Hello Blog...

     So I thought I'd make a blog post just for the heck of it. At the moment we are reading Into the Wild and I am actually enjoying the book quite a bit. I think the whole mystery as to what McCandless's motivation was is definitely a component of this book that keeps me going. I will say though, I have always found it a little hard to follow Krakauer's writing style since he will sometimes go off into these separate descriptions and stories and I kind of get a bit lost while reading because my mind wanders. Other than that I think that this book is actually really interesting and a good book for us seniors to be reading at this time of the year. A lot of us are pondering what it is we are going to do after high school, some are going to college or trade school, but I know there are a lot of people who crave for this adventure after high school; and this book definitely is an eye opener into just how much of an adventure/journey some of us could experience. It also gives us some warning as to what not to do and how not to be stupid on any potential adventures we might embark on.

     Speaking of after high school, any one else so ready for this all to just be over? I thought I had senioritis before, but now that I am both 18 and a senior (like a lot of us) it is becoming harder and harder each day to pull together some motivation to get to school. It's crazy to think, though, that just yesterday we all were entering our first day of 7th grade worried because it was middle school (no recess!!) and now we are just nearing the end of our entire high school career. I TA for a 7th grade class and I always laugh a bit when I over hear them talking about who's dating who and the current drama going on in their lives because in a matter of seconds they'll be in high school months away from graduating and all that drama will be so irrelevant. Leaving high school seems to be a fresh start, you can be who ever you want to be in the real world and that is so exciting. Anyways, that's all for my thoughts at the moment...just thought I'd share.

AF: Off the grid!

AF: On NPR today>>the rise of fake meat

Everybody recognizes that our meat consumption is just not sustainable.  So is fake meat the answer?  Will the food scientists come to the rescue?  If we can make meat in the lab, then gee, that frees up lots of land water, feed, and cleans up the environmental problems inherent in feed lot life.

Is it really okay?

Meat production is a tricky topic due to the fact that many people worry about the morality of the situation. I personally think that it is something that must happen in order to sustain staggeringly growing population. However, i do believe that there should be some sort of good in their life prior to their death.
Animals in the food production industry have a life filled with misery and sadness. They must be pinned up in an undersized cage all day, while their bodies grow at an exponential rate, their bones hardly able to support their own weight, and most likely have a sickness of some sort. Then, they must reproduce and watch as their young are taken away from them, as they too will meet the same fate as their parents. If this isn’t discerning and doesn’t make you want to change your lifestyle, you should read what goes into the ingredients that goes in hot cheetos- you’d be surprised.

Bumble bees.

     Bumble bees, an insect that causes severe pain once stung. I've been stung five times by a bee, and for those of you who haven't been stung, let me tell you guys that it hurts like hell. The first instinct I get when I see a bee, is to run away and try my best try not to cross paths again. There are cases in which I just want to kill them right then and there because I'm scared that there's a possibility that I can be stung again.
     However, I came to the realization that bees are more important that I've ever thought. They are amongst the smallest things in the our world, yet the most influential in the agricultural world. Bees contribute their source of power which is getting into flowers to collect pollen.
     Bees are responsible for more than half of the fruits and vegetables we eat. They allow flowers to bloom and grass to grow. Furthermore, according to Marla Spivak, more bees continue to disappear each year.
     My question is, Would life be sustainable if bees were to extinct?
    I think life would be sustainable, for while at least. The human population would depend too much on animals and other sources of food in order to obviously survive. But the thing is, fruits and vegetables are the main food groups in which we get our nutrition from and are considered the healthiest.
     Overall, I hope bees stop disappearing because they are desperately needed on Earth.

Bees

I was talking to Brett Savage today about bees, and I told him how I think that bees are dying because they're dumb.  Now, I may or may not think bees are dumb, but I did have a good reason to think that.
I left a bowl of water out for the bees to drink because it was pretty hot outside, and when I went to check on them, I saw that they had all drowned.  I'm not sure if that makes me a bad person or not... :(  Anyways, the other day (Last Wednesday to be exact), I saw a bee drowning in a bowl of water (I didn't learn my lesson from the first time, oops :c ).  I rushed over and took it out, and luckily, I saved it.  I was super happy that I had actually saved the life of an endangered insect.  But then I thought, "why would the bee land in the water if it knows it can't swim?"  Also, why would a bee sting if it knows it's going to die?  Do bees actually know that they're going to die when they sting people?

Since we're talking about bees, I thought it would be appropriate to tell a bee joke.

