Coures evluation

This quarter, I took the writing class 1133, the instructor is Eric Leak. During the whole quarter, we had a main topic, the food culture. Fortunately, it was not very hard for me, because I come from China, a country full of different kinds of food. The whole quarter was divided into two parts; each one included some blog post, short essays and a long paper. We learned different kinds of methods to get resources, like observing personally, using the sources in Penrose library, recoding and analyze our own lives. There were many methods I don’t use before. The fantastic part is that after we have did many researches for my short essays, it made me feel much easier to write the long paper. This taught me that if we divided a big project into different parts, and finish it step by step, it will be easy to finish them. Besides, just for writing, if we did a good pre-work, like thing out the outline, doing enough researches, we can feel much better when we start to write. The most challenge thing for me is the resource part. Because the different writing customs in China and America, it seems like very hard for me to use outside resources. My professor often told me try to use more resource to support my idea in the comments. I felt very hard at the first, but finally, I found that actually I have already used some resource. The problem was that I always like to say in my own words. It was because many kinds of sources like personal blogs, newspapers, could not be included in the “works cited” part. This thing told me how rigorous in American writing. People must be responsible to every world they wrote and at the same time, could find enough effective evidence to support their idea.

Though there were a lot of writing works in this class. It was not very difficult. I found I learned unconsciously in the end.  

My Eaters Manifesto

Writing 1133

Naitong Li

May 22, 2012 

My Eaters Manifesto

            In the modern word, we would never be worried about there is no enough food for us, but following with the evolution of the food, there still many problem of choosing food. Whether the food we eat includes enough nutrition for our body? Will it make our figure out of shape? What amount should we eat? Can we choose other thing healthier? Should we eat following our heart or the suggestion given by the authority? Or eating for happiness and for heath, which is better? There are hundreds questions coming with the question “What should we eat today.” So in order to eat better in today’s world which is full of materials, everyone must build eating rules for himself. For myself, eat moderate and natural food are two important things.

            Whenever you open newspapers and websites, you can many reports about food research in the life or health part. For example, on today’s New York Times, there is an article called “Some Fats May Harm the Brain More” which try to remind us to be cautious when selecting meat. New York Times even has a section called fitness & nutrition which is special for this kind of news. There seems are millions of scientists who are dedicated to the study of food nutrition. The reports update day by day, telling us what we should eat and what we should not. They are usually sounds very reliable and serious, often open with some sentences like, how some experts and scholars did experiment on a lot of people for many years finding some components of one kind food we eat every day is really harmful to our health or some nutrition of a particular food is very good. The influence range can be very stupendous, on matter for the positive or the negative aspect, like harm the intelligence, keep perfect figure, improve the sexual ability or cause insomnia.  But sometimes, we can easily become confused by the reports. For example, one day a report may say the “newest reach” says eating chocolate will not only make us fat, but also can led to diabetes; it can destroy the absorption process of calcium in the milk. It sounds like we should immediately stop to have the tasty sweetness. But a few days later, there would be another “newest reach” says that, it is good to eat chocolate, because it can easily delight you, enhance the ability of memory, and the antioxidants of it can slow down the speed of aging. At this time, it seems we should take a chocolate bar each day.  Then what should we do now, following the first report’s suggestions or the second one’s recommendations? It makes me feel like standing on a narrow road, with cliff on both sides. No matter deviates to which side will both make me fall into the abyss.  As a result, I built the most important theory of choosing food. Since I have already stood on the narrow road, the best choice is keeping balance on it.

            No matter for which kind of food, there must some benefits for eating it, and there must be some dangers for eating too much. The important is how find the balance point of it. So I think the most important try of choosing food of is moderation. You can eat everything you want, but the amount must be scientific. For example, I really love yogurt. I know it is very for girls.  It contains two kinds of good bacterial cultures, Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophiles, which can help me to keep the balance in our intestinal tract. It is also very useful to keep figure and in additional, yogurt is good for my skin. It contains a big mount of Vitamin A, B1, B2, E and carotene, which can slow down the speed the oxidation and decomposition of the cells. So they can protect my skin from keratosis and senescence. They are also effective to protect my skin losing water, which help us looks young and energetic. But I never use yogurt as dinner, or just eating yogurt to lose weight. I know eating too much yogurt can harm our digestive system instead of protecting it, and it will destroy the electrolyte balance of our body. Besides, there are a lot of nutrition that yogurt can’t supply, like vitamin C and Omega 3, which we must absorb from vegetable or meat. So I just take about 125g per day.             Another example is about the fish. There is a fashion theory say that eating withe meat is far better than eating red meat, and among the withe meat, fish is the best one.  It is low in fat and high in omega 3 fatty acids, which can prevent the heart disease and is good for our brain developing. But an article on JAMA also refer that eating too much fish can accurate the amount of mercury in very body, which is a poison element. It is true that there are many advantages of eating fish, but it is still not a sensible choice of using fish to replace other the other kinds of meat and eat too much every day.  So it is not clever for us to decide never eat one thing, just eat one thing, or eat one thing as much as possible just according to a report on the newspaper or on the television.

