The Botany of Desire
By Michael Pollan
Published in 2001 by Random House
Today's Assigned Reading: Chapter one (p3-59)
Otherwise known as Desire: Sweetness, Plant: The Apple
In this chapter, Pollan interweaves the story of Johnny Appleseed with the history of the apple, from its roots in Kazakhstan (p53) to Europe and then over to North America (p20). He also tells of how the apples of centuries ago progressed from being bitter and inedible, useful only to be made into cider to the modern day edible- fruited apple and the success of the marketing strategy "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" (p22).
I found his narration to be a little too loose for my tastes, and somewhat hard to follow... although that may have been my fault as I was a little illucid at the time when I read this chapter. However I did find his history of the apple to be quite fascinating!
This weekend I hiked up Tranquille Creek and to my surprise in this most-travelled of destinations, I found three beaver dams, the remains of an old homestead... and one stubborn old apple tree, all bent and knarled and twisted but alive nonetheless. How long ago was it that this apple was planted, and what sort of fruit does it yield!?
And what of the ancient settler that planted it - what was their reasons for growing an apple tree not twenty feet from their front porch? In Pollan’s own words, “a taste for sweetness appears to be universal” (p19). And like the ancient settlers of yesteryear, I too desire sweetness.
It’s poetic, really, that I am sitting here reading this chapter and cursing myself for breaking my four-year fast of chocolate. Well, now I'm chowing down upon – what else – an apple, trying to get over the vertigo I am currently feeling. And why you ask, why am I experiencing such spectacular vertigo that I cannot bear to watch people moving around me, much less to move my head from side to side? Well, that’s because I cannot get over my sweet tooth. And not even a very sweet tooth I have!
Perhaps I should backup and explain. About four years ago I developed an irritating and unwanted sensitivity to sugars – white, brown, cane, maple… even honey! Immediately upon consuming even the slightest bit of sugar my head would start to spin and all semblance of concentration would be lost. So, after swiftly figuring out why I felt so ill was due to eating sugar, I reluctantly stopped. No more sugar, no more bread (which requires sugar for the yeast to make the bread rise), no more molasses cookies, no more flavoured potato chips (which I must say, are loaded with sugar)… and definitely no more chocolate.
Well, OK, every few months or so I’d break and have a little bit, perhaps some chocolate here, a cookie there… but very soon after I’d be reminded of why I stopped eating sugar in the first place and that’d be enough to get me to stop for the next few months.
So you can imagine my happiness at how over this past reading week I had more than my usual amount of chocolate-dusted roasted almonds - and felt quite fine! Perhaps I’ve out-grown the sugar issue (I thought), maybe it’s gone away on its own. So you can imagine why, on this past Sunday night when I found a chocolate bar that’d been hidden from last year that I just had to have a piece.
For me, that first bite of refined sugar, the sweetness of the chocolate – after four years in self-enforced sugar purgatory, wow. Can you blame me for eating some more??
Reveling in the sweetness I promptly I ate ¼ of the chocolate bar - it wasn’t even that big to begin with! Then I went to bed.
Well, the next morning (yesterday) when I got out of bed and stood up – that is to say, attempted to stand up... and fell back down again. Everything was spinning and it wasn’t me that was moving! This vertigo continued all through the day and into the next. Even now, it still hasn't gone away, not really. So… I guess I cannot have sugar after all :(
It's back to apples for me.
I guess what I’m trying to say with the above narrative is that I sympathize with the American settlers. With no other source of sugar but that from hard apple cider or the rare sweet-tasting apple fruit, in comparison to vegetables, those apples sure taste darn good. But with regards to that sweet tooth, how even sweeter things are desired – say cheap sugar, cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup… I can totally see why the apple tree was given up in favor of the even more compacted sweetness of refined sugar. And I can especially see how those people who, without restraint, could easily pack on the pounds. Because historically, all there was apple cider *sigh*. And I cannot even have that.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
...and the dominance of Corn
The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
By Michael Pollan
Published in 2006 by Penguin Press
New York, New York
Today’s Assigned Reading: Industrial: Corn (Chapters 1 to 7, p15-119).
