interesting parts in others short essay 5

I read Ying's and Difei's short essay 5 today. Ying is mainly focus on talking about the positive and negative effect of the soft drink. The most interesting part I found is that the soft drink still have some positive effect. Based on my own perspective, I only think that the soft drink is harmful for out health. However, Based on Ying's research, she said that the caffeine contained in soft drink can quickly recharge ourselves and can help to build bones. From Difei's essay, he mainly talk about the yogurt. The most interesting part in his essay is that he said the yogurt can protect us from disease, especially colon cancer. In my mind, I just treated the yogurt as a kind of dessert and I never thought about the nutrients contained in yogurt. So after reading Difei's essay, I believe I learn more about yogurt.

Eating like a omnivore

In Pollan’s article, “Unhappy Meals”, Pollan’s opinion about the American contemporary food issue is that the American people’s eating habits is not healthy enough in recent years. More and more people just eat what they like to eat but they pay no attention on the healthiness or nutrients of the food. He gave out several advices to improve the American eating habits, and to be more specific, I want to mainly discuss two of them.

First, according to Pollan’s opinion, he said “Avoid food products containing ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, and contain high-fructose syrup” (page 16). These three parts ingredients are not harmful themselves, but if they are processed, they can be really harmful to us.

Second, Pollan said that “eat mostly plants, especially leaves” (page 16). As we all known, the plants absolutely contain less calories than meat. According to Pollan’s perspective, he believed that the vegetarian is healthier than carnivores. So he agreed with this conclusion: change the plants as the main dishes on our tables in order to become healthier.

However, another author, Dupuis, showed different opinions. Dupuis disagree with Pollan’s perspective. He said “Injustice is worth serious attention, but diet won’t do the trick” (page 43). Unlike Pollan, Dupuis’s main idea is that people should not consider much about the healthiness and nutrients of the food. Our eating habits should follow our heart, our taste. Consider much is a waste of time.

Nowadays, the eating habit of American people is become more and more unhealthy. Some people only eat meat while some people only eat vegetables. Based on my perspective, I believe that become omnivore is the best choice. People should eat both meat and vegetables every day so that they can receive enough vitamin and calories. Maybe this is the best way to become a healthy person. 

Eating tomatoes means eating health

       Since I keep recording my own eating journal last week, I found out some really interesting facts: I ate tomatoes almost every day. According to several people opinions, the vegetable is always the green color and with leaves. But in my mind, the tomato is also a kind of vegetables. However, different from other kinds of vegetables, the tomato is red, a little bit sweet, juicy, and contains lots of nutrients. The reason why I like to eat tomatoes is that first, I like sweet things, but I also care about my weight, which means I cannot eat so many sweet things. So the tomato becomes my best choice. Second, because the tomato is juicier than any other vegetable, so it become one of the most popular vegetables on my eating habits. I eat tomatoes every day because it is one of my favorite foods. Because the tomato is tasty and full of nutrients, I sincerely advise everyone to add the tomato in your eating recipe. However, there is still two questions exist. When we eat tomatoes, what kind of nutrients did we get? What are the nutrients used for? So I did the following research to find out the answers.

       Tomatoes are now eaten widely all over the word. Many people believe that eating tomatoes is great for their heart, among other organs. After doing several experiments, the scientists finally found out that the tomato contained so many carotene lycopene, which is one of the most powerful natural antioxidants that can defeat the cancer. In the same time, the lycopene is also been found to improve our skin’s ability to protect against harmful UV rays (Tomato dishes “may protect skin”). Besides the advantages of prevent from the cancer and improve the skin’s ability, the nutrients tomatoes contain also plays significant roles in human body. It contains large amount of vitamin C and beta-carotene; it also contains large amount of mineral manganese and vitamin E. (Tomatoes, par. 5). All these nutrients are really good for our health, especially our bone health. So in order to prevent from the cancer disease, we’d better eat tomatoes. For the women who care about the beautiful, they can also eat some tomatoes to improve their skin’s ability in a natural way and make themselves more beautiful.

       Building on the nutrients of tomatoes further, tomatoes also have some medical properties. As I said before, the lycopene contained in tomatoes is a great weapon to kill the cancer diseases. So in medical field, according to Rao and Balachandran’s perspective, tomato consumption has always been associated with decreased risk of breast cancer, head and neck cancers and might be strongly protective against neurodegenerative diseases (Nutritional Neuroscience 5). In fact, cooking tomatoes can release more lycopene from the tomato cells than the raw tomatoes. So it is better to eat cooking tomatoes rather than just eat raw tomatoes. A very special kind of tomatoes called jumbo tomato can effectively reduce the high blood pressure because it contained lots of potassium (Medicinal Applications of Tomatoes, par. 13). As we all know, the potassium can reduce the high blood pressure. So for the older people, especially the older people who have the high blood pressure, eating jumbo tomatoes is a great choice.

