Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving is one of the most foundational and meaningful holidays of America. Some may take it as a time to gorge oneself, which is probably wrong if done so, but I see it as a time to enjoy family and friends and a binding meal as well as a special time of thanksgiving to our loved ones, our forefathers, our military, God, and anyone else. I almost stayed at Tech so I could see the UGA game, but decided seeing my family again and having a good time with them was more important. We had a good meal of the usual Thanksgiving foods with some spin on them by my mother, she is a good cook :). The food brought us together and brought memories of the past and thoughts of the future. My loneliness was cured and I felt ready to go back and tackle my final exams afterward. It was a great break, I was definitely refreshed and spent some good time with some close friends on Friday. Saturday, however, was a little disappointing. I woke up congested, including my ear(my eardrum ruptured today). I ended up lazing about Saturday, but had a good day Sunday. I am still fighting it and hopefully it will be gone by the time exams come around. Overall, I had a good break and fellowship over food. Food is an amazing thing that binds so many people and cultures together. I think it is partially because it is essential to life, but it also a great social activity, it is something all people understand.

Thanksgiving

I went back home to Florida for Thanksgiving. We had the typical American layout of food; turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, etc. We did have a smaller turnout that usual, though; it was just my family, my grandparents, and my neighbors. Usually my whole extended family gets involved. Friday I got a chance to see some old friends I didn't back in fall break. So altogether, I had a pretty good break.

Saturday night was a disappointment, though.

Thanksgiving Break

This Thanksgiving I went back to Johns Creek to spend time with my friends and my family. My mother had just recently returned from a business trip in China, so needless to say I was very happy to see her.

For Thanksgiving dinner we went to my best friend's house to eat with 3 other families. It was the most un-traditional Thanksgiving dinner I've ever had.

There were no mashed potatoes, no stuffing, and no gravy. Instead, these dishes were replaced by Chinese dishes; though equally delicious, it was strange to be eating food I used to eat every day on Thanksgiving.

Dessert was especially delicious though. There was pecan pie and a Chinese dessert. The Chinese dessert was a soft white gelatinous substance that was very easy to swallow. It was seeped in a tangy, fizzy drink that made me want to keep eating more and more. The pecan pie was also delicious.

All in all, I'd say my Thanksgiving was very good simply because I got to see my friends and family again. I do not care about what food I ate; instead, I care about the people I spend my time with.

Back to a Great Start!

I must say that I was very impressed by dining hall today. I am not sure if the break gave them a chance to get things together or what actually happened, but the food was excellent today. They served us chicken tenders and curly fries and both were delicious. I hope they keep it up for all of this week and next week.

Thanksgiving Haircut

So for some reason, my mom decided that it would be fun if she took our family to a remote island for Thanksgiving. My father has a saying, "If mom's not happy, no one will be happy," and we all went along with her plan.

The only way to get to this island is by a ferry which leaves at 7:00 am, 12:00 pm, and 4:00 pm. We took the 7:00 ferry and planned to return at noon to get on with our day. Unfortunately that did not go as planned.

Because of the holidays, the noon ferry was not scheduled to arrive, but we didn't figure this out until we were already on this island! This left us stranded on an island with literally nothing to do for 4 hours. The bordom began to ensue.

And then the stupid things that you do when you are bored.... I had been wanting a haircut, and my family decided that now was as good a time as any. The only problem is how do you do that with no scissors? Well apparently my family thinks that a swiss army knife will do the job just fine. Each person in my family took a turn hacking away at my long blonde hair. By the end of it, I had a surprisingly good hair cut considering it came from a Swiss army knife!

Nevertheless, I was forced to buzz the rest when we got off the island finally. It is the first time I have ever done it, and I realized for the first time that I look relatively similar to my brother.

Blind Date

I went to Montreal, Canada over the break to visit my parents, friends, and girlfriend.
Rather than having a Thanksgiving dinner, I decided to go on a date with my girlfriend.

We went to a restaurant called O Noir (a pun for au noir, meaning "in the dark"). The restaurant is special, because the patrons dine in a room that is pitch black. You literally cannot see anything and even all cell phones are asked to be turned off, because they can produce light.

