II. On the Farm

    a. Plants    

       i. Saving Seed

       ii. Pesticides

    b. Animals

       i. Chicken Coops

       ii. Pig Farm

       iii. Feedlot

    

III. In your grocery store

     a. How to eat responsibly.

That needs some work. But it feels good to write something down. I definitely have the most information for "On the farm" So I either need to find more info on the other topics OR just focus on "On the Farm" I do really want to present solutions. I haven't given up on the idea or storytelling yet. I just haven't figured out how to make that happen. I feel like it will probably come to me once the research falls into place. 

Food Inc. Notes

The way we eat has changed more in the last fifty years than in the last 1000.
The image of the family farm is still present even though the family farm has nearly disappeared.
Food is full of gmos and the supermarket no longer has seasons.
4 companies control 80% of the market.
The meat industry no longer produces chicken. They produce meat. "Raising" has turned into "Growing"
The chicken farmer in the movie is allergic to all antibiotics because she has been over exposed to the drug.
Grower has no choice in the way they raise their chickens because many have taken out loans from the company and they have signed contracts.
So much of our food is corn based!
30% of the land base is corn.
Farm bill codifies rules of farmers.
Corn is subsidized by government.
90% food contains corn or soybean ingredient.
Corn is main ingredient in feed for animals.
Corn allows ecoli to grow faster in cows.
1972 FDA conducted 50000 inspections
2006 FDA conducted only 9164
There used to be 1000s of slaughterhouses now there are only 13.
Kevin's law would give FDA permission to shut down plants that produce contaminated meat-still has not passed.
Engineered foods are subsidized by the government while healthy foods are not.
Type 2 diabetes used to only effect adults. Now it is increasingly seen in children.
1 in 3 children will contract diabetes. Among minorities it will be 1 in 2.
Employees on hog farms get infections from the environment.
Meat packing is one of the most dangerous jobs.
Smithfield hog farms hires illegal immigrants and turns them into immigration before pay day.
New Alchemy institute
Stoneyfield sold out to Walmart. Good or Bad? Promoting big business. But, at least they don't use pesticides.
Mansanto developed Round-up.
1996 2% Round up ready seed.
2008 90% soybeans are Round up ready.
Farmers can be sued for saving their seeds under infringement of patent.
Even seeds that are not Mansanto are easily cross contaminated by the GMO Mansanto seeds.
FDA does not have to label products with GMOs.
It is illegal to publish a photo of a feedlot.
It is illegal in some states to publicly say anything bad about the meat industry.
RBST, chemical they can cause brain cancer, is illegal in every country except U.S.
The average meal travels 1500 miles from farm to supermarket.
takepart.com/foodinc


Right now I feel like I need to narrow my topic. Watching this movie made me realize that there are so many facets to the food industry. Should I focus on the crops or the animals or the chemicals or the farmers? Really I'd like to do it all. I just don't know if it's possible. We shall see.

Something Smells Fishy

Marion Nestle's food blog. Interesting and informative read. She has some books out too. I might give them a look.
http://www.foodpolitics.com/

A coalition against GM salmon. GM Salmon grow twice as fast as regular salmon. They can escape from their open ocean farms and outperform the native salmon.
"Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences notes that a release of just sixty GE salmon into a wild population of 60,000 would lead to the extinction of the wild population in less than 40 generations."
http://truefoodnow.org/2010/08/27/coalition-demands-fda-deny-approval-of-controversial-genetically-engineered-fish/

An article on Farmed Salmon and the dangers it poses to the Native Species.
"It takes about 2.4 pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of farmed salmon, according to Rosamond L. Naylor, an agricultural economist at Stanford's Center for Environmental Science and Policy."
"In Norway, parasites have so devastated wild fish that the government poisoned all aquatic life in dozens of rivers and streams in an effort to re-boot the ecological system."
"Collecting more than 700 baby pink salmon around farms, she found that 78% were covered with a fatal load of sea lice, which burrow into fish and feed on skin, mucous and blood. Juvenile salmon she netted farther from the farms were largely lice-free."
http://www.latimes.com/la-me-salmon9dec09,0,7675555,full.story


More about Farmed fish. Very detailed description on fish slaughter and brings up evidence that fish are intelligent and can feel pain. (Do not read while eating)
"The scientific literature is quite clear. Anatomically, physiologically and biologically, the pain system in fish is virtually the same as in birds and mammals."
"fish can also suffer from fear and anticipation of physical pain."
"Contaminants from ocean-based aquafarms (fish excrement, uneaten chemical-laden food, and swarms of parasites) spread to the surrounding ocean, and the rampant disease inside the cages is passed on to ocean fish in the area, in some cases increasing the incidence of sea lice 1,000-fold."
"Deformities and stress-related injuries are also a regular occurrence; on some farms, as many as 40 percent of the fish are blind"
http://fishinghurts.com/FishFeelPain.asp


