WARNING GMOs INCLUDED

In our final unit of our Food class we focused on percent changes and GMOs. In this action project I present my opinion on GMOs and why they should be banned. I present some facts on how they negatively affect communities, farmers, and the environment. I really enjoyed this unit because we gt to see some great field experiences, like one to the Green City Market. I hope you enjoy.

Food: GMO Debate- IF from GCE Lab School on Vimeo.

95% of the United States’ grown sugar beets are genetically modified along with 94% of soybeans also being genetically modified. Soybeans are a large part of the American diet, so having this alarming amount of genetically modified soybeans brings up risks that can still be solved. GMOs should no longer be put into the diets of the global population. GMOs are expensive to both the farmer and the people buying it. GMOs make food desserts more common while also creating monocultures.

Genetically modified foods can be very expensive for farmers and various buyers of the foods. Farmers are sinking into debt with their equity decreasing and their debt levels rising 5.2% in 2017. Growers first sign a contract with a company that will sell their food but the equity rates keep getting lower and lower so the farmers fall into debt and they can’t leave the contract otherwise they won’t get paid. Genetically modified food is also affecting consumers of the products. Most foods that are genetically modified tend to be unhealthy, which is difficult for families to deal with. When you are a low income family your number one choice would be to buy food that is both filling and cheap instead of the expensive and small. The filling and cheap foods are so mass produced that the small healthy foods need to compete against the mass produced unhealthy foods. Still being a low income family you eventually need to cope with the unhealthy diet and obtain expensive medication. None of this would be necessary if GMOs were banned in food products.

GMOs can also cause food deserts where it can be difficult to obtain healthy foods. Food deserts typically exist in low income areas where people don’t have the money to buy locally grown food that isn’t just genetically modified foods that have been stuffed with preservatives. The low income areas usually obtain their food from cheap places that is filling and cheap, like I mentioned in the last argument the filling and cheap meals aren’t local and aren’t healthy causing these families to be unhealthy or overweight. GMOs lead to food deserts because genetically modified foods get put into low income communities so they have lower prices than organic food. Organic healthy food doesn’t sell at high prices when you can still get inorganic GMO food at low prices in low income communities, therefore making unhealthy food deserts.

Genetically modified foods are also creating monocultures. Monocultures are when one type of plant is being grown way too much and if a disease were to happen then it could possibly destroy that entire species for a short time period. GMOs cause monocultures by creating a high demand for one type of food like corn. This high demand of corn is making farmers grow more corn; the more corn grown the higher the risk of a disease wiping out the large amount of GMOs. Potatoes in Ireland fell due to a monoculture in the 1840s and the Irish starved because of it; this will most likely not happen as drastically as it happened to the Irish but it will impact us if corn gets wiped out. Corn is in everything from pop tarts, batteries, magazines, and cereal. Monocultures definitely will not be helping out our global food system.

This graph represents the rising amounts of corn being grown in Iowa compared to other foods. Orange represents the total  amount of cropping land corn is taking up. This data is only taking place in the years of 1956 - 1962. The percentage of total cropping land being occupied by corn is at 60% in 1956 an it had gone up to 64% in only 6 years; this is a percent increase of 4%. Both percentages show that we already have over half of all the pants being grown into a monoculture.

"Graph" IF 2017

A common argument use among GMO supports is that using GMOs are cheaper than growing organic food. It may at first seem this way but there are actually a lot of underlying cost to farmers. Farmers are buying GMOs, pesticides, and herbicides to grow the best plants. The more we implement GMOs into our food the more costly it gets for farmers. 

Genetically modified food should no longer be dispensed to the public because even if it is labeled it will inevitably be the number one choice for a lot of lower income people. These low income people suffer from both an unhealthy diet and can’t travel to get a better one when living in a food desert. Above all genetically modified foods are still being used today, but the underlying truth of the damage it has caused has greatly affected everyone. GMOs need to be removed from the shelves of stores and in the hands of fast food companies and replaced with local organic foods that are safe for everyone. GMOs need to be removed from food for the betterment of our low income communities and to lower the risk of a food wipe out.

Food, Inc. By Robert Kenner, Robert Kenner, Robert Kenner, Richard Pearce, Eric Schlosser, Eric Schlosser, Melissa Robledo, William Pohlad, Jeff Skoll, Robin Schorr, Diane Weyermann, Elise Pearlstein, Elise Pearlstein, Kim Roberts, Kim Roberts, Michael Pollan, Michael Pollan, Gary Hirshberg, Joel Salatin, and Mark Adler. Dir. Richard Pearce. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 May 2017.

Weise, Elizabeth. "Genetically engineered foods Q & A." USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, 28 Oct. 2012. Web. 29 May 2017.