            Blindly follow the trend and be credulous are very dangerous. For an example, about one year ago, there was one people was very famous in China, named Wuben Zhang. He claims that he is a nutritionist, and he wrote a book called “how to solve the heath problems caused by eating just by eating” to tell how to eat more heath, like eating raw eggplant and having green peas soup can help people defend cancer. There are many people believe him, and following what he said. Suddenly, green peas became the most popular food in the supermarket, and the price increase about 30% at that time. A reporter wrote that he interviewed randomly a custom who was buy green peas at during that special period of time told him that she would buy at one kg green peas one weak. But in the end, many scientists demonstrate that he has no solid evidence to support his ideas, and meanwhile he has no license for nutritious. The event is showing that we must be calm when we hear those magic suggestion for food, we should build our own believe for food, and just to use that news to make our menu more scientific. Whatever, we must remember that just like other things in the world.  Each kind of food contains what we our body need and what will harm hour heath, the best solution is try to eat more kinds of food, and keep balance when choosing what to eat.

            Another theory of food of mine is trying to choose food growth or made naturally or the organic food. “Natural” becomes one of the most important label of our food. Nearly every food producer use ads to emphasize that there is no artificial thing in their product. To be honest, I also think it is important. We can hardly image at 70 years ago that we can create an orange juice just with the pigment tartrazine, some sweeteners like aspartame, sodium cyclamate, and some other artificial things. The fake juice can be looked and tasted really like the real one, or even better. This sounds horrible for me. I believe that even that food may looks and taste greater but eating food with a lot of these artificial additives can hardly achieve the real goal of eating food. This kind food is less nutritional and lacking important elements that we need, because the additives destroy the nutrition structure of the food. They may cheaper but they make us illness and fat at the same time. I think problems of these artificial additives are serious in the modern time all over the world.

             Except the artificial things, food produce become more and more industrial is another problem. We use many new technologies like using ripening hormone to let our food grow faster; using various pesticides to keep the crop grow healthily and using transgenic technology to get more ideal species. The industrial transform of agriculture make it can satisfy more people’s demand, with can match the quick growth of population, and bring more profits of this industry. Following with the changes of food, there are also some problems, for example, the rice planting of China. For a long time, the rice planting mainly depended human. It was a labor intensive job. Otherwise, during the past twenty years, the quick development of agriculture technologies changes the rice planting a lot. Big mount of agriculture chemical like pesticide and fertilizer are used in the planning process. “China is currently the world leader in chemical fertilizer production, consumption, and imports. With food security firmly in mind, the Chinese government has been promoting the use of chemical fertilizers since the early 1960s, and China is currently ranked 4th globally in   chemical fertilizer use intensity (Zhang et al. in prep).” (Josephine Williams). “At the same time, the super hybrid rice (transgenic product) replaces the normal one gradually. The field per-mu has already doubled. In September, 2011,the leader of this study research, Longping Yuan, declared that in Guizhou, “the yield of the experimental field has already got to 936 kg per-mu, and there was a hope to get more than 1000kg per-mu.”(Xinhuan news) But after a short period of happiness caused by the high yield, people become worried again. Initially, people began to suspect that weather the chemical fertilizer is harmful to human’s healthy. After all, accelerating the ripening is a process that against the nature. Many people began to worry about that whether the chemical fertilizer contains hormones, just like what we feed to the animals and make they become dangerous for us to eat. Then the anxious about the super rice arise, as a genetically modified food, if they are harmless are still not be detected by the authority. Besides, the taste of it was not as good as simple rice. In other to solve these, people especially the quality who can pay more money on food start to choose eat organic food, which growing more naturally compared to the normal one. Though many people don’t believe in the organic food, especially when it sales two times higher as the normal one, I choose believes the function of Organic.

             After all, we have already read Cook’s article “Fowl Trouble”, in which writes that”… seemingly harmless broiler chicken may in fact be the most dangerous animal in North America.”, and the “strong” tomato brought back by the write of the book “On the tomato trail”. The image he describe “It (the tomato) rolled off the counter and fell on our newly refinished pine floor, it hit and traveled for a few feet but incurred no damage. No one can say loudly that they have no ham to our health, which sounds so terrible and strange. So at this time, try to eat organic food become the only solution for us. It closely the natural food our ancestor had already eaten for thousands of years most, meanwhile it includes more the nutrition we need in the daily life and tasted more like the “real” thing.

            In a conclusion, eating moderate and natural food are two primary theory of my eating habit. The other things are built on this, like eating something to make me happy or relax. Whatever, the final goal of eating for me is getting a more wonderful life.

                                                      Works cited

Zhou, Furong, ed. "Yuan Long Ping: The New Goles of Super Rice Can Achieve in the Future."

            22 Sept. 2011. Web. 08 May 2012. <http://news.xinhuanet.com/society/2011-                                   9/22/c_122075201.htm>.