We are given a menu to choose our meal from. As an appetizer I go with an octopus and decide to go for the "special" for my main course. I do not get a desert. The special is a surprise, so I tell them I do not want mushrooms in mine because I do not like them. My girlfriend gets vegetables with goat cheese and shrimp with risotto. The meal with an appetizer OR desert costs $30 Can. A meal with all three costs $37 Can.

I place my hand on the waiter's shoulder and my girlfriend places hers on mine. We are taken into a pitch black room and guided through the maze of tables and chairs to our seat. It is incredible how the waiter knows exactly how to take us there. It is completely bizarre not being able to see ANYTHING (I close my eyes during the meal to rest them, because they are utterly useless. I also take off my glasses, but put them back on after I accidentally knocked them off the table and almost ended up losing them forever). Another thing we notice is that everyone is really loud, because they feel the need to be since they cannot see the others.

The food was fairly good but overpriced, but the experience was truly something unique. It is fun trying to eat food with utensils until you eventually give up and resort to using your fingers (it's OK, because no one can see). I also enjoyed the liberty of scaring my girlfriend while I was literally right across the table from her. Even holding hands was something new, because we had to find each other's hands first.

Although it was definitely expensive for the food we got, the experience was something I think everyone should have at least once. There is a restaurant called Opaque if anyone is interested in this in Atlanta. Unfortunately, I believe it is also fairly expensive.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving meals. I know I enjoyed mine.

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was as tasty as mine. I spent it with my grandparents, and I have to say the turkey and stuffing was absolutely amazing.

Unfortunately, not everyone was able to go home to enjoy Thanksgiving. To compensate for some people's losses, Glenn Hall Council voted to hold a small Thanksgiving party for those in the hall who could not go. I hope they enjoyed it, and I hope you enjoyed yours.

12 oz Chocolate Bunny and food prices

Today while at the super market my brother pointed out something amazing, a 12 oz Chocolate Bunny! For $8.00 it could be mine, along with the heart attack that would probably ensue. I was really shocked at how big it was and how someone could possibly eat that before it went bad. But that wasn't the onlything that really shocked me. I went to go find some cheese in a can that I like to eat with crackers and they wanted $4 for a can of cheese! I couldn't believe it. So I decided not to get the cheese and just roll with my favorite Ritz crackers. Then when I went to grab some soda they wanted $5 for a 12 pack of sprite. I remember not too long ago I could go to somewhere like Costco or SAM's club and get a 48 pack of sprite for $8. Food prices have truley gotten out of hand. It is crazy. I was talking to my mom on the way home from the super market and she said that since my brother and I have left for college they havn't seen a dramatic change in the money they pay for food. I was really shocked because I would image that with two less people at home they wouldn't pay near for food as when we lived at home.

What really made me realize this whole thing was when I was actually going to pickup a pack of soda before Thanksgiving break at the East Side market and they wanted somthing like $6 for a 12 pack. I thought that was crazy. But now that I see that normal grocery stores are almost just as expensive, I may have to rethink what I buy at the supermarket.

Diamonds or Chocolate?

Since my final project is about chocolate dessert, I am posting some fun information about chocolate.
It is one of the most expensive chocolate in the world--Chocopologie by Knipschildt. It contains a black truffle and 70% Valrhona cacao. How much is it? $2600 per pound. (The cup is also made by gold)Compared to the Chocopologie, the chocolate, which called Africa Continent is much more extravagent. It was made by a japanese chocolate store in order to celebrate the 2006 Valentine's day. The small white shinning balls are not sugar or candies. They are 2006 diamonds! How much is it? -- 436 million dollars!

Information: http://qkl8.5d6d.com/thread-82-1-1.html

Fu Lin Men

Last Saturday, me and my friends went to a event Taste of Taiwan in China Town. However, after it, we were still hungry, so we went to Fu Lin Men, the seafood Chinese restaurant over there.

Since we already ate, we just ordered XO Jiang Pao Greenbean and Fried Lobster with Egg yolk: my personal favorite two cuisines over there.

