CHEW ON THIS

Children of the "Great Depression."

Children of the "Big Depression."

Chew On This, Everything You Don't Want To Know About Fast Food
by Eric Schlosser & Charles Wilson

This book was listed on Amazon.com as a book for the youth. It was easy reading and clearly written. I should read more elementary - Youth books, I can understand them more easily with out thinking too hard in the early mornings when I read.

My eyes were filled with tears while reading this book for the abuse we wage upon our children of this country in the food we feed them. We are in a financial depression right now and obesity from fast foods are rampant. What happened to eating beans and rice or a baked potatoes as my parents did during the "Great Depression?" I guess we should call our modern day depression the "Big Depression." Imagine how healthy and fertile our country would be if we ate 'real' food and most importantly respected the animals and the people who bring us our food. The banks have stolen and mismanaged our monies and then the food industry is raping our health by feeding us trash and we keep voting for the selling of this food by buying it.

Never the less, these stories and other facts in the book are very sad. Schlosser writes how fast-food supports our school systems with money in exchange for installing vending machines and fast food booths on school campuses. How Ray Kroc of McDonald's scopes out locations for his restaurants by going up in a helicopter to see where all community schools are. The reporting author also highlights other such tragedies as the shipping of Coke to a remote Alaskan community of Kasigluk, We ship them coke, not water, which is scarce there, not a dentist, or even toothpaste, we ship them COKE! The once healthy Alaskans, now have rotten teeth by the age of 5 and they keep airlifting the Coke because Coke is profiting.

Why are we so obsessed with our cars gasoline and not with the fuel in our bodies? Why do we have to have the best auto and finest finger nail manicure? Then because we run out of time, we rush to a fast food corner (after the manicure)?

The feeding of millions of Americans do not have to be in the production of fast-junk-food. As long a we Americans have to eat several hamburgers a day we will keep casting that vote by that purchase for the cruel practices on animals and filling our bodies subsequently with empty harmful calories.

Quotes:

• One out of every hundred people die within thirty days of having gastric bypass surgery in America.

• A study recently found that one out of every five American toddlers eats French fries every day.

• The farmers in Idaho who grow the potatoes haven't done nearly as well. There used to be hundreds of small companies that bought potatoes, and farmers were able to wait and see who would offer the best price. But the fast-food chains (and their desire for huge amounts of fries that taste exactly the same) have made a handful of fry companies extremely powerful. The small companies have either gone out of business or been bought out. Today three companies control about 80 percent of the American market for frozen French fries. And if potato farmers don't like the price being offered by those three companies, then they're out of luck.

• The new system is good for fast-food chains. They can buy frozen fries for about thirty cents a pound and then sell them to customers for about six dollars a pound. 
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MIRACLE FOOD - BARBARA KINSGOLVER

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
by Barbara Kingsolver

A year in the life of the author Barbara Kingsolver with her family on a small property of land they set out to harvest. It is a delightful story of their trials on the land creating their own food and the book was written as lovely as poetry. More captivating than I first assumed for her investigative type of reporting as well as her recipes. I wish I had more of my own dirt right outside, but I am grateful that I live in Northern California and I shall indulge more into local and organic foods. I will do more so now to support a healthier vote of the harvesting and welfare of my neighbors produce and efforts as well as my own excellent heath and well-being upon reading this book. I loved the book.

FOOD RULES

Food Rules
by Michael Pollan

Of course Pollan is always full of information about health. He is a very thorough journalist and in this very small book, he highlights the most important food and eating facts in simple one line sentences then elaborates on a simple one page. My favorite quote, "The banquet is in the first bite. No other bite will taste as good as the first and every subsequent bite will progressively diminish in satisfaction." Basically we try to eat too much in an attempt to be satisfied and we never will.

FOOD OBSESSION

Julie & Julia
by Julie Powell

Julie was a fun writer. She has a dry sense of humor and an obsessive passion to her commitments. It is certainly not just a food novel of eating. It is her whole life for a year; her trials and tribulations with her goal to finish cooking and baking all those recipes. I do not know how she did it, but she was never bored. I enjoyed her contagious enthusiasm and appreciated the anxiety she had with her disappointments. It made me feel normal in my complex emotional roller coaster in relating with her, in these complex lives we live.