A Look Back...

This has been a very educational term for me. I think I have learned some very valuable things during this course that I plan to apply to my life. Other things, I have to admit; unfortunately will probably be ignored for that ever present issue of time and convenience. The readings were some of the most interesting ones assigned to me since freshman English where we read Dante’s Inferno (how can a trip through the circles of Hell not be interesting!?). The books provided me with some very eye opening moments, as well as some new insights into food which is something that all of us can relate to. Everyone eats! It’s our “common ground” as Sophie’s blog is so accurately titled. I plan on giving my mom Omnivore’s Dilemma for her birthday/mother’s day (yes, I combine the two… the days are only 3ish apart for her). I think she would really find this interesting and my dad too for that matter since his health is not the greatest. When a person comes into some very important knowledge, they want to share it, and that’s how I feel about the things that I have learned in this class. The readings were definitely my favorite part of the class. It would have probably been the group project, because I was very happy with how our poster came out, but group work proved rather stressful as usual. My group people were all involved; however, I was the only person in my group who made every meeting we scheduled outside of class making me the constant. This meant that at the next group meeting, part of it was spent recapping what went on at the last meeting for the “new” group who could make this one, while knowing that the same thing would take place at the next one because someone else was missing from this one. I understand that scheduling conflicts are a problem; we all have lives outside of school, which makes coordinating group work very difficult. But we did the best we could with the time we had and I think our final product turned out really good. I was not able to make it to the actual farm tour, but I was very involved in everything leading up to that such as generating questions to take to the farmer, and everything after: typing up farmer responses from Casimira’s notes, and writing the text for the poster with the help of Casimira and Iana. I think one of the most challenging aspects of the group work after the group members’ absences and scheduling conflicts, was communicating with farmers, and People’s staff. I tried to set up a tour with 47^th St farms and my calls were not returned, which was a bummer because, as fore mentioned, I REALLY want to be able to go out to at least one farm.

Overall, I feel like I contributed greatly to my group’s project. I was a stable, consistent, member of our group and helped a lot with the poster and the process, and the research into the benefits of local organics and how our poster can help increase interest in locally grown produce.

I roughly documented my hours for this class weekly and was averaging around 12 hours a week for this class. I don’t want to put a whole log of hours, because I feel like it would be redundant and unnecessary to list the hours and things done during those hours because the majority of that time is tied up in reading (I’m a slow reader). I did go to the immigration forum, and would like to point out that I was the only person from our class to go, and spent lots of time meeting outside class with my group members. If I had to give myself a grade, it would be a “B”. I admittedly don’t think I put in the amount of work required for an “A” but do feel like I accomplished a “B” level of work for this class. Thank you for a great term Pedro, I learned a lot!

Assignment 4

During the course of this class we have talked lots about the disconnect people have from their food. People don’t really think beyond the fact that their food is coming from the supermarket. Where is MY food coming from for that matter when I go to Safeway and pick up some broccoli or some lettuce? Where are the soy beans being grown that make up the tofu that I constantly stock my refrigerator with? It’s a very common problem. People, me included, need to start paying attention to where the things we put into our bodies are coming from. In Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan writes, “When did we get to a point where we need investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from?” And it’s true, even if I did decide to only buy foods that I knew where they were coming from; it would be trickier than just that. Therefore, food knowledge is a big problem in this day and age. A co-op like People’s is there to help you know more about the food you are putting into your body, and helping to make sure that that food is relatively healthy and cruelty free. When perusing the produce section at peoples, all the items have the location that they are grown listed on the tag. If the farm that grew the food is local, of which there are many; it too is listed on the tag. For our group project, we want to take this knowledge one step further. We plan to research why eating locally grown organics is important in general, whether that be in terms of the environment, the economy, or health. The knowledge gained will be used to take intelligent, insightful questions to a local farmer and while touring the farm, have a discussion about issues that farmers are facing. We want to learn about the farmer and be able to bring back the knowledge we gained and present it to the People’s customers so that they can receive answers to questions that they may have but lack the time to go straight to the source themselves.