       In the United States, Florida and California are the top two fresh tomato producing states, together comprising over two-third of the total U.S fresh tomato acreage (Commodity Profile: Tomatoes, fresh market, par. 2). Nowadays, the demand of the tomato in United States increased heavily. More and more people recognized the importance of the tomato and became the “tomato eaters”, just like me. However, the ways people eat tomatoes are different. Some people prefer to eat raw tomatoes while others prefer to eat cooked tomatoes; some people would like to eat tomato sauces instead. But, whatever the way people choose to eat tomatoes, their main purpose is the same. People want to receive the nutrients contained in tomatoes to keep them healthy. The women would like to eat tomatoes because they want to keep their skins beautiful; the older people like to eat tomatoes because it can prevent them from high blood pressure and cancer diseases.

       With the help of the high technology, nowadays, tomato growers plant several different kinds of tomatoes. For example: beefsteak tomatoes, which is widely used in sandwiches; plum tomatoes, which is mainly used in tomato sauces; cherry tomatoes, which is smaller than other tomatoes; Campari tomatoes, which is low acidity and lack of mealiness. The cherry tomato is my favorite tomato because it is easy to deal with. All I have to do is clean them and then eat them. In our modern society, the tomato is an indispensable vegetable on our tables. It almost becomes a symbol of health. More and more people realize the nutrients that contained by tomatoes is really great for the health, so they would like to spend more money buying tomatoes. 

My own food journal

May 8^th, Tuesday, sunny

Get up at 9:30 am

10:00 am (breakfast time) ----- An apple and a bottle of skim milk (FAT FREE!!!), a piece of bread with some peanut better.

12:10 pm (lunch time) ----- Some tomatoes and cabbage, corns and an egg, little French fries and a piece of pizza, a cup of vanilla soy milk, and a small piece of brownie.

1:50pm ----- A cup of ice latte with three packages of no calories sugar.

5:00 pm (dinner time) ----- A piece of fish, an hamburger, some cucumbers and cabbage, a cup of water, an banana.

9:45 pm ----- Some chips and two cups of water.

May 9^th, Wednesday, cloudy

Get up at 9:50 am

10:20 am (breakfast time) ----- A cup of white chocolate mocha

2:10 pm (lunch time) ----- Two pieces of bread and a piece of cheese, some tomatoes and cucumbers, some chicken and a cup of coke

3:40 pm ----- An apple

5:30 pm (dinner time) ----- An egg, some cucumbers and carrots, French fries and some fried chicken, a cup of orange juice and a cupcake with a fresh strawberry and some peanuts.

10:00 pm ----- Some cookies and three cups of water

May 10^th, Thursday, sunny

Get up at 10:00 am

No breakfast that day.

12:10 pm (lunch time) ----- An hamburger, some French fries, some cabbages and tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, a cup of chocolate soy milk and an banana.

4:20 pm (dinner time) ----- A piece of bread and a piece of cheese with a cup of diet coke and some fresh watermelon cubes.

8:50 pm ----- chips and water

May 11^th, Friday, cloudy (REALLY COLD)

Get up at 11:00 am

12:00 pm ----- A cup of white chocolate mocha

2:00 pm (lunch time) ----- An piece of bread and a cup of hot water

EXPECTING ON THE BIG DINNER TONIGHT!!!

Strawberry: My Own Favorite Fruit

      Last Friday, when I finished my writing class, I felt really hungry. So I went to the dining hall in Centennial Halls to get something to eat. Fortunately, there were some strawberry cakes served in the dining hall that day, so I took one piece. I ate the strawberry cake happily and enjoyed the fresh strawberries on the top of the cake a lot. I am that kind of girl who loves to eat strawberries. Not only because the strawberry tastes sweet, but also because the strawberry contains so many nutrients. Now the only thing I know about strawberry is that it is full of nutrition. However, other important properties of the strawberry are still mysteries to me. So, in order to find out other important properties of the strawberry, I have to search and analyze the history and production of the strawberry.