"Assets, Debt, and Wealth." USDA ERS - Assets, Debt, and Wealth. N.p., 17 Mar. 2017. Web. 29 May 2017.

To Review Some Steaks

In this final unit of our third humanities course Food For Thought we discovered and some of he creation an destruction of what it takes to get food to us. So we created a food review to explore some home-cooked food and restaurant made food. I decided to compare steak, review steak, eat steak, and determine steak. I hope you enjoy.

Steak is a common food that is sometimes considered a high delicacy food and can other times be considered a pretty commonly eaten food for the general community. Steak is usually served as a whole slab that includes fat and can be also be ordered to the buyers preference whether its medium rare, super rare, well done, or charred. Though I don't eat steak much at all I prefer eating it a over well-done.

Home-cooked steak:

"Home-cooked steak" IF 2017

I first decided to cook and analyze the home-cooked meal of this review. I got these ingredients from a food service that sells the ingredients and provides instructions on how to cook them. I absolutely loved both the experience of cooking the food and of-course eating the food. The stake was only gently peppered and salted to the perfect amount which brought out the most and best flavors or the large steak. When I first platted the steak it was still searing, which was a already a good sign. The aroma of the steak was amazing, you could smell the dripping fried crispy outside of the steak and the peppercorn sauce that I had made to compliment the thick and firm inside. When I cut into the steak it was still very hot but it was bursting with a pungent smell of seared meat. first tasting was the best experience; I put the steak in my mouth and it felt pretty tough but juicy. The sliver of steak that I ate was well complimented by the sauce that made it taste sweet but still a bitter juicy steak. The feeling that the steak had in my mouth was also pretty fantastic because it felt chewy and smooth. The meat was well done with a crispy outside and a smooth melting away inside.

Restaurant cooked steak:
The restaurant cooked steak was also pretty amazing in many ways. I got this steak from Mariano's, which sells cooked meals that are typically pretty great. This steak was served in a piece about the same size as the home-cooked meal which was the perfect size for everyone. This steak was also sauteed the same way as the home-cooked, I had asked for well done and it was a little less done than the home-cooked meal also which I was actually quite excited for. The steak smelled crispy and an almost sweet smell to it. The smell of the sweetness was making me really hungry because it had blended so well with the fresh aroma of the potatoes that had been served along with the steak. When I first cut into the steak, my serrated knife cut through the steak with little effort. First tasting it stake was quite nice when I first tasted the juice and charred meat. I found this steak to be less juicy and filling than the home-cooked steak. The steak felt smooth and coarse as it falls apart in my mouth. Overall I was a pretty great steak that was complimented well with the potatoes it had been served with. It was an absolute adventure from the sweet smell to the dry almost tangy aftertaste; I had never had steak quite like this one.

Concluding:
After tasting both the home-cooked and restaurant steaks I picked a favorite between the both of them. My favorite steak was the home-cooked steak because it presented a lot more interesting flavors and was cooked to my perfect preference; home-cooking steak is definitely recommended. One of the most defining differences between the two steaks was the difference in texture and taste. I really enjoyed the taste of both steaks, with the home-cooked steak tasting more charred and bitter and the restaurant steak tasting more sweet.

When I analyzed the home-cooked steak from the ingredient service they included steak, potatoes, and green beans that are all organic. So the ingredients are coming from certified farmers to give us healthy not-modified ingredients. I also wanted to see if I could use the home-cooked meal in one of Michael Pollan’s five food transformations so we could recognize the quality of the food. I found that the home-cooked steak connected really well to the quality of over quantity transformation because you can get your specific quality while cooking your steaks. If you prefer well done over charred and you cook it that way that would be your high quality food. You don’t need a lot of this one steak to be satisfied, you just need your preferred high quality steak.

Food and Climate Change

In this second unit for our Food For Thought class we learned and discussed about death, greed, and how those topics relate to food. My writing was about how our global food system is being threaten by political instability. I discuss how this can effect the world, look at past examples and see how this went wrong, and analyze solutions to this problem.

Climate change is a global threat that has the world hanging by a string when it comes to environmental changes, political arguments, and most importantly global food. The global food system is the system put in place by all countries that has us all constantly trading food for money and all our efforts are put in to keep the world sustained. I believe that climate change is one of the threatening subjects to our global food systems and I plan to explain why this is, analyze historical consequences, and possible solutions to climate change.