Williams, Josephine. "Understanding the Overuse of Chemical Fertilizer in China." 1-2. Web. 8    May 2012.

Food Standards Agency (2002) McCance and Widdowson's the Composition of Foods, Sixth          Summary Edition. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry.

Janet, Torpy M, Lymn Cassio, and Glass M Richard. “Eating Fish: Health Benefits and Risks.”

            The JAMA Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 15.May 2012.    http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?volume=296&issue=15&page=1926.

Estabrook. "On the Tomato Trail." Introduction. Print.

Cook. "Fowl Trouble." Print

Lead by nutritions and nutritionists

            Food revolution has never stopped during the time. Actually, in the past time, especially in China, just like the war period in America, the biggest problem of food is we don’t have enough food to eat. But at time, our satisfaction with food was very high. We will be very happy just because we have food to eat. We would be appreciated if we have food to eat. The index of happiness of food is much higher than today’s.  Because at that time, we never worried whether the food we eat contains much pesticide, whether it was added by a lot of artificial things, and whether it has a lot of Clarions and will make us fat.  Just as Pollan and Dupuis writes, people now try to follow variety of suggestion of eating so that can be healthier.  In my mind, people today have more food to eat, and should be healthier than the past, but it seems like that we have more problem of eating. Our world is building and re-building by one and one piece of suggestion given by variety of authority. For many times, we follow strictly a suggestion; in turn found it was totally wrong. For an example, there was one people was very famous in China, named Wuben Zhang. He claims that he is a nutritionist, and he spends a lot of “eating” about eating, like eating raw eggplant can help you defend cancer. There are many people believe him, and following what he said. But in the end, many scientists demonstrate that he has no solid evidence to support his ideas. The event can reflect a fact, people now have the power to choose what to eat, so everyone wants to be healthier and keep nutrition balance. It is good a trend, but the problem is whether we are too strict by these. Can we really choose the right suggestion to follow? The eager of heath sometimes let us lose a lot of happiness. We must try to eat less to keep figure, and eat many things we don’t like instead of what we like. After read the two articles, my question is that, in the modern time, how we can balance the nutrition of food and the favor of food.

In class writing --- May 16

The first blog I read is written by Shelby. She writes one kind of important meat in our daily life, fish. She is a pescatarian. She compares the benefits and the adverse effects. She finds some medical articles which are focus on the fish eating topic. These articles show that eating fish is good, because it provides Omega 3 fatty acids, plenty of protein, a lot of energy, and at the same time it prevents heart disease. On the other hand, she also writes the bad effects of eating fish. It includes a toxin element—mercury. It will go through the chain and accumulate in the fish body. So it is not good to eat predator fish. She also estimates that pregnant women should pay more attention when eating fish.  But in the end, she says no matter those academic articles or herself. The benefits are much overweight compared with the adverse effects. I learned thing from her blog. I never think there will be some bad influence on our body by eating fish. It demonstrates a theory. There is no thing is absolutely good in the world. The next blog I read is written by Bobby, he discuss the bad effect of caffeine. “At higher doses caffeine can lead to periods of inexhaustibility, as well as rambling speech and thought and rapid heartbeat. People can become addicted to caffeine and experience symptoms of withdrawal, including insomnia, neck cramps, headaches, nervousness and mild-depression.”  I don’t often drink Coffee, because these drawbacks are very obvious of me. I think maybe we can use tea to instead of Coffee or create a kind of drink that can keep us awake and don’t hurt our health at the same time.          .

Yogurt

Writing 1133

Naitong Li

5/15/2012

                                                                        Yogurt

            Yogurt, which is also sometimes spelled yoghurt, youghourt or yourt, is a food made from milk fermented by healthful bacterial cultures. It has been eaten throughout the world for at least 4,000 years, reported Susan M. Kleiner, Ph.D., R.D., L.D., in the 1994 edition of Medical and Health Annual.

            In the last two decades, people gradually realized the great benefits of yogurt. At first, it contains two kinds of good bacterial cultures, Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. These two good bacterial cultures can help us to keep the balance in our intestinal tract. The lactic acid bacterial in yogurt can restrain the reproduction of those pathogenic bacteria in our intestinal tract, like coliform and dysentery bacteria, thus reduce the possibility of human to infect with the intestinal diseases. On the other hand, as these good bacteria can promote the motility of gastrointestinal and the secretion of gastric acid, drinking yogurt can help us solve the constipation problem. It can seed up our metabolism and help us eliminate the toxin in our body.

            According to the table from food standard agency made in 2002, we can find it includes a lot nutrition which is good and important to our body. It includes 300mg Ca, 170mg Mg, 20mg P, and 1mg Z per 10og.   These elements are the primary contents of our bones and teeth. So drinking yogurt can help us protect our teeth and make our bones fitness. This is very good for the older, who often trouble with the osteoporosis problem. Besides, Vitamin A, Vitamin B1, and the methionine can prevent hair loss and promote it regeneration. In additional, yogurt is good for our skin. It contains a big mount of Vitamin A, B1, B2, E and carotene, which can slow down the speed the oxidation and decomposition of the cells. So they can protect our skin from keratosis and senescence. They are also effective to protect our skin losing water, which help us looks young and energetic. At the same time, the Vitamin C, as a reducing agent in human body, it can slow down the activity of enzyme so that can reduce the pigmentation in the human body. People can get rid of the trouble of freckles and melisma. Long-term consumption of yogurt can make our skin elastic and shiny. 