       My high school history teacher once said that “knowing the history of one thing makes us better understand this thing”. It is true. So in order to better understand the property of the strawberry, we have to analyze the history of the strawberry at first. In the early history, the strawberry had not been seen as a kind of fruit. People only gave the name to the strawberry, but no one actually paid any attention to it (Dallow, par. 1-2). In Dallow’s book, he explained that Pliny (23-79 A.D) was the last known writer to mention the strawberry. “In the twenty-first book of [Pliny’s] Natural History, he listed ‘Fraga’, the fruit of the strawberry, as one of the natural products of Italy” (par. 5). However, time goes by, the strawberry became more and more popular all over the world. By the 1300’s, many French recognized the importance of the strawberry and began to plant a kind of strawberry, the wood strawberry. “In 1368, King Charles V had his gardener, Jean Dudoy, plant no less than 1200 strawberries in the royal gardens of the Louvre in Paris” (Darrow, chapter 3, PARA 7). Just like France, England was also an early admirer of the strawberry. The greatest contribution England people made to strawberry is that they changed the name of strawberry, from “Streowberige” and “Strea Berige” to “StrebereWyse” and “Strawberry”. Nowadays, the word “Strawberry” is widely accepted by the people all over the world and fruit strawberry becomes one of the most famous and delicious fruits on our tables.

       Same as the history, the production is another important way for us to analyze the strawberry. As a kind of plant, strawberry is a little bit different from other plants. It requires a fairly long-term commitment because it is normally harvested during the second, third, and fourth seasons after planting, while other plants are always harvested in their first season (Davis and Fellman). As for the management, the strawberry also requires more complex management than other plants. Davis and Fellman once described the difficulties of growing strawberries, “Growers must know the physiological needs of the crop, proper cultural practices, and identification and control of insects, diseases, weeds, and pests” (par. 6). Just because the strawberry will only be harvested in the second, third, and fourth season, so for the growers, they have to consider the cost of the strawberry and the money they will lose on the first season of the strawberry. All these factors should be considered in the production of the strawberry. So we can say that the production of strawberries is not only mainly focused on the soil condition, the brand of the prestige, or the sunshine time, but also focused on the original cost while planting strawberries. In the United States, California is the main state that produces strawberries. In the article “The U.S. Strawberry Industry”, written by Dlane Bertelsen, the author said “California produced nearly 80 percent of the U.S crop on less than half of the strawberry acreage due to higher output per acre than other States” (par. 1). So, if the people in Denver want to eat strawberries, they have to be transport from California to Denver.

       After finishing all this research, I do feel that I learned a lot in strawberry’s field. In the past, the only thing I knew is that the strawberry is full of nutrition; but now, I know something new. I know that the strawberry was first famous in France, then import to England, and finally, well-known all over the world. I also knew that the production of the strawberry is really complicated. The growers not only have to consider whether the environment is suitable for the strawberry to grow, they also have to determine whether the costs they spend are greater than or less than the benefits they receive from the strawberry. I also know that California is the biggest State that grows the strawberry in United States, so next time I decide to go on a tour, I will definitely choose California as my destination.  

With the understanding of the difficulties of the strawberry growers, I think I will cherish the strawberry I eat every day more because every strawberry contains the hard work of the strawberry growers. The strawberry is not only my favorite food, but also the greatest example for me to learn. In my studies and works, I must work very hard, just like the strawberry growers, so that I can receive the sweetest “strawberry” in the future. 

History and production of the food: compare three pieces

According to the infographic by Cook, the author mainly talked about the harmless broiler chicken in North America. The author used lots of data to analyze the bad effect of the broiler chicken. He said: “a figure based not on how quickly workers can safely do their jobs but on how quickly USDA meat inspectors can examine the carcasses” (Cook, PARA 1). He tracked for the history and production of the food by looking at the time and effect.

Different from the infographic by Cook, the introduction part of the book tomatoland mainly focus on searching the look and taste of the tomatoes. The author believed that different tomatoes grow in different area will have different taste and look. So his conclusion is that in order to find out the history and production of the tomatoes, we have to compare the look and taste of the tomatoes which grow in different places in United States.

Since Michael Pollan’s article “An Animal’s Place” analyzed the history and production of food in so many ways, I want to talk about specifically in one way. Pollan argued that the domestication and domestic animals can be seen as a mutually beneficial exchange. For example, we drink milk everyday. The milk comes from the cow. So our humans receive the benefit from the cows. However, the cows receive the benefit from us as well. We build the house for cows to live, we provide the fresh grass for cows to eat. Humans and cows all get some benefit from each other. This can be called a balance.

After reading these three pieces talk about the history and production of the food, I find a part that is noteworthy. I really like to eat chicken, no matter which part of the chicken. However, after reading the infographic of Cook, I was shocked by the harmful effect of the chicken. The data the author mentioned in his article is scared. So next time I eat the chicken, I have to consider whether this chicken is good for my health or bad for my health.