Climate change is a very large issue in our global food system because it can mess up food transportation, food growth, and wipe out species. Climate change is one of the largest threats to our global food system because it can cause storms that can wipe out cities and food transportation methods. Climate change is the changing weather and climate patterns across the world. These climate patterns can be drastic storms like tornadoes and hurricanes. Tornadoes and hurricanes can also both wipe out growing fields and ruin transportation methods for food. This is especially a threat in the 21st century with the incline on CO2 output. Climate change also directly affect the growing process of food with more extreme changing climate such as droughts. Droughts are dry periods of time that don’t have any rain/moisture that usually results in water shortages. Droughts are clearly not wanted for growing food, that’s why we need to do something about this now. Lastly climate change is one of the largest threats to fisheries says Duncan Clark from the guardian, because some fish are already adapting to the climate change by migrating to higher altitudes but arctic fish have nowhere to go. This could be detrimental to our global food system because fish are half the world’s population source for protein.

Climate change is not new, it has taken down many civilizations before, let's not have it take down us. One civilization that had suffered the dangerous effects of climate change is the Indus civilization. The Indus civilization existed from 2600 B.C.E - 1800 B.C.E and was in what is now modern day Pakistan and Iran. The civilization was doing great until some sudden environmental changes occurred like floods, salinization, and changing rivers courses. These environmental changes had left the Indus in a really weakened place which was perfect for Central Asian raiders to come finish the civilization off. The Indus weren’t able to adapt to these drastic environmental changes. The climate change had ruined their agriculture, which had made it a struggle for existence for the Indus. Another quote that supports my research is from Empires of Food by Evan Fraser and Andrew Rimas; " Climate change, too, is a catastrophe  we hold in common with our forebears, instead of blaming sunspots and volcanoes, we have to blame our fossil fuel habit."

The Indus civilization ended due to climate change, but that doesn’t mean we need to. Unfortunately the Indus had fallen and were not able to address the situation that led to their demise. Some of the reason the Indus had fallen had been because of their own farming mistakes and methods like moving large amounts of soil. The best way for all the 21st century countries to learn from the Indus is to recognize and analyze that some methods we are doing will result to our downfall.

The best was to help climate change is to put out less greenhouse gases, which is causing climate change. The best way reduce the output of CO2 into the atmosphere is to plant more trees, create laws that can significantly reduce the CO2 output, and spreading awareness about climate change. Plants are the largest consumers of CO2, so planting more would only help us take in more CO2 to balance out our outputs. Creating laws helps us enforce and limit our carbon output, this could just be enforced to large companies that dispense a lot of CO2. spreading awareness is one of the most helpful ways to solving the climate change problem. When spreading awareness it also helps to make the consequences of climate change aware so there is more of a motivation.

Overall it’s really important that we focus on having a working global food system that won’t need the threatened by climate change. Climate change changes global climate and weather patterns and can cause storms that could ruin our food transportation system. Climate change affects fish which supply 50% of the world’s population protein intake. Climate change can also cause droughts that leave areas completely terrible for farming. My recommendations include planting more trees, enforcing CO2 reduction laws, and spreading awareness. These three solutions could also help solve two sustainable development goals, life below water and zero hunger. There will no longer be trouble with fisheries because fish will no longer need to migrate and fish near the arctic will be able to stay put. Solving climate change helping keep our global food system alive so everyone who has been eating won’t need to go hungry. Now, will we solve climate change to keep our global food system alive?

Sources:

Clark, Duncan. "How will climate change affect food production?" The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 19 Sept. 2012. Web. 23 May 2017.

Fraser, E. D., & Rimas, A. (2011). Empires of food: feast, famine and the rise and fall of civilizations. London: Arrow Books.

"Primary History - Indus Valley - The end of the Indus." BBC. BBC, 2014. Web. 23 May 2017.

Secret Agent Leavening

In Our second action project of out Food class we studied and experimented with cooking to learn about how leavening agents react with bread along with learning and experiencing new math concepts. I really enjoyed how we got to make and cook the bread ourselves, which made it completely reliant on ourselves.(made it a learning experience) I hope you enjoy.

Leavening Agents
IF

Partners: JN DS
May 11, 2017

Our job in this action project was to make bread using different leavening agents and compare how much they rise. One loaf is using yeast (control) as a leavening agent, another is using the sourdough starter (experimental 1), and the last one is using baking soda (experimental 2). These leavening agents would help us answer the research question: Which leavening agent is the most effective when it comes to making the dough rise? I hypothesized that the baking soda loaf would rise the highest because it is a chemical leavening agent that wouldn’t take much time to rise and I’ve had experience with seeing the difference in rising between baking soda and yeast. Baking soda is a chemical leavening agent while yeast is a biological leavening agent. Chemical agents are live and release CO2 as a chemical reaction, while yeast is alive and eats glucose to put out CO2 as a waste.

Calculations

These are the calculations we made for transferring the original recipes for making each loaf of bread. The change factor for converting the sourdough to our one loaf was x ¼. For baking soda, it was all the same. Yeast change factor was x .25.