Article discussing the rampant outbreak of sea lice in Salmon
"Sea lice can lower the fitness of salmon - and in some cases be lethal - as they create open lesions on the surface of the fish that compromises its ability to maintain its salt-water balance"
"Sea lice production from the farm we studied was four orders of magnitude - 30,000 times - higher than natural. These lice then spread out around the farm."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4391711.stm


Some info. on bycatch. See Criterion III. Still could use more.
"Bycatch, the unintentional take of non-targeted fishes and invertebrates, is a major concern in shrimp fisheries. The trawl method has great potential for unselective fishing. The UN FAO estimates that 35% of the world's incidental catch occurs in shrimp trawl fisheries [Alverson et al. 1994; Steiner 1996]—about 10 million metric tons per year."
"Worldwide, bycatch ratios for shrimp trawl fisheries range from about 3:1 to 15:1"
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/content/media/MBA_SeafoodWatch_WarmwaterShrimpReport.pdf


I still want to find more information on the effects of bycatch to prove that fish farming is just as bad as catching wild fish. I'll conclude with some "Eating Animals" quotes. "Modern industrial Fishing lines can be as long as 75 miles--the same distance as from sea level to space."
"For every ten tuna, sharks, and other large predatory fish that were in oceans fifty to one hundred years ago only one is left"
145 different species of fish are killed in tuna nets.
"Imagine being served a plate of sushi. But this plate also holds all of the animals that were killed for your serving of sushi. The plate might have to be five feet across"

Storytelling

These are some links that Chris suggested

Michael Pollan's website. A whole mess of helpful articles
http://michaelpollan.com/


Jonathan Safron Foer talks about his relationship with meat and his choice to raise his kids vegetarian.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11foer-t.html

Talks about some choices one can make to be more conscious about where food is produced.
http://www.farmforward.com/farming-forward/food-choices


Shows the consumer how to be more sustainable. http://www.sustainabletable.org/home.php


I especially like the Jonathan Safron Foer article. I wish to find a way into storytelling combined with the research. I just don't want people to lose interest. I was talking to my friend James the other day and he actually has taken a class on food production. He will be an invaluable resource. Already he has suggested the work of Peter Singer. He's an animal rights activist and Pollan actually got a lot of his information from Singer's research. I went to half price books yesterday to try and find some of his work. But, it was to no avail. It's a university press so I could probably find it at the U bookstore. I'll make that adventure next week if I still can't find it. I could just get it from the library. BUT I love desecrating my books with various notes.

Here are some links to info. about Peter Singer and his work.
http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/

This one has some excerpts from his book Animal Liberation.
http://www.ivu.org/people/writers/psinger.html

While I do want to point out what is wrong with the food industry I also want to give possible solutions. Find a way to make things a little bit better. I want my research to make people want to change the way they eat. Even if it's only a little bit. That means that my research needs to be scientific and interesting at the same time. Eeeep!  I was thinking that maybe if I connect some of my own experiences and friend's experiences to the research it may be easier to connect to.

Day Uno!

This is my first blog post ever. Hurrahhurrah! I thought I'd start small today and just do a bit of internet research. I'm just going to focus on chickens for now. But, perhaps tomorrow I will explore the slaughterings of some other animal. Already in this process I fear that the gruesome truth may just be too gruesome. I feel like if I just terrify people by telling them horror stories eventually they won't want to listen anymore. I suppose I will cross that bridge when I come to it. For now I will just post some links!

Very informative link about dangerous bacteria in chicken

http://usapeec.org/p_documents/newsandinfo_050612111938.pdf

Another article about Salmonella and Campylobacter found in chicken

http://cspinet.org/reports/polt.html

Chicken is one of the most dangerous items in the American kitchen

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981629,00.html

What it's like inside the slaughter house

http://catalog.cornish.edu:2051/pqdweb?did=38850156&sid=11&Fmt=3&clientId=36162&RQT=309&VName=PQD

American's are eating more chicken than ever and factories can't keep up

http://catalog.cornish.edu:2051/pqdweb?did=207660641&sid=13&Fmt=4&clientId=36162&RQT=309&VName=PQD

I'm finding that many of the articles are talking about free-range and organic chicken and how great it is that everyone is becoming more environmentally conscious. But, no one...so far...discusses the fact that the FDA has no regulation over what is organic. And to be free-range a chicken only needs to have access to the outdoors. That does not mean the chicken can actually get outside. There just needs to be a window in the chicken coop. 

There's a lot of great info out there. Maybe too much? I need to make an outline asap. That will hopefully happen tomorrow. I have yet to get to the library to read Michael Pollen's book. But I have requested it online. I look forward to reading it!