            Another good thing is that Yogurt is especially for girls. Because it was made by milk, it contains a lot of protein, which can provide us a lot of energy.  Meanwhile, the better thing is, it includes less carbohydrate and fat than grain and meat. So for the girls who want to keep figure and lose choice, it is one of the best choices to take every day. It fabulous taste and wonderful look with fruits also make the eaters happy. Yogurt can work as chocolate and any other sweeteners, but with much less calories. In additional, it can prevent some women disease. For example, a 2003 Finnish study, also published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, showed a correlation for women who frequently consumed probiotic-fermented milk products plus fresh berry juice and a lower recurrence of urinary tract infections.

            Yogurt, which is already a part of many people’s daily menu, is very good for our health, and this is demonstrated by the scientists from many aspects. So, trying to have a cup of yogurt can be a cheap method to keep us young and healthy.

Works cited

Food Standards Agency (2002) McCance and Widdowson's the Composition of Foods, Sixth          Summary Edition. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry.

Kleiner, Susan M., Ph.D., R.D., L.D. "Yogurt: A Culture in Itself," Medical and Health Annual.        Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1994, pp. 462ff.

Table 1.  Nutritional compositiona of common varieties of yoghurt (per serving) 

Nutrient Whole milk,plain(150 g)/ Whole milk,fruit(150 g) Low-fat/plain(150 g) Low-fat/fruit(150 g) Virtually fatfree fruit(150 g) Greek style,plain(150 g)/ Twinpot(175 g)/ Drinkingyoghurt(200 g)

Food Standards Agency (2002)

 Protein (g)   8.6   6.0   7.2   6.3   7.2   8.6   7.2   6.2

Folate (µg)  27  15  27  24  12   9  23  24

Niacin (mg)   2.3   1.3   1.7   1.7   1.7   2.5   2.0   1.6

Riboflavin (mg)   0.40   0.24   0.33   0.32   0.44   0.20   0.33   0.32

Thiamin (mg)   0.09   0.18   0.18   0.18   0.06   0.18   0.11   0.06

Vitamin B12 (µg)   0.3   0.5   0.5   0.5   0.3   0.3   0   0.4

Calcium (mg) 300 183 243 210 195 189 228 200

Magnesium (mg) 29  20  24  23  20  20  23  22

Phosphorus (mg) 255 144 215 180 165 207 186 162

Zinc (mg)   1.1   0.6   0.9   0.8   0.6   0.8   0.7   0.6

Observations of others' food journal

It is really hard for me to follow other’s food. I need to look for the dictionary to refer the name of those foods. But this is the cultural difference, isn’t it?  Though what we eat is different, there are still many similar things of our eating habit. For example, I found that nearly everyone in the weekend doesn’t take breakfast, or we all take the brunch. I know it is good for heath to have breakfast on time, and in my heart, we should take it near 8:00 o’clock. But actually, I often sleep late in the night, so I can hardly get up at that time. Through looking when others take their breakfast, I find I am not the only one take brunch. Besides, I find except the vegetarian, people usually try to different types of food to keep their nutrition balance. Most people eat meat, carbohydrates, vegetables, and fruits

Record of what I ate these three days.

Wednesday afternoon, 16:00—a hot dog, Italian sausage flavor, the food stall near strum.

                       Evening:   21:00—half of fried rice noodles with seafood. Brought back by my roommate from Jason Thai.

Thursday Morning.  9:00, another half of fried rice noodles with seafood.

                  Noon:   12:30, flammulina,fans,Dougan. Boiled together with the sauce left yesterday. At  home. Cook by myself.

                Afternoon  17:00,  Frozen yogurt. Plain and green tea flavor. 14 ounce.  Near campus, when waiting for the bus.

                Evening: a pancake, brought from market and heated by the microwave.  An apple. A cup of yogurt, plain flavor.

Friday  Afternoon: 13:00,  Eggplant fired with pork. Onion fired with eggs. A bowl of rice

              Evening: A cup of fat-free milk. A strawberry bread.

Saturday afternoon: 14:00, braised chicken wings, beef fried with flammulian, Stir-fried chicken gizzards, ribs and yam soup. Cooked by roommates and I. We ate together.

               evening: 20:00 about 13 glutinous rice balls.  An orange.  A cup of green tea.

SE4-- RICE

Writing 1133

Naitong Li

May, 8, 2012

                                                            Rice

            Chinese food can be divided into different cuisines; each one has its special dishes. People lived in different places use different materials and ways to make food. Besides, changing is obviously over time. But rice is one element of Chinese food that is very constant; it is the basic of every meal.  Rice, the center of the food culture of the Asia, has a long history, especially in China. Archaeologists have confirmed that China started planting rice at least 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. At that time, residents near the lower reaches of Yangtze River had already mastered the technology of rice cultivation. It was an important part of the early farming culture in China. But the technologies of rice planting didn’t change a lot until to the modern time.

