I currently am reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.
Chapter 1
Precis: How corn is a staple in our current diet. It feeds the animals that we eat and can be processed into other foods. Corn is a C-4 plant; it creates 4 carbon atom through photosynthesis while most other plants only make 3. Americans completely rely on corn. The American food chain has changed with the hybridization of corn.
Gems:
Response: I'm really understanding how big of a resource corn is to America; we use it for practically everything. I'm grasping the concepts of our food chain/system.
Chapter 2
Precis: Corn fields is where our food generally comes from. Planting rotation between soybeans and corn to keep up production. Some areas have lost a lot of their populations because of the spread of planting. Corn is slowly becoming more expensive but there is such a large population of the corn that we have to do something with it.
Gems:
Response: Corn, corn, and more CORN. I knew some of this stuff about corn before but I never thought it was possible to see the word corn on a piece of paper so many times. I do find the book a bit of a slow read; but I think that with time I'll learn to enjoy it more.
Chapter 3
Precis: Grain elevators; tall concrete structures help to move corn to railroad cars in order to transport it. The government basically runs the farms; they are one of the main money sources for farmers, they want to keep production high but prices low.
Gems:
Response: This was a fast chapter but some parts I had to re-read. Nothing extreme stood out to me in this chapter; maybe if I re-read.
No comments:
Post a Comment