In this section of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan focuses upon how corn is the primary source of calories in the American diet, albeit unbeknownst to most consumers. In this section he also explains what government policies and social pressures have resulted in corn being the most prevalent crop grown across the entire United States. In his narration, Pollan talks about how corn is grown, and where it goes after its harvested – surprisingly, its not straightforward as to how corn gets from the field to inside your stomach (p63). Specifically, the majority of corn consumed does not come from the obvious products of corn: corn starch, corn meal, or corn-on-the-cob.
Nope, most of the corn eaten is not in any form recognizable that it is in fact “corn”. That is to say, Pollan explains how the majority of corn goes to feed cows, which in turn transform kernels into meat, which we then eat (p65). What’s left of the rest of the corn harvest then goes to produce *other* compounds – high fructose corn syrup, ethanol and other alcohols, starch, plastics, and emulsifiers – which we then eat in our sodas, alcoholic beverages, fast food, and pre-packaged processed foods (p85).
Because of these unbelievable levels of consumption, Pollan states that Americans are “processed corn, walking” (p23). However I wonder – are they (we) really? I don’t think so – or at least not so in my case. For example, before writing this blog, I had a lettuce and avocado salad with apple cider vinegar, a blueberry muffin (made with butter, eggs, milk and wheat flour), and an orange. Well, unless the organic cow that produced my butter and milk or the chicken that laid my omega-3 egg were fed corn, today I’ve not eaten anything containing or made from corn. In fact, I am allergic to corn, and can barely eat a few pieces of popcorn or even a small slice of cornbread before beginning to swell up! So I think I’d know if I were eating such an unbelievable amount of corn that Pollan states Americans do (p64).
This raises a question - how did he calculate this annual amount? Was it by percentage of C13 found in our food or our bodies, or by what percent of our food’s ingredients came from corn? Or did he take the overall yield of corn for one year, divide it by the number of citizens in the USA, and say that’s how much corn they each ate? Because I have issues with all of these methods of calculations.
Firstly – the percentage of C13 in an object is, in my opinion, an invalid measure of the percent of corn within it. This is due to a basic botany fact – corn is NOT the only plant that preferentially acquires C13! That is to say, sorghum, millet and most members of the sunflower family (as well as hundreds of other species) preferentially acquire C13, too (Wikipedia article: C4 carbon fixation)! Therefore we cannot completely base our “amount of corn eaten” on the percent of C13 found in our food or bodies – because other foods NOT EVEN REMOTELY ASSOCIATED WITH CORN can contribute to this “C13 corn percentage”.
Secondly – determining the amount of corn eaten based on the amount of food ingredients that are sourced from corn is a questionable method at best. That is to say, is it valid to consider these compounds to still be “corn”, even after they have been highly processed, digested and meddled with? In Biology, we are taught that what define an organism is its DNA, genes, and the proteins it makes. Therefore if the DNA sequences, genes or protein that identify “corn” as “corn” are no longer present in these various compounds – having been separated into many tiny pieces along the way - can they still be considered “corn”?
Thirdly – by taking the average yearly harvest of corn and dividing it amongst every US citizen and saying that’s how much they each consumed is downright wrong! There are a number of reasons for which I disagree with this. Firstly, Pollan himself points out that the vast majority of the corn goes to feed cattle. Well, cattle are very inefficient at converting food into meat – therefore we can factor out a great number of calories right there (p80). Next, the processing methods applied to corn to make any number of compounds is surely not 100% efficient. For example, of every 100 corn calories going into the processing plant, likely 10 calories or less will come out and be consumed. Thirdly, a great amount of corn does not even end up in food (p85)! Who knows how much of the 10 billion bushel corn harvest goes into ethanol production (p85)! And finally, how much of this corn is abandoned or spilt, like the surplus pile observed next to the grain elevator in Farnhamville, Iowa (p58)?