What's a bees favorite novel?







The Great Gats-bee! 

Soylent

Most of the problems in our country revolve around food whether it's too much or too little. Obesity is a huge problem in America and even if we could fix the problem, I don't think people wouldn't want to. A man named Rob Rhinehart invented a powder mixture of everything the body needs to survive. All you have to do is add water. This could save malnourished children in other countries or stop over eating here. Rob says that he's never felt healthier and he has lost weight. Losing weight may concern doctors, but if that's the biggest concern then this should be mass produced to save people. It's not going to be popular because it's tasteless and takes the fun out of eating, but the fun of eating got us into trouble in the first place. This should be about survival, especially for starving people all over the world. 

Food Inc.

Food inc.  didn't shock as much as it probably should have. i guess that it was because i am kind of used to hearing about chemicals and other things that have been added to our food that probably shouldn't have been. i mean... i'm going to keep eating though. i like chicken. i like processed food. i like fast food. sure, i would like to be a person who can say that i eat healthy, but then i'd be a liar. this is the type of food that i was brought up on, and is the easiest thing to get. if the healthier food was made more available and accessible, would i eat it? yes...because its there. i'm a human vacuum.

This paper

i have to admit that this paper is difficult and is driving me insane. its has gotten to the point where  i feel like i am done, but i haven't met the word count or page count. i'm pushing myself to figure out what to say instead of reiterating what i said three paragraphs ago. i have to admit that i've pushed everything else but this paper to the back burner and its made me fall behind in other classes, buts its made me come to realize that i will never learn how to time manage. procrastination, to me, is like some  type of permanent personality trait of mine. there is something in the universe that has labeled Uchechi a "true procrastinator", "the OG"

This research is rather frustrating and also very interesting. I like the idea of looking up thugs and learning something new of your own of a topic of your choice. In my opinion it's pretty cool and I am learning a lot of new stuff! However it is also very frustrating. Every article has almost the exact same thing as eachother and it's hard to get new information. and then. I get worried that some of the thoughts I have from prior knowledge I'll get marked down for plagiarism. But all in all, it's interesting and a fun paper to be writing

Unhealthy foods

I watched a Ted talk video talking about how school lunches are so unhealthy. In Coopers voice presentation she discusses the concern she has for the students and what's given to them everyday. Study's show that the foods kids are given are just as bad as eating out at a fast food place. She wants to teach kids how to eat healthier and actually make healthy food appetizing. Organically grown and regionally grown foods is what she recommend many parents to buy, but the problem is organic foods are quite expensive for some family's to afford especially in a large house hold. About 70% of antibiotics are in our meats, and kids today are now consuming roughly five pounds of pesticides a year. Foods that we think are healthy for us is actually harming our body's, causing many kids and adults to be ill. The government doesn't really seem to care about the kids and the foods they allow them to eat, because facts show about $35,000 tax dollars are to maintain a prisoner and only $500 dollars are for the food given to kids a year. She blames the junk food and fast food advertisement because they manipulate children to want unhealthy meals which leads to an unhealthy diet. How could we fix this problem?

i like food

I watched Food Inc. in ninth grade so nothing in the video was really a surprise to me. Most people start feeling a certain way about the food they eat after watching this movie, but I think after watching it a second time, I'm still going to eat it. The food we put into our bodies is truly disgusting. There's so many random things we can't even pronounce added to everything and the treatment of the animals we get our meat from is horrible. I'd much rather eat something organic but it's so much more expensive and I'm stuck eating the "bad" stuff. I mean it tastes good right? That's all that really matters to me. I don't think I'll be dying any time soon due to the food I eat. The only thing that sketches me out is fast food. I'm not 100% about what is real and what isn't, and I hear things all the time on the news or I see things on Twitter that make me question what goes into these "burgers" or "chicken" nuggets. I haven't consumed much fast food in my lifetime, though, so I think I'll be alright. 

Fast food

After watching the movie food inc. It really got me thinking. In our society today their are so many people eating fast food it's not even funny. They are killing more and more cows, pigs and other animals each year. Just to be able to keep up with our eating habits. Honestly it disgusted me how they make all the burgers that get distributed out to fast food places. In sort of made me not what to eat at any anymore. Seeing how their are just so many things mushed together to make a burger is pretty Nasty.