I would expect that there are many reasons why local organics are important with the most important to me personally being health and environment. In an Environmental Sustainability class that I took before, we talked a lot about the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico where the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf. The hypoxic environment there kills everything because of the excessive waste, fertilizer, pesticides, and sediments running into the river from all the farms along its banks.

For our presentation at the end of term, we would like to have a poster for possible use in the store that has a picture of the farmer at his farm with some general information about their personal philosophy. Something simple that will serve as an efficient way to try and bring the farmer into the coop to “meet the people” so to speak.

I personally would like to be involved in all aspects of this project. I would like to visit the farms and help with the design of the ad; I want to be as helpful as possible to my group.

I think this project touches on each of the University studies goals. For example, diversity of human experience: we are learning about a farmer which is a very different lifestyle than the majority of us lead. Ethics: there are many ethical issues surrounding local organic foods versus regular non-organic foods from a regular supermarket, which we have discussed in great lengths during the course of this class. Communication: we are planning on providing the communication between the consumers at People’s and the farmers who are growing their food. And finally, critical thinking: I feel like all the things listed before tie back into critical thinking. Looking at two sides of the food issue and finding which side makes more sense.

Assignment 3

In a world where there is an endless variety of foods available to us, at anytime of day or night, the question of what to eat for a meal is harder than it seems. Our society is so fast paced these days it tends to cause us to make choices for our meals based on conveniences. I thought it was so interesting to listen to Michael Pollan talk about how “cheap” food is not actually “cheap.” It comes at such a high cost when you factor in the price of transportation, the effects of pollution on the environment, and the sacrifice we are making of our health.
Will today in class was talking about the different tens of thousands of regulations that are implemented in the food industry regarding the handling and growing of foods, but nothing to do with the taste and nutrition. I think after reading Michael Pollan, and Marion Nestle, what to eat with every meal needs to start with thinking. We need to start slowing down and thinking long enough to plan out what we want to eat instead of grabbing something on a whim. When fast food is no longer a stable of an everyday diet, we save money, and help our health as well. We also need to be understanding where our food is coming from. The environment suffers when we buy food that has been shipped to different places twice over. Local food, or at least food that is coming from places closer to home, less gas is consumed and less emissions are produced. Michael Pollan, in the future of food special feature talks about the Dead Zone, and how it is resulting from fertilizer run-off going into the Gulf of Mexico and causing a hypoxic zone where nothing can grow. These are things that, having taken an Environmental Sustainability class I had heard about, but many people have no idea. Education is so important to the health of Americans. We need to be more aware about the things that are really bad for us. We need to have our government and the food industry not trying to help each other make a buck and make them start looking out for the health of our country! I get so angry when I think about how deceptive everything to do with the food industry is! I’m going to go ahead and say that Americans, in addition to eating more whole foods and knowing where our food is coming from, we need to be having education on food for our meals!
Coops are a good source for the types of changes that I am talking about. They are organized by people who are looking out for themselves and their friends, instead of looking to lie as much as possible to make a few bucks. I REALLY liked Will’s comment about coops during class in response to the question “what is the future of coops?” He said, “There is no future without coops.” I think according to the 7 principles coops can survive. There is evidence just in the amount of coops that are operating successfully throughout the U.S. Still continuing on the theme of education, I think this is fairly crucial to coops continued success. People need to be more aware of the service that coops are providing and the reason that this service is being provided. If more people were aware of how deceptive the food industry is being, and the type of loopholes that they have left in the food regulation system so things are most profitable for themselves, then more people would be interested in coops.
The future of the natural food industry I think would be on the rise. For the first time since Upton Sinclair’s book “The Jungle” I feel like the food industries secrets and deceptions are being revealed. With books like the ones we are reading in class and movies like Super Size Me, more people are aware of the sorts of loopholes that are being created and what that can mean for us and our health. The health of our Nation is the thing that many people are concerned with, especially with the admission that we are facing an obesity epidemic. When something is causing obesity or threatens our health and WE KNOW ABOUT IT (crucial point) people are likely to make a change. I was in the grocery store last year, looking for some bread. I was in the process of looking at just about every single loaf of bread from every brand, trying to find bread that lacked both dairy and high fructose corn syrup. There was another lady picking up loafs of bread before putting them back down. When we had worked our way from opposite sides of the bread display and were both near the middle, she commented in a disgruntled voice, “it’s impossible to find bread without f***ing high fructose corn syrup. It was exactly what I was thinking and I was tickled to see someone who was aware of its detriments and was looking for an alternative. My round about point is that natural foods are starting to become something that more American’s are starting to seek out. I think that it will take a while until natural foods are the norm, but people starting this movement towards demanding food that is good for us, and the environment is a huge start.
People having a say in what they are being sold is People’s Coop is an enormous strength in their market place. A nameless, faceless corporation deciding what is cool, good, acceptable (and profitable) is no longer going to be the norm. It is a laid back, personable environment that doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable to be there. You feel comfortable and happy to be there doing your shopping. All these things contribute to People’s niche in the marketplace. In the future, they don’t even have to be a series of chains, but maybe one more store on the west side of the river, or just doing a little more to let the people of Portland know that there is an alternative to corporate groceries. If I hadn’t had a friend who lived in the area, I would have never heard of People’s. They are tucked away with no possibility of broadening their member owner base if no more people know that they even exist. I don’t really know what I’m saying; those are just some of my random thoughts!