Therefore while proportionally each US citizen may “consume” X-number of pounds of corn over one year, they do not do so directly by sitting down and eating those X lbs of corn over the entire year – the vast majority of these calories are processed first, whether by an animal or a factory, and either then have no guarantee of even ending up in a human’s stomach – perhaps they end up fuelling cars, or maybe are abandoned and left for rodents to enjoy.
But even with my objections to the method of calculating how much corn is eaten per American per year, that’s not to say I particularity disagree with Pollan’soverall point that Americans eat way too much corn. That much is, to me, quite obvious in his final chapter entitled The Meal: Fast Food and by how many litres of soda I’ve seen people around me consuming on a daily basis.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
The Rise of Farming...
Guns, Germs and Steel
By Jared Diamond
Published in 1999 by W.W. Norton and Company
New York, New York
Today’s Assigned Reading: Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 8 (p85 to 113, and p131 to 156)
In these four chapters, Diamond clearly explains what factors allowed hunter-gatherers to begin an agricultural life, why they did so, and what effect agriculture had upon societies throughout the world. He also explains why societies with agriculture and domestic animals have historically dominated those without, and how the development of agriculture leads to the development of complex societies, increased population, and higher technologies.
Basically, the development of farming in any area depended greatly upon what plants were around and to what extent they provided adequate nutrition, protein, and calories. If the native plants did not provide a balanced diet or not enough calories – as was the case in New Guinea (p149) or the Eastern United States (p151) – agriculture did not fully develop. But, on the other hand, if the wild plants provided abundant calories, a complete diet, and were more rewarding that hunter-gathering (as was the case in the Fertile Crescent (p146)), agriculture took off!
Cool, eh? It sure explains why there was a population explosion in Europe, thus leading to the eventual colonization (or should I say, invasion) of the rest of the world – and explains why I’m sitting here in Canada, typing away on my computer.
Now Lyn, please don’t get mad… here is where I will make a brief departure from the incredible world of plants to the amazing world of animals. I just want to point out something amusing here – all the large animals that have been domesticated by people around the world have been herbivores. Sure, dogs and cats are carnivores and pigs are omnivores, but they are pretty small.
So why then, are there are no large domestic carnivores – say comparable to the size of a cow or donkey? Who wouldn’t want a large carnivorous cow!?
Well, with regards to domestication, Diamond makes the point that first, the species present in a given area (be they animal or vegetable) had to be domesticatable and secondly, that domesticating them would provide benefits than outweighed continued hunter-gathering.
Well, our two most common animal companions represent the successful domestication of carnivorous species – dogs from wolves and cats from Egypt. So it is possible to domesticate carnivores, and there are benefits associated with them. Granted, dogs and cats are not farm animals and we don’t eat either species (er… at least not in Canada)... but they’ve been around for several thousand years so there’s gotta be a reason why we’ve kept them, right? The prevalence of cats cannot all be due to crazy cat ladies…
But seriously, why are there not any large domestic carnivorous critters – say lions or tigers or bears? In terms of availability, there are certainly large carnivores located throughout most of the globe.
Historically, any domestic animals larger than a dog – say bigger than a donkey – have all been herbivores. I mean, aside from the obvious use of these animals, I’m sure some ingenious indigenous person could figure out how to harness a bear or cougar to a plow…
But seriously, let’s first consider if this is a good idea!
Consider this – when plowing your field with your friendly pair of oxen, do you every think they might turn and EAT you? No, you don’t. Why? Because they’re herbivores. They cannot eat you (well, they may try, and oxen sure can bite, but they are not effective eaters of meat and certainly don’t see you as “dinner”).
Or, when you’re done plowing your field, you’d lead your animals to your barn or stable and feed and water them. Then you go into your house and eat your dinner, and go to sleep. But – would you wake up in the middle of the night worrying that your horses will get tired of being cooped up and may start to eat each other? NO! Because horses are herbivores and while they can kick and fight dirty, they do not do so out of a desire to eat meat.