The greenbean was fried with garlic and the so-called XO sauce which had no achohol but smoked pork and soy bean. The greenbean had a crispy skin with sweet-salty flavor inside which tasted great and fragrant. The sauce and the bean were a wonderful combination.

THE LOBSTER!!! Crispy golden egg yolk covered the red-orange shell of the lobster. The cover was salty and has a aroma of both egg and seafood. Inside the shell was the sweet meat: delicate fresh and juicy. One word to describe: INCREDIBLE!!! Just cannot get enough!

There were two lobsters and the rice was free. The price was not too bad(but i forget). If you go as a group, it will probaly cost everybody around 9 or 10 including tips. Also, even it is a seafood restaurant, it serves almost any type or Chinese food. They are traditional too! Love it!

P.S. Not an ad... just personal recommandation~

Back at tech

Ahem, welcome back people. I hope everyone's thanksgiving break was as good as mine and had lots of good food. Meals that is served with whole chicken, good steak, and whole fish. What I mean by whole is not chicken patty or fish patties but chicken with the bone and shape of a chicken and the same for fish. Now the first night back at tech the food is the same as always which is what I call college fast food. Everything is deep fried and the food does not resemble itself in any shape or form. Its looks like a block of deep fried bread crumbs. Well anyways its just two more weeks till we get to go back home again.

Thanksgiving Day Football

My family always has a big Thanksgiving day lunch at my cousin's house. The feast will usually feature

anywhere from 20 to 25 people. There are some keen hunters in my family so usually some of the

venison or the turkey at the meal is not store bought. However, one of the big focuses of the

Thanksgiving lunch is the chance to watch some professional football. The NFL always has two or three

Thanksgiving day games on. This year had the Green Bay Packers against the Detroit Lions, the Dallas

Cowboys versus the Oakland Raiders, and the New York Giants at the Denver Broncos. The Packers,

Cowboys, and Broncos all won their games.

The NFL has become a big part of my Thanksgiving, so for my blog post I would like to show everyone

what I would consider some of the best NFL Thanksgiving day moments/performances.

1. Ref blows coin toss - 1998

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/09000d5d80cc8200/Bettis-calls-tails

Overtime in the NFL starts off with a coin toss to determine possession. The referee obviously misheard

Jerome Bettis say "tails". The Steelers ended up losing the game.

2. Leon Lett Blunder - 1993

Leon Lett touches the ball after a missed field goal, which turns it into a live ball, meaning that the kicking team can recover it.

3. Clint Longley - 1974

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-game-highlights/09000d5d8074317a/Top-Ten-One-Shot-Wonders-Clint-Longley

An unlikely hero during the 1974 Thanksgiving Day game.

Staying here at Georgia Tech for Thanksgiving week.

Over the Thanksgiving week, I couldn't go back home.

However, the woodruff dining hall was closed on wednesday at 3 o'clock and reopened on Sunday. During those days when Woodruff dininghall was closed, I ordered some food from lucky 101 and Papa John's Pizza. Because the food was all greasy and fried, this was the first time for me to miss dininghall's food, especially salads and vegetables, and I learned to be thankful what I can have.

Thanksgiving Blog Post

Dangerous Cooking

Since the dinning halls were closed during Thanksgiving, I had to cook by myself. However, cooking is much more dangerous than I thought before. When I cooked pork on Friday, the exremely hot oil(at least 400F) hurt both my hand and my cooking turner.



The pork was really good. You can try to cook it by yourself someday, but be careful of your hands and turner! Here is the recipe :
1. Pickle the pork (rib is the best) in cooking alcohol with green onion and ginger from 30 minutes

2. Add cold water and pork in the pot, boil them togather.

3. Heat 2 teaspoon of oil in the pan, add 1 teaspoon of sugar, fry the sugar until it turn red.

4. Put the pork in the pan, fry the pork with fried sugar. (Be very careful! The oil temperature is very high now.)

5. Move the pork into the pot, add soya sause, cooking alcohol, dried prickly ash, dried aniseed, cortex cinnamomi, leaf bay, and water. Cook it for 1 hour.