Immigration Forum

I attended the Immigration Forum put on by the Multicultural Center featuring Michele Wucker tonight. It really was a very interesting lecture. It started for me when I arrived a few minutes early. I went to take my seat in the back of the room and cruised by the snack table in the back. The first thing that I noticed was that everything had a label telling what that item was (in case you couldn't tell it was a bag of pretzels by looking at it) but the first thing you read on the label was Sodexho. Even on the jug of water it said "Sodexho: water." I'm pretty sure it was just tap water though. I have a feeling this course is going to be like when I took a couple geology courses and couldn't drive down the Gorge without picking out what types of rocks lined the road as we drove along. I don't think I'll be able to go into a grocery store without looking for the tell-tale 8 or 9 on the produce stickers.

Anyway, the forum got under way by introducing Wucker and talking a little about her book called "Lock Out." She said she originally set out to write a book about the differences in immigration now and immigration 100 years ago. She wanted to point out how immigrating is part of EVERYONE's history and the history of our country shapes how immigration issues are regarded today. While researching she discovered that 100 years ago 36% of immigrants went back home to stay, whereas today, immigrants are more likely to stay in this country. Many of them sent money back and were involved in politics back home 100 years ago. But as she continued to do her research, her book turned into one that aimed more at pointing out the different misconceptions that American's have about immigration, and the different misconceptions that the immigrants themselves have about being immigrants.

Her most interesting point to me was to point out our country's idea that you can't be an American AND something else. It's not just our country's misconception but that of the people who immigrate here as well. It takes the form of a family who doesn't teach their child their native tongue or allow them to speak it because they want them to excel in English. She said she has given many talks on Dominican and Haitian hardships only to find that students of these nationalities will come up to her afterwards saying that these were the things that they had asked to hear from their own parents and they had refused to talk about them. Some families simply do not teach their children about their cultures and these things can very much hurt the families.

She presented the statistic that 12% of the U.S. population is foreign born. Many Americans seem to think that if people immigrate in than it's means 1 less job for Americans, 1 more person to crowd the schools, or one more person to take away our health benefits. But she made such a good point by saying that if our country is 12% away from having our education system, or health care system, or employment breaking down... then that's doesn't speak very highly of our systems to begin with.

Wucker was not only about highlighting the problems, but was also about solutions which was refreshing. We do not need to waste 50 billion dollars on a wall that in all actuality will never be built. She proposes that we come up with an inclusive, positive definition of what it means to be American. We don't need to find an enemy to bring everyone together and building a wall could only make things slowly worse, and worse. Real immigration, she said, has to take on some of the side effects, but also has to also stop placing the blame and take on some of the blame. If we spend 50 billion dollars on a wall, than it's 50 billion dollars we are not using fixing something else.