            For a long time, the rice planting mainly depended human. It was a labor intensive job and it was a very hard work. The hardest step of rice planting was transplanting rice seeding.  People should stand in the water in the field whole day to do the work. The first period of rice planting is in March, when the water is still very cold. Meanwhile, people should stoop to do the job. Usually after a whole day’s work, the farmer can’ hold to stand. Besides, the farmer is constrained hardly by time, so people must do the work in an exact period time of one year, which generates that farmer must finished the work in a really short time, nobody can pay more time of it. I still remembered my father’s words. He told me that, the reason why he was very hard to studying was that he didn’t want to transplant rice seeding any more. He said it was very toilsome. Just because of that, he decided to go to university so that he would not need to leave in the countryside to do this job.

            This hard situation lasted until the Chinese economic reform. During the past twenty years, with the quick development of agriculture technology, there are a lot of changings of rice planting.

            First of all, the mechanization of the rice planting liberates the farmers form heavy farm work. Plowing, transplanting, weeding, and fertilizing all can be done by machines. The work efficiency increased hundred times and the equality of the machines’ work raised rapidly.

            At the same time, the design of super hybrid rice, a genetically modified food, increases the output enormous. Given China is a country has the biggest population in the world, food problem is more serious there than other countries. Now, Chinese people use about one twentieth land to supply one fifth population in the world. If there is no super hybrid rice, starvation problem must as grave as it in the Africa, which must causes a lot of issues to the whole world. When referred the hybrid rice, we must mention a scientist, Longping, Yuan, who is the father of hybrid rice. He developed one kind of rice can grow three times a year, which increased about one third of the output, break the idea that rice can at most grow twice a year. In September, 2011, Yuan declared that in Guizhou, “the yield of the experimental field has already got to 936 kg per-mu, and there was a hope to get more than 1000kg per-mu.”(Xinhuan news)

Another changing of the rice planting is about the chemical fertilization using.

            “China is currently the world leader in chemical fertilizer production, consumption, and      imports. With food security firmly in mind, the Chinese government has been promoting the       use of chemical fertilizers since the early 1960s, and China is currently ranked 4^th globally in   chemical fertilizer use intensity (Zhang et al. in prep).” (Josephine Williams).

            Though these changings increase the effective of the rice planting in different aspects, they also bring some transition for Chinese people’s preference of rice.  Initially, people began to suspect that weather the chemical fertilizer is harmful to human’s healthy. After all, accelerating the ripening is a process that against the nature. Many people began to worry about that whether the chemical fertilizer contains hormones, just like what we feed to the animals and make they become dangerous for us to eat. Then the anxious about the super rice arise, as a genetically modified food, if they are harmless are still not be detected by the authority. Besides, the taste of it was not as good as simple rice. So, people now have a new tendency of rice. More and more people eat organic rice or rice produced by other countries, like Thailand to instead of the former rice.  Others begin to eat coarse cereals.  I also can’t escape from the trend. When I go to supermarket, I always try to pick up organic rice to buy. I think from the rice planting changes we can see the all kinds food changings in the modern world. We have a big mount of new technologies now. So our food becomes more industrial and commercial. No matter for good or bad reasons, they deviate from their original appearance farther and farther. So people begin to seek for the nature things. But because of the high population today and the high market demand, the situation can hardly change in short time. So the label of organic becomes the life-saving straw for us. We buy them even they are nearly as twice as expensive than the normal food.

            I believe that this trend will last all alone until we can make sure that our new technologies can just make our food grow faster and bigger, but not nutrition less and taste worse.

Works cited

 Zhou, Furong, ed. "Yuan Long Ping: The New Goles of Super Rice Can Achieve in the Future."

          22 Sept. 2011. Web. 08 May 012. 
          <http://news.xinhuanet.com/society/20119/22/c_122075201.htm>.

Williams, Josephine. "Understanding the Overuse of Chemical Fertilizer in China." 1-2. Web. 8 May 2012.

NEW FOOD PROBLEM

Cook’’s intfographic shocked me again. I mean again because I have already read some similar articles about the problems of the chicken industry in America. There is also a video of it which is introduced to me by my friends. While she talked it with me, she said that she would never eat chicken except organic chicken, and she persuaded me not eat also. The food industry is really a problem. Same as the introduction to Estabrook’s Tomatoland, which writes that what we eat today are all the commercial food, which is tasteless and includes less nutrition.  To be honest, there are a lot of problems recently of Chinese food, I felt very worried about eating outside when I was in China. After I went to America, I talked to myself that even it may not taste very good, but it must be healthy. Whereas, after my friend told me about this problem of American food industry, I felt worried again. In the modern world, it seems that we can eat much better than the ancient people. We can eat watermelon in winter; we can enjoy more tasted chicken; we can buy milk, eggs and meat at lower prices. But actually we eat more artificial thing, chemical fertilizer, and hormone. They are not poison, but they are also not good to our health. I think we must try to solve this problem. It is very difficult, because it is related to the high population today. But we must try our best to find a good solution for it.