6. Add some salt, sugar, and continue to cook for 30 minutes.

Thanksgiving at Home

Thanksgiving Dining Experience This thanksgiving, I went back to Indiana, where my host family was to spend the thanksgiving with them. It was really cold over there when I got there on Wednesday, I felt like it was going to snow the next day. But home is always a warm place that it drove all the coldness away.

On thanksgiving day, 23 people were in our house. There were the grandparents, the uncles, aunts and the kids. The elders were talking and greeting to each other, the kids were running around and laughing while the others were busy preparing the food. Our house was not a big one, so it was crowded and messy, but it felt so warm and happy.

Before the meal, we all gathered around to pray together. With my eyes closed, hands holding together, a sense of peace and safe rose in my heart. Our house was not a big one, so everybody was standing next to each other to pray but I was really thankful to GOD for offering us such a sweet family. After praying, we all got a plate in our hands and waited in line to get our food one by one. As usual, grandma brought us fresh raw shrimps with home-made salsa, chicken noodle and some sweet desserts, aunt Charleen brought us her stuffed eggs while we cooked the other main dishes at home. We made sweet potato with mashmelow, mash potatoes, chicken-with-veggie pie, cranberry pie and broccoli salad, also, there were 3 roasted turkeys! Our house was not a big one, so we set up 4 tables for people to sit, but as it was a family, no matter where we sat, it was fun and enjoyable.

I was so grateful to the food. The roasted turkey was so juicy and cooked just enough that I never liked any other ones that much. The egg yolk of the stuffed eggs was well mixed with sweet-sour sauce, salt and coco powder,it was cold, sour and sweet, it was melting in my mouth while I was chewing the delicate egg white. No doubt that this is the must-have-cuisine of every family meal. Sweet potato with mashmelow was amazingly cute. It looked like a brown-golden hill with white flowers. The mashmelow were puffy and the cover was crispy while the inside was melted and soft, it was good, but a little bit too sweet. The raw shrimp with home made salsa was incredibly good that I only got three of them before they were grabbed all which was such a pity! Moreover, the cranberry pie was sour but delicious., tthe broccoli salad was refreshing, the chicken-with-veggie pie was juicy and tender... At last was the dessert, it was chocolate pie with walnut. I usually do not like walnut, but this time was different. It was crispy and fragrant inside the soft and sweet chocolate which was fantastic! Our house was not a big one, so that we did not have a lot of space to eat and have a comfortable position, but the food was so good that we forgot the inconvenience, all that left was the attractive aroma of the food and the warm feeling in our hearts...


I am so happy that I have a family here in America that I could spend this wonderful thanksgiving with. And even we are not blood related, it is still a family. Just like, the house is not s big one, but it is still a home.

Thanksgiving- my least favorite holiday... food wise.

Kiara enjoying the sun :)

Thanksgiving.

People are usually so ready to dig into pumpkin pie and turkey. However, that's not the case for me. In fact, I dislike all Thanksgiving food. Cranberries. Yuck. Turkey. Dry. Sweet Potatoes. GROSS. Asparagus. Bleh. Pumpkin Pie. Eh... it's okay. Overall, I'm just a realllll picky eater. So, this year, my astounding mother made me my own little meal :) I ate sizzling honey roast ham, these sweet carrots, and mashed potatoes! For once, I had a happy Thanksgiving and left the table feeling stuffed and content.

But besides the food, I love Thanksgiving for I get to fly down to my grandparents house in Ocala, Fl. A charming retirement community where you can live right next to the golf course, my grandparents at the 8th hole, as well as drive golf carts around. I love spending time with my grandparents and listening to their stories. Plus, my Oma's cooking is to die for :)

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Plus, my Oma turned 84! And she is doing fabulous!!! :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Thanksgiving-a normal Thursday

Thanksgiving!!!!!!! It is not exciting for me. Just like most international students, I stayed in school to celebrate the Thanksgiving. On Wednesday night, I ate one and a half pounds Wingnuts with my Chinese friend (Sorry to Michael Pollan. I know it is unhealthy, but it is the only food I can find in campus). And I played Super Smash Bros and watched South Park until 4 am. On the Thanksgiving, I woke up around 2 pm and ate an energy bar for brunch (Sorry to Michael Pollan agian). Then I went out to play basketball alone. School was extremely quiet. Only fallen leaves are everywhere, which made me feel like I was the last person in the world. What was the Thanksgiving dinner? Seafood flavor Korean ramen noodles! (Michael Pollan probably wants to kill me).

