User:Tuanle~enwikiversity

=Analytical Writing=

Statement of Intent


Overview


Rationale


Publication


Schedule



 * 1) week 2
 * 2) week 3
 * 3) week 4
 * 4) etc.

Anticipated Problems


Week 6 Project Review


Before Or During Week 6

 * Fashion window displays
 * Each window: What I learned from this window. What to do differently.
 * Meat production in the US
 * Personal essay about differences between food in Vietnam and U.S.
 * Using Food Inc. as a source.


 * Visit the tutoring center for English help.

Project
<The Ugliness of Conventional Farming Aj (Tuan Le) During the Great Depression, food became a very costly commodity due failures in food cultivation caused by dust bowls and droughts. Hence, death rate became so high and food supplies gradually depleted (Steinbeck). America as well as other countries feared that the prolongation of this condition would become a dilemma to human survival, so scientists devised a way to relieve this stress by engineering plants and livestock to optimize food production in order to accommodate any future food shortage. After World War II, technology and new inventions started to emerge quickly that it provided a mean to increase the family size, especially during the baby boomer era. On the new horizon of booming technology, scientists explored a possibility to increase food production with the use of growth hormones and antibiotics. Whether they are synthetic or natural, the hormones showed that the treatment improved the growth rate of animals being treated. In America, this practice of growth stimulants was limited to sheep, cattle, poultry and swine only. Two methods of introducing these growth stimulants into the interested animals were used in conventional farming. The first method involved adding growth hormones into the feedstock as addictives. Consequently, this boosted the economic importance by raising a significant profit for producers. The presence of hormones improved the quality of the meat by reducing the deposition of fat, hence produces a leaner meat that most consumers desire. As for the producers, they benefited much more because hormones increase the efficiency of nutrient absorption and feed utilization. In other words, it allows more growth with less feedstock. Consequently, the cost to both consumers and producer is so much reduced. However, the public health raised many issues concerning the safety regarding these hormones. Typically, women who regularly eat beef, tend to give birth to boys with lower-than-normal sperm count and to girls with an early onset of puberty, which may create health complications such as breast or other forms of cancer. Hence, the animals about to be slaughtered to provide meat would be fed with feedstock that containing no feed addictives for at least one month prior to being slaughtered in order to reduce the residue in the edible tissues. Hence this practice of hormone treatment may endanger consumers since it poses a potential risk to human health if the amount of residue remains significantly in the meat. The second method substantially reduces the level of addictive residues with the use of implantation. This technique involves an injection, usually administered at the base of the ear. The implantations are removed from the treated animals at least a month prior to being slaughtered to ensure the adequate elimination of residues. Furthermore, hormones were also used in the milk industry to increase milk production. Through treatment, the animals were under tremendous stress because their lactation periods were prolonged and their immune system became weak. They became more susceptible to diseases such as inflammation of the udders. With this condition, the udders produce pus and hence it would contaminate the milk. Producers then treated these cows with antibiotics. As a result, the residues of these antibiotics in the milk promote a potential risk to those who consume milk because these residues help develop the antibiotic resistance bacteria in human and other forms of cancer. These supplements also reduced the fertility in the animals as well as increased the risk of developing signs of lameness, a condition in which the animals fail to move in a regular and sound manner on all four feet. Aside from being fed with antibiotics, artificial drugs and other genetically modified foods, cattle in industrial farms were also fed with the ground-up remains of their same species. This allowed the spread of the mad cow disease, which is a horrific condition that destroys the nervous system and the brain. The consumers can contract the disease if they consume the cows with this condition. Furthermore, these farms produce so much manure that promotes a risk to human health. Since industrial farms involve large-scale farming, they overspill manure containing hormone and antibiotic residues into the environment, contaminate wells with E. coli and other pathogens. These hormones may upset the ecosystem and may find their way back into the human body through the improper treatment of the water system. Being raised in Vietnam, I was accustomed to organic foods and animals were raised in an open space. After I set foot onto the United States, I was so overwhelmed with anticipation from the experience of freedom and multi-cultural aspects of the country. I have always believed that the United States is a melting pot of the world and I do really enjoy different ethnical foods it has offered. However the meat texture in these foods gave me a completely unexpected experience. The taste of the meat, derived from its texture, relied solely on how animals were being raised. I was grown to see animals raised in a free-ranging environment where they wander freely in the open space and are fed with natural feedstock. Although it may take as much as twice longer for these animals to reach their stage for the slaughter house, the quality of the meat is far more