So… that’s probably why there have not been any large domestic carnivores – they by definition eat meat and therefore are very hard for a walking dinner (i.e. a human) to control or domesticate!
And also you’d need meat to feed them, which means you’d have to raise up herbivorous critters to then feed to your carnivores… which would require far more food stuffs than one large herbivore would on its own.
But imagine, a tame bear pulling a plow…
By Jared Diamond
Published in 1999 by W.W. Norton and Company
New York, New York
Today’s Assigned Reading: Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 8 (p85 to 113, and p131 to 156)
In these four chapters, Diamond clearly explains what factors allowed hunter-gatherers to begin an agricultural life, why they did so, and what effect agriculture had upon societies throughout the world. He also explains why societies with agriculture and domestic animals have historically dominated those without, and how the development of agriculture leads to the development of complex societies, increased population, and higher technologies.
Basically, the development of farming in any area depended greatly upon what plants were around and to what extent they provided adequate nutrition, protein, and calories. If the native plants did not provide a balanced diet or not enough calories – as was the case in New Guinea (p149) or the Eastern United States (p151) – agriculture did not fully develop. But, on the other hand, if the wild plants provided abundant calories, a complete diet, and were more rewarding that hunter-gathering (as was the case in the Fertile Crescent (p146)), agriculture took off!
Cool, eh? It sure explains why there was a population explosion in Europe, thus leading to the eventual colonization (or should I say, invasion) of the rest of the world – and explains why I’m sitting here in Canada, typing away on my computer.
Now Lyn, please don’t get mad… here is where I will make a brief departure from the incredible world of plants to the amazing world of animals. I just want to point out something amusing here – all the large animals that have been domesticated by people around the world have been herbivores. Sure, dogs and cats are carnivores and pigs are omnivores, but they are pretty small.
So why then, are there are no large domestic carnivores – say comparable to the size of a cow or donkey? Who wouldn’t want a large carnivorous cow!?
Well, with regards to domestication, Diamond makes the point that first, the species present in a given area (be they animal or vegetable) had to be domesticatable and secondly, that domesticating them would provide benefits than outweighed continued hunter-gathering.
Well, our two most common animal companions represent the successful domestication of carnivorous species – dogs from wolves and cats from Egypt. So it is possible to domesticate carnivores, and there are benefits associated with them. Granted, dogs and cats are not farm animals and we don’t eat either species (er… at least not in Canada)... but they’ve been around for several thousand years so there’s gotta be a reason why we’ve kept them, right? The prevalence of cats cannot all be due to crazy cat ladies…
But seriously, why are there not any large domestic carnivorous critters – say lions or tigers or bears? In terms of availability, there are certainly large carnivores located throughout most of the globe.
Historically, any domestic animals larger than a dog – say bigger than a donkey – have all been herbivores. I mean, aside from the obvious use of these animals, I’m sure some ingenious indigenous person could figure out how to harness a bear or cougar to a plow…
But seriously, let’s first consider if this is a good idea!
Consider this – when plowing your field with your friendly pair of oxen, do you every think they might turn and EAT you? No, you don’t. Why? Because they’re herbivores. They cannot eat you (well, they may try, and oxen sure can bite, but they are not effective eaters of meat and certainly don’t see you as “dinner”).
Or, when you’re done plowing your field, you’d lead your animals to your barn or stable and feed and water them. Then you go into your house and eat your dinner, and go to sleep. But – would you wake up in the middle of the night worrying that your horses will get tired of being cooped up and may start to eat each other? NO! Because horses are herbivores and while they can kick and fight dirty, they do not do so out of a desire to eat meat.
So… that’s probably why there have not been any large domestic carnivores – they by definition eat meat and therefore are very hard for a walking dinner (i.e. a human) to control or domesticate!
And also you’d need meat to feed them, which means you’d have to raise up herbivorous critters to then feed to your carnivores… which would require far more food stuffs than one large herbivore would on its own.
But imagine, a tame bear pulling a plow…
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