Somehow, I do not like Thanksgiving because it is probably the only moment I will miss my home. Although we have four days break, I hate saying goodbye to my friends. Every time, when I see my friends so excited to go back home, I always feel quite sad and lonely. Now, even the blog posts are mostly about home, family, and Thanksgiving dinner. I know I have to get used to it, but sometimes I cannot control my emotion.

Since there was nothing to do during the Thanksgiving, I did some research about Thanksgiving food. Different from Christmas, Thanksgiving is originated from America. It is the most traditional festival for Americans. Turkey is one of the most important food during the Thanksgiving. It is a large game bird and related to the grouse and the pheasant, but it is native to North America. Turkeys have been roasted for harvest feasts since the first European settlers came to North America. Another symbol of Thanksgiving is the Cornucopia, but I have never seen it in America. It is a goat's horn overflowing with fruit, flowers, and grains. It is a symbol of prosperity.


Information from International Buzz

Dawgs Ruin My Weekend

In a slightly lighter vein now: As most of you probably know, we were humiliated 30-24 by U[sic]GA at home yesterday.

Ok, this may not be strictly 'food-related', but take a look at the picture below:

Yes, my friends, that's exactly what it is: a Georgia Bulldog player chewing on a piece of Bobby Dodd playing turf after the game. I did not know we were that different from the U[sic]GA people, but they clearly have bovine dietary tendencies.

Or perhaps it was a lack of hedges at Bobby Dodd. Then it's a case of "repaid-in-kind" theory clearly gone wrong:

Nobody said them Dawgs were very smart.

(Thanks to Hector, my PL, for the pictures)

McAllester, Pollan becoming clearer to me...

As luck would have it, this break the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha happened to fall on Friday, just a day after Thanksgiving Eve. Unfortunately, being away from my family this time, it was never going to be a particularly fun event. In any case, this is what I did on that day:

Eid al-Adha is essentially a festival that occurs on the 10th day of the month of Dhul Hijjah of the Muslim calendar, as a commemoration of the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God. It also marks the end of of the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca (the Hajj). Traditionally, the prayers are followed by an animal sacrifice, usually a goat, sheep, cow or camel and ritual charity.

Kaifi (a good friend of mine) picked me up at around 8 in the morning and took me to the mosque in order for me to offer the special Eid prayers. We drove around downtown Atlanta (which was very beautifully decorated) and visited a couple of places. For lunch, we had some traditional lamb stew and vermicelli, which reminded me painfully of what I was missing back home with my family. For the first time since I came here, I felt an aching, burning feeling to go home.

I guess it could have been 'delayed homesickness', but I think it was just the association we have of culture and "mom" (using Pollan's terminology here) with food. We've touched upon this in class, but the magnitude of food's association with culture and family is only becoming clear to me now. I did not believe in the ability of food to evoke such a strong response in me until now, especially since I'm away from home. McAllester and Pollan were right all along: they capture the essence of our association of food with culture and family through their personal experiences and research. I feel it's not something we give enough credit to, as a society.

I don't know if you guys will be able to relate: maybe if you had your Thanksgiving dinner alone in say, Kuwait, you would find yourself inexplicably thinking of home.

Family Time is the Best Time

There is nothing better than spending time with your family. I have never been so happy to come home and visit all of my family and friends. There is never a dull moment when I am around the people I love. It seems like everybody that I hang around with just LOVES to eat. So of course as soon as I got home Wednesday night, me and my girls went to our favorite restaurant Red Robin. I was enjoying life getting to see my girls AND eating my favorite buffalo chicken strips. Then, of course there was Thanksgiving! We had turkey, ham, macaroni and cheese, yams, string beans, cabbage, greens, mashed potatoes, bread, stuffing, pretty much anything you could think of. Regardless of what we had, it was not dining hall food so I was extra excited. Overall, so far break is going really well and I'm enjoying my time spent with my family and friends.