             Pollan’s writes about another trend of American’s eating habit. That is the vegetarianism.  The animal rights campaigner, who always argue that animals and human are equal, we have no rights eat them. Especially treat them in some very inhuman way. For example, I have read a report wrote that in order to make the beef delicate, people keep the new born calf far away from iron, so the calf can’t even stand. Sometimes, we are very cruel when we treat other animals. These voices affect people’s choices of food a lot.Meet your meat

Read "Our National Eating Disorder"

Pollan discusses an interesting situation that Americans change using figure and eyes to determine what to eat from using taste. He says Americans don’t have their own cuisines.  The food they cook and eat usually changes from one generation to another. For this generation, the most representative thing for food is more and more people trying to following the nutritionists’ suggestions. Many people, especially the girls, try to eat fewer calories, sweetness, and more vegetables. Eating is not an action that related to one’s taste and pleasure any more. More and more people feel guilt to eat ice-cream. “People have learned to choose our foods by the numbers (calories, carbs, fats, R.D.A.'s, price, whatever), relying more heavily on our reading. There are a lot and computational skills than upon our senses.” The food markets sale process food because it can ensure the nutrient component, and have beautiful package with clear introduction of the materials. But the writer shows his worries about this situation. He suspects whether the way the Americans choose is useful. Compared with French, who eat more sweetness and calories, Americans are more troubled by the obesity and other unhealthy problems. He argues that the way we eat--fast and casual, the amounts we eat-- much greater than others, and the snakes—have high energy, are the real reasons. It is not useful for us to avoid all the food which is oily or full of energy. Actually, we can eat everything because we want or it can make us pleasure. What we need to change are some other things. 

            I really agree the writer. As a foreigner, I have the same feeling with him. I feel the Americans stress the healthy part of food. Much food in the supermarket is labeled with organic and zero calories. But at the same time, the amount of a meal in a restaurant is really big. It is as twice big as the Chinese restaurant. In Chinese super market, we prefer to sale some fresh vegetables and meat, but here, in American, there are a lot of frozen food, which we always think is not good for health.

            The way I choose food is trying to find a balance between the nutrition and taste. I would like to find a food that tastes good, and has less calories and comprehensive nutrition.

Eating at the Edge

Jamie Horwitz creats a new phrase to discuss the new trend in eating in America, that is “Eating at the age”, which “refers to occasions when food is an additive to a situation, such as a cigarette would be rather than being definitive.”  He writes that, in the modern time, the social function of eating is gradually decreasing.  People are more like to eat with TV, on the road, or even in their own time. On hand food is replacing the food that needs us to eat at a fixed place and a fixed time. It seems like people don’t treat eating as holy as before; they become a garniture of other activities. What horwiz writes is very common in the daily life. For example, on my own experience, I can hardly eat three meals before table with my friends in the custom meal time. Because of the class scheduler, my eating time can be very strange, like 10:00 am for brunch, 4:00 for dinner or no breakfast, 11:00 for lunch, and 5:00 for dinner.  Besides, eating on road is a very common situation for me, no matter in China or in America, the only thing which is different is that the food changes form noodles to hot dog. I always talk to myself it is not good for my health, but it still very hard to change. The situation is more overdraw when the final is coming. I still remembered when I was in China, where the study system is different from America. Generally, we have a week to review for the final exam, and don’t have regular class in that week. Everyone makes himself isolated to the word and try to use every minute to remember more things so that he can get a good mark on the final exam. So you can see that everyone eat and sleep at that his or she own scheduler.  Once, all of us four who live in the same dormitory did different thing at the same time. One was sleeping, one was eating her breakfast, one was just getting up, and the last one was eating her lunch, and problem is that the time was four o’clock afternoon. So I can really understand what Horwitz writes what will happened when “work was measured by the task rather than the clock” Maybe it is what the modern time brings us.  

Third Essay

                             A Chinese restaurant  in America

          Few hundred years ago, we tried to demonstrate that the earth is a sphere, but today, we make it “flat”. Internationalism doesn’t appear in political and business fields, but also in every corner.  Following with the global economic integration, more and more people come to other counties to study, work and live. They cause the cultural integration phenomena today. When the culture travels from one country to another, it changes, but no matter how the culture changes, the core part would never change.

          Food as one of the good presenter for the culture integration today, which also includes many native characters, is great tool for us to detect the differentials between different cultures. So I choose the special community those who eating at a foreign style restaurant, exactly, people eat in a Chinese restaurant which located in a common city in America. This restaurant is the one near DU campus, called Jason Thai.  

There, people can be simply separated into two categories, native Americans and Chinese. We can separate them easily at daily time, because they have different appearances, speak different languages. But this time, the most interesting thing is that, even they eat in a same restaurant, we can still figure out whether a person is a Chinese just by looking at what he or she orders.