I very much enjoyed the talk. This is an issue that is very prominent these days, and until last June, I was fairly uninformed about. Last June I read a book by Luis Alberto Urrea called The Devil's Highway: A True Story. It's about a group of people who were lead into the desert to try and cross the border. The trip went horribly wrong with many of them dying, but it documents the hardships that drive these people to try and make these very dangerous journeys into our country, the ordeals they face along the way, and the immigration laws that are there to try and keep them out. It was an eye opening read for me, as was this talk. Wucker was a very good speaker and I would very much like to read her book "Lock Out."

Assignment 2

For me, a trip to the grocery store is usually pretty stressful. I don’t like lines, I don’t like crowds unless I’m choosing to be in a crowd, and I don’t like spending money. However, food is something that money has to be spent on, unless I suddenly start farming my own food, which won’t be happening, at least not anytime soon. On a trip to the grocery store recently, my purchases were: bagels, garlic, Prego brand organic pasta sauce, Yves brand “good ground,” veggie beef product, Imagine brand organic potato leek soup, romaine lettuce, and Izzy brand sparkling juice. My motivations were pretty innocent while cruising the aisles because I try to go to the grocery stores late when not many people are there. So I’m usually tired and just want to go home and therefore I make a list to ensure my efficiency. This also minimizes my impulse buys because I know that anytime I go into a store and buy something that wasn’t on my list then the marketing has won and they have convinced me to buy something that I didn’t need (obviously if it wasn’t on my list when I went into the store). The list serves as a filter sort of.
I bought the bagels to eat for breakfasts during the week because I don’t have a whole lot of time in the mornings… at least I don’t after I hit the snooze button about 3 times. I make sure that there is no high fructose corn syrup in them but after reading in Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma,” about the different names of the many various forms that corn can take, I found out that my bagels were not corn free containing citric acid.
The garlic was bought to use in a lot of my cooking. I like garlic a lot and it goes into a lot of the dishes that I cook. The Prego pasta sauce was to combine with vegetables and the imitation ground beef for a more interesting spaghetti sauce that also includes protein for vegans like myself and my boyfriend. That also explains the purchase of the veggie ground.
The potato leek soup I bought because I like to eat it for lunch, it’s good and fairly filling for a mid-day lunch before going back to school for classes and the romaine lettuce was bought to combine with lunches and dinners because I LOVE salads and really like how crunchy romaine lettuce is.
The only thing I bought impulsively was the Izzy sparkling juice because I was craving something that wasn’t water and the drink is sparkly like a soda but only has real fruit juices and sparkling water. There really is no marketing for those juices at Safeway and they are in the pathetic health food “section” (enter: pathetic attempt to justify impulse buy).


I made a little alteration to the assignment in the form of question #3 (eating only healthy food) because I feel like I eat healthy most of the time and I don’t eat fast food so I didn’t want to do that one. Instead I decided to look at my normal diet on a given day and examine the food that I believe to be “healthy” and find out if it really is as healthy as I think. As already mentioned I bought bagels without high fructose corn syrup only to find that they contain citric acid, another corn derivative. I also found that one of those bagels contains 23% of my daily recommended intake of sodium, and 19% of my daily recommended intake of carbs (I couldn't help but think of Super Size me where the nutritionist notes that one bagel these days is equal to eating 5 pieces of bread). For lunch I had a romaine lettuce salad with dressing that I made using a seasoning mix added to canola oil, water, and organic brown rice vinegar that I provided. Seems healthy enough although upon further investigation the seasoning packet contains both xanthan gum and maltodextrin which come from corn. My concern with corn comes from Pollan noting that while the farmer he spent the day with did not grow genetically modified organisms, the neighbor farmer was growing them. When they sold them at the farmers coop, all the corn got mixed together so the corn we are consuming on a daily basis, whether we know it or not, is very likely to contain GMO’s. The dressing, when mixed, contributed another 14% of my daily recommendation of sodium and 22% of the fat content. I also had some of the Imagine brand Potato leek soup. This contained all organic components, no corn products but also gave me another 23% sodium (I like salty things!!!). Finally, for dinner I made stir fry with broccoli, mushrooms, onions and garlic, none of which were organic, served over Basmati rice with a store bought stir fry sauce. The sauce was the only “bad” thing in the stir fry and it wasn’t that bad except it had another 21% of sodium and contained both modified corn starch and xanthan gum.
Overall, at the end of the day I felt great. I tend to get busy and forget to eat so having to be sure to eat three real meals, or close to real meals, I felt energetic and well. I was shocked however to find out the corn was in almost EVERYTHING I ate that day.

