Acorns to Zombies A100 Fall 14

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Why I'm a weekday vegetarian

We all know the arguments that being vegetarian is better for the environment and for the animals -- but in a carnivorous culture, it can be hard to make the change. Graham Hill has a powerful, pragmatic suggestion: Be a weekday veg.

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President Obama Pardons a Thanksgiving Turkey

Since 1947, the chairman of the National Turkey Federation has presented a turkey to the President. Each Thanksgiving, the President “pardons” that turkey, ensuring that the bird gets to spend the rest of its days living on a farm in Virginia.

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Presidential Proclamation -- Thanksgiving Day, 2014

THANKSGIVING DAY, 2014   - - - - - - -   BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA   A PROCLAMATION Thanksgiving Day invites us to reflect on the blessings we enjoy and the freedoms we cherish.  As we gather with family and friends to take part in this uniquely American celebration, we give thanks for the extraordinary op

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What is America? Based on JSF's Eating Animals

Class discussion on the end of JSF's Eating Animals:

1. Addresses his fellow citizens to urge them to be conscious of the eating choices they make

2. Factory farms:  sources of employment (exploited), as well as mistreatment of animals. Workers are unhappy with the tasks they are asked to perform, or the conditions in which they operate.

3. More ethical farmers: economically vulnerable to takeovers from factory farms.  They can't compete with the scale of production of the factory farm model.

4. Contrasts animal rights (PETA, no killing animals) with ethical farmers/animal welfare (animals live good lives in their natural environment.

5. Adulterated food: spoiled beef, stale bread, all plagued soldiers away at war until preservatives became the norm. However, now we are concerned about the effect of preservatives on the food supply.

6. Separation of spheres:  males do work, women should be in the kitchen.

7. Servant problem: women would hire cooks, they lost the skills themselves.

8. Animal rights activists: interviews them and accompanies them in their midnight missions. It's ridiculous that people have to sneak around private property in the middle of the night in order to shed light on what actually goes on in the secretive meat industry.

9. "America" is a nation of immigrants whose life experiences continue to affect their families down the generations.

10.  Aquaculture: wasteful fishing practice because more fish are caught than are consumed, or even really needed to bring to market.  Example of bad stewardship.

11. Current food system is not sustainable--so going vegetarian is one solution to easing the pain of animals (enhancing their welfare).  However, he does not really address agriculture of vegetables and fruit, and how that may exploit workers or what kind of economic strain that puts on farmers.

12. Conscientious omnivorism is not necessarily a guiding principle for all farmers, whether they participate in factory farms or family farms.

13. JSF's first and last chapters are called "storytelling", thereby affirming the central value of stories to American culture.

14. America is prone to worldwide epidemics (pandemics) due to the toxic conditions created in large part by factory farms.  (Over use of antibiotics, great concentrations of animal waste becomes breeding ground for disease).

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Matt Onstott's Class Visit to Mathers Museum of World Cultures

If you don’t have a Twitter account, use this option. In the comments section below, enter up to TWO comments that convey some facts you learned during the tour of the Mathers Museum.of World Cultures (led by curator Sarah Hatcher) or the talk by professor Eduardo Brondizio (noon section). Use the hashtag: #foodthemester in your comments

After posting your comments about food art, take a screen shot of them and upload that to the Canvas Site for the Lecture 12145.  There is an Assignment set up to accept them until 5:00 pm on Friday, Oct. 24, 2014.

Late submissions/comments will NOT be awarded any credit.

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Carrie Fudickar's Class Visit to the Lilly Library

If you don’t have a Twitter account, use this option. In the comments section below, enter up to TWO comments that convey some facts you learned during Rebecca Baumann's presentation to class during its trip to the Lilly Library. Use the hashtag: #foodthemester in the tagline of your comments.

After posting your comments about food art, take a screen shot of them and upload that to the Canvas Site for the Lecture 12145.  There is an Assignment set up to accept them until 5:00 pm on Friday, Oct. 24, 2014.

Late submissions/comments will NOT be awarded any credit.

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This video, published by Farms Not Factories, is part of the RCA 11 due on Monday, October 20th.  There's a hyperlink to it on the assignment prompt, but I thought it might be more stable here.

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Extra Credit: Jed Kuhn's Class visits the IU Art Museum

If you don't have a Twitter account, use this option. In the comments section below, enter up to TWO comments that convey some facts you learned during the docent-led tour of the iU Art Museum. Use the hashtag: #foodthemester

After posting your comments about food art, take a screen shot of them and upload that to the Canvas Site for the Lecture 12145.  There is an Assignment set up to accept them until 5:00 pm on Friday, Oct. 17, 2014.

Late submissions/comments will NOT be awarded any credit.

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In what ways is any aspect of the food system gendered or racialized along the lines discussed in the chapter?

Poor Irish women immigrants came to the US and worked as domestic servants. They were trying to escape British colonialism, but instead put into a caste system. Since these immigrants were women due to the logic of separate spheres they often work as cooks in the home. The female Irish immigrants lacked certain cooking skills due to food shortages. Because they didn’t have these skills they were often degraded by their employers who were women who couldn’t cook themselves. They were called bridgets and biddies. This happens more in northern states. In southern states servants were often African American women. These women were often treated unfairly, they had to use the backdoor, had to use different eating utensils, and suffered sexual abuse. They were thought to have superior strength and were worked really hard. In spite of this they maintained some power because of the servant problem and lack of domestic workers. To claim this power African American women would strike at big events to emphasize white southern societies reliance on their labor.

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In what ways is any aspect of the food system racialized or gendered along the lines specified in the book?

Racialized products can be seen through commercials and in stores. For example, the KFC commercial features an African American man promoting the fried chicken. This shows that racial stereotypes still exist in today’s world. Racialized products are also seen on social media. For example, white woman are associated with having Starbucks all the time. Finally, racialized products are seen in stores. Uncle Ben’s rice depicts the “Uncle Tom” character from our country’s past. Products can also be genderized, and still are similar to our nation’s past. Woman continue to eat dainty foods and small portions. Men are supposed to eat more big and hearty meals. This can be seen in Hardee’s commercials. They portray the food to a big and hearty men and have the woman hanging all over him. Woman are advertised to only drink fruity drinks while men should drink beer.

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In what ways is any aspect of the food system racialized or gendered along the lines specified in the book

Sexism is shown through commercials depicting women cooking, eating and sexualizing the food, whereas meat commercials try to appeal to men. Products such as Aunt Jemima depict race because she’s like a black servant/maid, now a days she is looked at more as a grandmother figure. Lots of chef shows have males as the host, where in cooking shows, the women are known as cooks. Rarely are women chefs seen as chefs. Certain races and cultures are assumed to liking certain types of foods, when many people just like different foods. As the saying goes, you are what you eat, it can lead to many gender based and racial stereotypes in the food industry.

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#themester2014 #AMST-A100

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First Look: Edward Lee's Cookbook, Smoke & Pickles

Chef Edward Lee — of 610 Magnolia and the recently opened Milkwood in Louisville, Kentucky — doesn't like the word "fusion." "Not...

Prep for Chef Lee's visit to our class on September 10. Be mindful, this is not the assigned reading, so scroll down and find that.

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Watch now: The Mind of a Chef | Season 3 Preview | The Mind of a Chef | PBS Video

Tune in for the third season of The Mind of a Chef, premiering this September on PBS.

In preparation for Chef Lee's visit to our class on Weds, Sept. 10.

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Rep. Robert Aderholt: We're throwing schools a lifeline

The 10 lines in this bill merely provide a temporary, one-year waiver only for school districts that can prove a six-month operating loss.