superior. The texture of the meat is so dense that when I bit on it, it felt like there was a juicy flavor of sweetness gusting out and filled my entire mouth. On the contrary, the meat in America is both soggy and dried at the same time. The fibers of the meat come apart easily and they do not retain any moisture to keep them flavorful or tender. It gave me an experience of chewing on dried rubber which loses its ability to hold everything together. As for the chicken and swine raised in Vietnam, their skin is a little chewy and compacted with collagen but at the same time it is very crunchy as if it provides a feeling of biting into a barely steamed stalk of celery. In America, their skin is so much tender that it gave me a feeling of eating soggy and tasteless dough. I have also realized that the meat products in the United States have a very distinctive smell of artificial addictives. When freshly cooked, the meat has a faint smell of these chemicals. However, if the meat is cooled down or reheated, the smell of these chemicals becomes so strong that its reek over-dominates the food. As a result, the reheated food provides an even more distasteful experience of American meat products for me. As for dairy products, I found that eggs in Vietnam are very nutritious and tasteful. Just by observation, the egg white is so thick with pearly color and the egg yolk has a very deep and attractive orange color as compared to American eggs with watery egg white and light orange egg yolk. Once boiled, eggs in Vietnam have a very soft collagen-like texture and the yolks are tightly packed with a hint of collagen as well. When I had a hard-boiled egg, the experience was so mesmerizing as if I had eaten a soft collagen together with a tender, creamy and flavorful yolk. The American hard-boiled eggs taste nothing compared to what I had familiarized with. The egg white is so soft and has no taste, whereas the egg yolk tastes very chalky and dried and it comes apart easily. I also remember my very first experience with American milk that changed my perspective about drinking dairy milk completely after that. Before arriving to the United States, I had accustomed to freshly warm milk which provides a very creamy texture and soothing feeling. In America, milk used to taste and smell very chalky. I later learned that milk had carried some antibiotic residues that resulted in such awful taste and smell. Also, the American dairy industries have employed regulatory method, known as pasteurization technique, to prevent diseases and sickness caused by the impurity in the milk. Consequently, the radiation denatures some proteins in the milk and hence it produces a tasteless feeling. Later on vitamin D becomes a vital ingredient in the milk because this supplement enhances the efficient absorption of calcium into the body. With all these long-term benefits added to the milk production, the immediate taste of the milk reduces dramatically from nutritiously soothing to tasteless and chalky. Furthermore, not only biological supplements pose a health issue to the general public, the use of chemicals in agriculture also raises a controversy about its effects. No matter how the pesticides are used, they still end up in the air and in the bodies of farm workers. The most well-known pesticide used was organophosphate, which had become associated with many acute health conditions such as abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, headaches, as well as skin and eye problems. Furthermore, exposure to these pesticides is linked to other more severe health problems, such as respiratory problems, memory disorder, cancer, depression, and birth defects. Hence many health-conscious consumers tend to lean toward organic crops, even if they cost a little more than conventionally grown fruits because organic produces require more time and cost more money to cultivate. Many consumers believe that the quality of crops from organic system differs considerably than conventional farming. It has been favorably debated that organic food produces a higher level of dietary desirable compounds such as vitamins, antioxidants and omega-3. Simultaneously, the organic farming practice also results in a lower level of undesired compounds such as heavy metals and pesticide residues. However, these market produces also undergoes sanitization treatment of radiation to extend their shelf life. As a result of this radiation application, all the proteins in the produces are destroyed and their tastes become negatively altered. With traditional farming, fruits come in smaller size and very fewer in quantity. Also, it takes much longer for these produces to reach maturity. Consequently, a lot of flavors become concentrated in smaller fruit. Also, without being sanitized with radiation to extend the shelf life, these produces burst a mouthful of flavor once being consumed fresh. The downside to this is that their shelf life becomes very short because these produces still have their active degrading proteins. Finally, organic and traditional farming system contributes less damaging to the ecosystem and it reduces the spread of potential health risk to consumers for many reasons. These farms do not use synthetic growth stimulants in their animals and they take steps to minimize health risks such as mad cow disease and bacteria resistance in human. The animals on these farms are fed only with genetically unmodified hay, grain concentrates, and feed pastures which do not include any feed additives or antibiotics. As for crops, these farms do not release synthetic pesticides into the environment because some pesticides may result in potential harm to soil, water, local wildlife, and as well as human.

Bibliography Food Inc. Dir. Robert Kenner.”2009,film. Nguyen, Kyle. Personal Interview by Aj Le. Feb 26 2010. (Kyle is majored in Biology) Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: The Penguin Group, 1992.