I went to Whole Foods. And first off, I like Whole Foods because it is somewhat close to my home and it’s a place where, as a vegan, I can get everything I want instead of visiting lots of different places, however, it's still a little pricey for my college kid budget. I would love to be able to shop at People’s but I just can’t justify driving over to the other side of the river to shop. However, after reading more about People’s and then visiting Whole Foods I can see how Whole Foods tries, like regular supermarkets, to get you to buy things you don’t need. For example, Marion Nestle has talked about how Whole foods has flowers near the front, and sure enough, there they were. They give you the impression that anything you buy from them is great for you and great for the environment when really, there is a large amount of produce that is not organic and their chain is coming out with more and more stores across the country. That seems like a ploy to draw in people that don’t buy organic due to the high price by giving the option to buy non-organic and thereby first roping someone into the store. They have chocolates and such by the cash registers to facilitate people the impulse buy. Overall, after reading more of Marion Nestle, it is just more obvious that Whole Foods is turning into a corporate business more concerned with their bottom line than looking after the health and well being of it’s customers. People’s, though it is a business, does have a MUCH more people oriented feel to it.

I don't like having the feeling that when I go into a grocery store, the store is out to get me. Whether it is trying to get me to buy things I don't need, that aren't good for me, or that I don't really want, that is how it is these days in pretty much every store you go into. Why aren't the grocery corporations or the people in our country concerned with the fact that 60% of all adults in the U.S. are overweight as I learned in Super Size Me? Or that obesity is the second leading cause of death in our country, second to smoking (also learned from the film)? Why are we being deceived on a daily basis about what we should eat and how much of it we should eat?

I thought it was SO fascinating to read about dairy in Marion Nestle's book because we are ALL brought up under the impression that dairy is something that you MUST have. And not just a little bit of it, but a lot of it. I'm vegan and chose to be that way after taking a philosophy class on our obligation to animals. My switch to vegan-ism was perhaps made easier for me due to the fact that I am VERY allergic to milk and have been since I was about 8. Not lactose intolerant, but allergic (imagine throat swelling, not being able to breathe, the whole works). My other vegan friends like to think of me as their canary. In the same way that a canary was kept in the mines to detect carbon monoxide, I can effectively demonstrate if something contains dairy or not within taking a bite of it. Anyway, back to the point. Even I have thought that I desperately need calcium supplements and that I was doing my body this HUGE detriment by getting lazy about taking them. Turns out that the components of milk both encourage the intake of calcium and facilitate it's excretion. I thought it was crazy to learn that Americans' notoriously high intake of protein, is in fact what is requiring the high intake of calcium because protein causes the excretion of calcium. A specific example of my own supermarket deception would be this false impression that we are not in fact consuming GMO's because we think that they will be labeled when really there is no requirement to label these things. Really, this is basically another example from Marion Nestle, paired with the inclusion of most likely GMO corn being used in everything as pointed out by Michael Pollan. It's really just been an eye opening experience so far and I'm sure this journey will continue to be that way.

Log on the Blog!

Jan 18th review of hours thus far:

I'm just going to give a quick overview of what I have been up to for this class since I'm just getting this thing up and running and then, as time goes on, I will be more informative of my log of hours for this class.

Last week, after the class that was held at People's I was not able to wander around and look at things because I had a meeting with my advisor regarding graduation. However, later that weekend I went back for my semi-weekly ritual of going to get the Black Sheep vegan Blueberry Cornmeal muffin. I love those!! And in the process of going back, I browsed for a bit, I'm familiar with People's, but for the first time ever I really LOOKED at all the things that they offer, not just the things that I'm looking for. After about 30 minutes of browsing, I still didn't feel like I'd seen everything. I definitely have a renewed appreciation for the range of products that they offer.

This week, also, with snowy weather making me long for home (Alaska) and causing me to play outside, it also caused me to get cold, and therefore come inside and sit by the fire. I spent about four hours (that may not sound like much but, when in a house of rowdy college kids all excited to not be in school, that's a long time) reading the course material. It's a start and I think is enough to really peak my interests about the things to come!