          According to my observation the difference begins with the drinking. Not like American restaurants, Chinese restaurants in China always offer free tea for their customers.  But this restaurant doesn’t. Most people just choose free water. The different is that most of Chinese people, especial girls would like to choose warm or hot water, or at least water without ice, but American, no matter women or men, they all choose water with ice. We can see the a little Chinese food culture here. In China, we stress the medical function of eating food. Just for water, we believe it is better to drink red tea in winter and green tea in summer. Even in hot summer, drinking ice water is not good for a person’s heath, especially for girls who are in their “special time”. It is because that when your body is very hot, ice water can easily make you get diarrhea problem, and for the girls it can cause dysmenorrhea. There are too many similar theories in Chinese food, nearly each kind of material has their own characters and function, and if the chef is profession, the collocation of the materials must be paid a lot of attention to. Sometimes, even a native Chinese still can’t explain the reasons for those clearly, but we still try to following the rules, we believe those are effective, because they are what our ancient left to us. At least, they won’t do any harm to our body.  Unlike other country, Chinese pay more attention to the nutritional balance and regimen.

          Another difference is reflected by the menu directly, that is the price. Just like other restaurants in America, the price of each food is similar, around ten dollar, which is the average price for most restaurant in America.  But the price differential between different restaurants or even between different foods in one restaurant is very big. China has a long history, in ancient, different social hierarchy ate totally different thing. Even today, the gap between rich and poor people is still very great, so a lunch for one person can be as little five yuan(about one dollar) , and also can be as much as one hundred  yuan.(about twenty dollar). And the prices are just for two restaurants near one campus.   

We can figure out a person’s socioeconomic start by looking at what they eat easily in China, but in America, we can hardly do that. What rich people and poor people eat in the daily life is not very different in America.  

          My last finding is that what people eat is really different. Chinese would like to eat those more traditional dishes. Americans like to eat spring rolls, fired noodles, and sushi. I suddenly find the reason why the food always changes when they moved from one place to another, not only because of the taste, but also the materials. To be honest, Chinese food can’t be defined by the whole country; it must be separated by the region. Different region have different characters. “The driving force behind Chinese cooking is the desire to adapt and incorporate indigenous ingredients and utilize Chinese cooking technique. Chinese cooking is not a set of dishes. It is a philosophy that serves local tastes and ingredients.” Ingredients can explain the main part of the native culture behind a food.

          In modern time, Culture is not unchanged any more. One can be changed over time by adding and combining with other culture. When one culture comes into another region, it not only affects the local culture, but also be affected by the local one. But because culture is based on people, the most core part can hardly be change.

P4--- food & community

O’Domell writes the food in Shenzhen, China, and Cate write writes the food for a very special community—the prisoner in a country jail in San Francisco. Cate write the food situation of the prisoners, a community can hardly determine what to eat, and very hard to eat well. Then, given that I am a Chinese, I read O’ Domell’s article carefully, and being curious about what and how he would write about it. In China, there is a famous sentence: eating is in Guangzhou, the province Shenzhen belongs to before it became the first special economic zone in 1978. O’ Domell writes the special community in that place, the immigrations from other place in China. Even me, a Chinese people can hardly image what’s China looked like thirties ago. The changes are very, very big. I can just know the situation from my mother’s descriptions.   At that time, getting enough basic necessities are the biggest whish for Chinese people. Nearly everything is quantitative supply, and the gaps between a rural person and a city person, I still remembered my father told me that one of the biggest reasons to go to a university is changing his rural identity to a city identity. Some people even still want to buy a city identity at 90s, when it nearly has no use any more. As O’ Domell writes, “Hukou” problem is a big problem at that time. Some lovers even be broken by their parents because of that.  So we can image that how risk the first general immigrations afford when they come to Shenzheng to create their new career. Most of them gave up their stable job; leaved their hometown and family; and try to create a new world only by their hands. The food situation wrote by O’ Domell is not just stop on the superficial level about what they eat and how they it. Ti related to the whole economic situation of China at that time. It is rally a special period in the history of China.

Chengdu food

China food has obviously distinctions from one place to another. Different regions all have their over characters of food. Nearly each big city has its special food. Here, I want to write about Chengdu food. As the capital of Sichuan province, Chengdu is the biggest city in Western South in China. The food here belongs to the Sichuan cuisine, which is one of the eight cuisines in China. Sichuan cuisine has special status in Chinese food. It is the most popular kind of food in China; you can find the Sichuan food restaurant everywhere all over the country. It can fit the demand of people in different socioeconomic. The price of these restaurant ranges from five dollar one person to fifty dollar one person. But if you want to eat the traditional Sichuan food, you must go there; otherwise, you can hardly have the chance to taste the real Sichuan food. Once reference the Chinese food, I think most foreigners will think of Kung Pao Chicken and Mapo tofu. Right, they are all Sichuan food.  Most Sichuan foods are very spicy, because the weather there is very moist. Besides, it is also very hot in the summer. So people need to eat some spicy food to sweat. It is good for heath. In fact, Chengdu is famous for its snake, because it is a very young, open, relaxed and fashion city, and has a lot of adventive workers. The cost of a food booth is very low, so many of these adventive workers choose to operate it. Furthermore, the Nightlife there is very abundant. This city has the biggest amount of bars in China. The night market is also very popular. So people usually want to eat some snake in the night. As a consequence, a special snake food culture forms there.