Sourdough (experimental 1)

Flour:10 divided by 4 = 2 ½ cups of water
Water: 4 cups divided by 4 = 1 cup of water
Salt: 3 ½ teaspoons divided by 4 =  ⅞  teaspoons
Starter: ¾ cups divided by 4 = 19/100  cups (3 tablespoons)

Baking Soda (experimental 2)

Flour - 3 ½ cups x 1 = 3 ½ cups
Salt - 1 teaspoon x 1 = 1 teaspoon
Baking soda - 1 teaspoon x 1 = 1 teaspoon
Buttermilk - 2 cups x 1 = 2 cups
Sugar - 1 teaspoon x 1 = 1 teaspoon

Yeast (control)
Yeast - 1.5 tablespoons x .25 = ⅜ tablespoons
Water - 3 cups x .25 = ¾ cups
Flour - 7 cups x .25 = 1.75 cups
Salt - 1 tablespoon x .25 = .25 tablespoons

A few different variables came into play while making the breads. I constructed a table show the different variables that needed to occur to fit the needs of the recipe.

Variable	Control Group (yeast)	Experimental Group 1(Sour Dough)	Experimental Group 2(Baking Soda Bread)
Flour type	All purpose flour	All purpose flour	All purpose flour
Dough rise time	4 hours	15-60 minutes	5 min
Oven temperature	450 degrees Fahrenheit	500 degrees Fahrenheit	450 degrees Fahrenheit
Bake time	25 - 30 min	2 hours or 120 minutes	40 min
Dough amount	7 by 5 by 2.5	6 ½ by 4 by 2= 52 inches 3	8 by 8 by 2.5
Other			BUTTERMILK

Procedure

Sourdough:
1. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Mix all the ingredients together except for the salt
3. Knead dough for 10 minutes
4. Let dough rise for 15 - 60 minutes
5. Bake dough for 35 minutes

Baking soda:
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Mix all ingredients together
3. Let the dough rise for 5 minutes
4. Bake for 40 minutes

Yeast:
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Mix ingredients together
3. Let dough rise for 4 hours
4. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes

Results

Sourdough: After baking the sourdough, the bread crust ended up being really hard and had to be cracked open. The inside of the bread was also very tough but felt moist like play dough. Despite both the outside and inside of the bread feeling like a play dough filled rock, it didn't look burnt at all. The inside was the same color as whole wheat bread and the outside looked like it could've been white bread. (photos below) It was 3 inches tall and tasted really salty because we had accidentally put in 3 extra tablespoons of salt into it.

 "Bread" IF 2017

"More Bread" If 2017

Yeast: The yeast leavened bread ended up looking somewhat burnt, and was pretty under cooked on the inside. The bread tasted pretty normal, but of course still gave off a crispy burnt taste. The final height of the bread ended up being 3 inches tall also.

Baking soda: The baking soda bread overall tasted really good. The texture wasn't super soft nor super tough. The outside of the bread was really crispy and almost crunchy like a baguette. It tasted as plain as bread could get, this seems like the type of bread that needs to be served along with something else. The final product of the baking soda bread ended up being only 2.5 inches tall.

"Baking Powder Bread" IF 2017

I created a graph to see the difference between the original volume and the final volume after baking the breads.

"Graph" IF 2017

Nutrition     

These are the calculations for how much daily nutrition you get from sourdough bread along with the total percentage of how much nutrients the bread provides.The average adult should have the following amounts in each of the following categories. The second list shows the percentage of calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein are in the bread in percentage form according to the daily average adult nutrient intake.

calories- 2000
carbohydrates- 100 grams
fat- 78 grams
protein- 56 grams                  

calories - 1123/ 2000 = .56 x 100 = 56.15%
carbohydrates - 24/ 100 = .24 x 100 = 24%
fat - .75/ 78 = .0096 x 100 = 0.96%
protein -  30/ 56 = .53 x 100 = 53%

Conclusion/ Analysis

Overall we created some bread that was pretty good and was also not super amazing. The sourdough bread that our group had baked turned out really under cooked on the first attempt and really salty and hard on our second attempt. The bread on the first attempt tasted like sourdough but the inside of the loaf was not cooked completely. We only had time to have two attempts so we analyzed the outcome from the second batch because the first attempt was because of an effect on the leavening agents, while the second mistake didn’t affect the leavening agents. I hope to never make the same mistakes again when baking bread, I'm just glad that the data that came out of the experiment is still valid and wasn't effected by the two attempts. Next time I plan to pay more attention to what I'm doing and what my group is doing to make sure it is going right.

My hypothesis was correct, the baking soda did turn out to have the most growth of 1.5 inches. It had the most growth from it's original height compared to the yeast which had grown 1 inch from it's original height, and the sourdough which had grown only .5 inches from it's original. This makes sense because baking soda is commonly used to make lighter/ more fluffy foods, like chewy cookies or lemon margarine pie while yeast and sourdough is not.