Assignment 1

Wow, so let me say first and foremost that this has already been an adventure. I was planning on posting this on Tuesday afternoon until the snow day happened and without Internet at my house, this did not happen until Thursday when I could finally make it to school, so there is my excuse for this being late. I spent lots of time reading on Monday to ensure that I had fully taken in what I had read in all of the material because my mind has a tendency to wander. But here it goes, my first attempt at a blog in assignment form:

In Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma, he talks about what originally motivates humans towards their various food choices originally began with memory and our taste buds. When we still had to forage for our food, we relied on our memory to steer us away from things that had on a prior occasion made us sick. The taste buds were relied on to detect the things that taste sweet and usually indicated things with carbohydrates that could therefore energize us. These days, I suppose it's similar. We remember the things that makes us sick, for example, when I was little I was allergic to dairy. I relied on remembering that eating caused my throat to swell to prevent me from further causing myself harm on later occasions. That probably demonstrates this on the most primitive level, the thing more likely to motivate my food choices these days is just this: I like things that taste GOOD. I try to be healthy and pay attention to the things that my diet needs to consist of. For example, as a vegan, I need to pay attention and ensure that my diet is still containing sources of protein and iron, however, ultimately, the things that taste good are going to win out. When faced with the question "to eat or not to eat," even if, as a biology major, I know physiologically how my body is responding to something that is not necessarily healthy for me, the "to eat," usually wins out over the "not to eat," if it tastes good and I like it.

Marion Nestle in her "What to Eat" book, seems to be pointing out that the things that drive our food choices are how they are presented to use. For example, she talks on page 12 about the results of some marketing research whose goal is to discover what, semi-subconsciously, drives Americans to eat/buy more. She mentions the findings being these 7 things: we are motivated to eat as a result of:

1. Convenience
2. Ubiquity
3. Proximity
4. Frequency
5. Variety
6. Larger Portions
7. Low Prices

I've even heard rumors that color choices of restaurants (such as the red and yellow of McDonald's) causes us to subconsciously crave food, even when we are not actually hungry. The point being, in a round about sort of way, being that Marion Nestle believes the food industry to be responsible for structuring our desires on the subliminal level. So is it true? Is it mind over matter when it comes to our food choices? Are we having our food choices decided for us by our brain's susceptibility to subliminal cues? It's definitely something to think about.

From what I have gathered/read/known, a cooperative is a setting (whether, as the course pack mentions, it is a good, service, or an opportunity to share something) where these things can be provided with the people dictating what is provided and how, and then helping to provide it for themselves and the manner in which it is provided to them.

My first impression of People's post expansion model is that they are meeting a lot of their goals currently, or it appears that way. I have to admit I was a little thrown by how much their outline of their expansion plan focused on highlighting the increased profit that would result from this expansion. For example, in part 5. Design and Construction, under the subheading "Interior Changes," under 3 of the four further sub headings there is a mention of either increasing sales, or mention of targeting consumers who statistically spend more at People's and making changes to appeal to them to further increase their sales. I guess this is normal, and the course pack when describing co-ops talked about how co-op's were businesses and that the more successful ones regarded themselves as businesses. As I said though, I was just a little caught off guard, I guess not in a bad way. I think they are indeed running a strong business and enjoy their store. I have been going there for about a year just because it is such a good place to get various vegan options and I LOVE the Black Sheep vegan cornmeal blueberry muffins they carry. YUM!

I'm not sure I'm understanding question 4 correctly, but this is my response to what I think it's asking:

People's is a version of cooperative known as "consumer owned" and currently prides itself as having approximately 2000 member owners and is democratically managed. The management is divided into teams that work together to manage the store more efficiently. They also pride themselves on being sustainable as exemplified by their green building additions and the various products they carry. People's store seems to market themselves to the members and the general consumers by offering, for the first time, a choice in what your store carries. The "one member, one vote," principle discussed in the class held at people's is a very appealing idea. They also offer lots of options for those people that are environmentally conscious which is slowly becoming more and more of the population. I look forward to learning more about this topic!