Comparison of essay 2

Sarah Heermann's second essay

Sarah Heermann writes her essay to talk about the differences between the advertisements focus on women and men. According to her observation, she gets a conclusion that “women generally are associated with and value foods that are healthier and more self-conscious, while men are generally thought of as enjoying foods that are full of fat and meat.” I really agree with her. I just did reach on the food I bought and I found all food on my table claims that they contain fewer calories than other similar food.  “0 calories”, “baked not fired” and “vegetable oil” are the reason I bought. No one told me I should buy this kind of food, and I also know it will not have significant effects on my weight; but I still pick this kind food from others on the counter. After read Sarah’s essay, I come up with a question: Is our habit influence the food advertisement or the food advertisement influence our habits? When this situation begins?

The second essay--food advertisements

Writing 1133

Naitong Li

April 8, 2012

                                                                       Food & Advertisements.

                Advertisements seem like have the most vivid and attracting language in the word. They can get you attention within just ten words in two or three second. They include many time characters and cultural value. By searching at them, we can find a lot of interesting things, and it also a good way for us to detect one thing. In order to have a better understanding about food today, we start to focus on the food advertisements here.  

                I will write four food products here. They are all just on my table now. So they are all very common in our life. The first thing I want to analyze is a kind of beverage. The brand is “Sobe Life water”.  The brand is written in the middle of the bottle. On the top of the bottle is a word as big as the brand name that is “0 calories”.  The numeric “0” is written in an emphasis way, big than others and bold. The phrase following it is “no artificial sweeteners”. Under the brand name is written the flavor—black and blue berry with other natural flavors. Next is the word “antioxidants”, “Vitamins C, E” and “mixed with berry and grope seed”, which written again on the back of the bottle. The products are focus the young people and especially those who care about the calories take in amount. To be honest, the reason why I bought it back is seeing the 0 calories word. Though I know it has no use to help my diet, the word 0 calories seems like have magic power for me. I usually couldn’t help to buy the food if I see this word written on it.

                The Second thing I want to discuss is the “Nutella”.  The brand name is written visibly in red color. Under the bottle is the sentence “Hazelnut Spread with Skim Milk & Cocoa”.  On the left side of bottle, it writes “The original hazelnut spread”, “Made with over 50 hazelnuts pre Jar”, “Contains No Artificial colors” and “Contains No Artificial Preservatives”.   On the back of the bottle it writes an example of a tasty yet balanced breakfast: a glass of skim milk, orange juice and Nutella on whole wheat bread. I think this food is focus on the people who are worried about the breakfast. I bought it because it seems make the breakfast very easily. After all, after I came to here, the breakfast became a big problem for me. When I was in China, I could by it on the road and ate it on the bus. But in America, there is no food booth on the road any more. I must get up earlier and cook for myself. I bought it because it can give me a quick and nutrient breakfast.  

                The third thing I want to describe is The Heinz tomato ketchup. On the front of the bottle, except the brand name, there just a tomato picture with two phrases “Grown not made” and 57 varieties. Besides, there is a time under the brand: 1869. On the back of the bottle, it writes:  “Only the best tomatoes for the best ketchup”, “Did you know that every tomato in every bottle of Heinz ketchup is grown from Heinz seeds? Grown not made…”and “One reason why no other ketchup tastes like Heinz Ketchup!” This product doesn’t have special customs because everyone in America needs it. So it attracts customs by the numeric 1869, which means the brand has a long history. And there are a lot of similar products in the market, so they say their taste is different like others because they use natural tomatoes.

                The fourth thing I write here is the “Calee” shrimp flavored chips. On the front of the bag, except the big words “Shrimp flavored chips”, there is just one word, “baked”. On the back of the bag, it writes “A toasted light snack, with a touch of shrimp” A delectable new snack made with tidbits of shrimp, wheat flour and pure vegetable oil blended together and toasted to a golden crispy crunch. This product attracts its customs by showing it is made by real shrimp and the pure vegetable oil, which are all healthy and valued things. It also attract me attention by the word “baked”. The first impression the word gives me is that it is different from fired, so it seems healthier.

                Through looking at the four advertisements together, we can find that except the good taste. One thing is emphases by the four advertisements are the resources of the masteries. Each of them says they use the really thing in the word to make their food; there is no artificial thing. And another thing is very important is the calories they include.  We can find that the modern people are care about their weight more than before.  And with the development of chemical industry, people are very care about whether the food they eat is natural.  In one word, we achieve the result from analyzing the food advertisement that people pay more attention to the heath today.