Ew

Honestly the food system today sucks, like bad. After watching the video and now for me actually working with food it kind of disgusts me. People care more about profit and selling rather than the goodness and quality of the food. It is gross! I work in a restaurant and sometimes watching the cooks cook the food, I don't know why but it's gross to me. They don't clean the stove for a new meal and they have everything all together. They use the same gloves they did when they touch the raw meat, it is just really gross. I hope one day people can stop being so greedy and actually start to scare about people's health. 

Health Kickin'

Is it just me, or did the whole country recently decide to go on this giant health kick? The last couple months, maybe even years, I've noticed this craze of staying "fit and healthy" attack social media. Obviously not everything on social media defines what happens in real life, but its very pronounced. Scrolling through Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, whatever it may be, all I see are organic food recipes, how to clean eat, Herbalife this, Herbalife that. And in no way is that bad! Seriously! Its about time one of the most overweight countries in the world start taking care of themselves, but I can't help but wonder where this came from. Is it the peer pressure, inspiration, or notice of future consequence? Or maybe a little mixture of all of those?

Admit it, you're willing to spend 8 bucks on an acai bowl and drive 45 minutes to take a hike. I mean...sometimes these ideas don't just pop into our head (most of the time) but you saw it on Instagram and felt inspired. "Inspired" as in: you thinking, " Hey that looks cool. I wanna do that and maybe take cooler pictures."

Anyway, not sure where I was going with this, but just wanted to share the idea that maybe we all wanna be a little bit healthier and go work out a bit more because other people influence us to! Never a bad thing.

Politics of Food

Reading these articles and writing my research paper, has shed a new light on food for me. I’ll probably never look at food the same way again. However, I will most likely still keep eating it. I’ll just be more cautious of what I eat now. I cannot explain the amount of disgust I felt when I found out how they were treating these animals and what they were fed. I have always wanted to change my eating habits, and I think this just may have been the push I have needed. What I do not understand is why healthy food is a lot more expensive than junk food. I should not have to pay more to eat healthier. It also disgusts me how major fast food and junk food companies care more about their profits than people’s health. We, as the American people have to change the demand of food. 

After watching the movie Food Inc. and reading all these articles , I've come to see food and animals in a completely different light. After watching the movie I was so disgusted with the way animals were treated that I went pescatarian. And these articles are right about us. We don't think about how our food got to us and what the animal went through. After learning about this unit , I've changed my lifestyle and I think that's when you know you've learned something about yourself. We're all changing and trying to find ourselves. I believe this unit has done that just for me. When I'm older I want to have a locavore lifestyle and know where my food has traveled from. I believe everyone can be healthier by just buying more local and organic food. 

Organic Foods

     So, I have had an avocado tree in my backyard since the day my family moved in. It's always just been there though and we always had avocados. I never really noticed, until I got older, how kind of cool it was because while everyone had to go out and buy avocados from the grocery store and I could just go in my backyard and get as many as I needed. This unit has me really thinking about just how much people pay for groceries and how much money we could all save if we started our own gardens and grew our own food. Not too mention all the chemicals we would spare our bodies if we did so. It's crazy how much chemicals are used to keep our fruits and vegetables "fresh" for the supermarket. Now, I'm not saying that I'm all of a sudden going to eliminate Pavilions from my daily life, but I do think that everyone should start making a slow transition into growing more of our own foods to save some money. I was having a conversation with my mom the other night and I mentioned to her that in the next couple months I want to start planting some vegetables in the backyard. Not sure how it'll keep up since I'll be working and in college, but I think it would be a nice past time that would allow me to keep some of that money I'm making at work lol Anyways, that's all for this post.

Food...

     I have been really slacking it with the blog. Anyways, this whole unit on politics of food has been really interesting. I absolutely love to cook and I definitely think that we have forgotten about the joy you can get out of eating a certain dish. I mean how many of us sit in class and during this unit began looking up foods we love? And how many of us sat there getting all excited about food and getting hungry? Food is a universal language, it really is. One of the things that you can for sure experience whenever you travel, is the different foods each country and each culture has to offer. Creating food is an art that some people even make a profession. Too many of us have forgotten these things. We now run into the kitchen to grab something quick that we can just scarf down so that way we can get back to whatever show we were watching or whatever homework we may have. Enjoying your favorite dish is one of the little things in life that a lot of us have misplaced and have forgotten to make time for. I suggest everyone go home, make your favorite meal and just sit down and enjoy it whether you're alone or if you're with people, just take 30 mins to taste your food and think about all the ingredients that it took to create the flavor that is sitting in your mouth. Life moves so quickly and we all need to slow down and enjoy as many moments of it as we can. That's the two cents that I got out of this unit.