What? No Turkey?!?

Just kidding. There was a plethora of turkey. Probably too much. I had the privilige of going home and staying with my family for a few days, and it was extravagant. Wednesday night I accompanied my family to my grandparents house, where my aunt and uncle from Chicago were staying for thanksgiving too, and we all had a fantastic dinner. After much fellowship and memories, we parted. The following day seemed like de'javu: everyone was back together, laughing and reminiscing, only it was in my parents kitchen instead of my grandparents. I had a wonderful thanksgiving, mostly due to the fact I hadn't seen a majority of the people there in months. It just makes me wonder how many years until there'll be a third consecutive day spent in our generation's kitchen.

Thanksgiving Without Real Food

Thanksgiving was not as exciting as it should have been, well this would have been true for most international students. I was pretty happy that we had time to get some rest just before the finals. However, one thing that was problematic during Thanksgiving was getting food. The dining halls were closed, the super market was closed and most of the restaurant available were as well. Luckily enough I was aware that the dining hall was going to close and went grocery shopping a day before. For most of the holiday, I lived off processed food like ramen, spam, and etc. Although it was against Pollan’s beliefs, I found myself munching on these industrial products of science. I figured out that industries have focused more on personal connivence rather than health, because as a consumer of their products, I didn’t have to use much effort in preparing myself a meal. I really can’t say processed food is a bad side-effect of the industrial society. If it wasn’t for processed food I would have been to lazy to eat. I guess a moderation between real food and processed food would help maintain both connivence and health.

Thanksgiving(s)

Thanksgiving is a time to celebrate with family, which is exactly what I did. My mom hosted our families thanksgiving for the first time this year, and it went wonderfully. The food was great, and we all helped out to make it a very special meal. My thanksgiving however, was also a little hectic. My boyfriend's family also lives in the area, and so we committed ourselves to eating two thanksgiving dinners. One at 2 pm, and one at about 6. Needless to say, we were very very full. But it was still a wonderful time to visit family that we have not seen in a while.

thanksgiving

my thanksgiving started out with the potential to be disastorous, but thankfully it ended up great. The problems occured with my flight home. When i got to the atlanta airport, i learned my first flight (to philly) had been changed so i could have a better chance of making my connecting flight (to state college). However, there were problems at the philly airport, and the flight was delayed two hours. If i had gotten on this flight, i would miss the last connecting flight to state college and would have been stranded at the philly airport overnight. Thankfully however, with much thinking, i found a flight going to harrisburg. Harrisburg is only a hour or so drive from my house, so i ended up flying there and getting a ride back home. Even though ended up home hours later than expected, i was very thankful i didnt have to spend the night in the airport.

Then when i got home i finally had a chance to eat real food and stuffed myself with as much turkey and homemade pumpkin pie as i could handle. I left the next day, earlier than i might have wanted to, (considering i didnt get tickets to the uga game) but i thoroughly enjoyed my time home, and regard it as a teaser for the month or so ill have off in two weeks time.

Thanksgiving

After reading everyone's thanksgiving posts I feel very fortunate to be able to spend the break with my family. Although I think everyone enjoyed a break away from Georgia Tech Dining Halls. For thanksgiving at my house we had the traditional meal; turkey, stuffing, salad, corn, beans, soup and my favorite mashed potatoes. Preparing the meal takes forever. Usually we start around dinner time the night before getting everything ready. Everybody in our family has a job. Usually I am the potato peeler and cheese cutter. Though usually my mom ends up doing everything. In the end the dinner usually turns out amazing and I find it hard to eat for the next couple of days because of how fat I am.

Thanks to the Giving

I was in heaven being at home and having real food placed before. There are times when I question the source of what I eat at school. I have picked our turkey to the bone. I have eaten turkey with every meal since our early Thanksgiving lunch. I woke up to my mom tossing around dishes at about 6am and went downstairs to give her a hand; she has a bad back and shouldn't be standing too much. I did everything she would actually admit to needing help with, realizing that I have become to her what she is to my grandmother. I've watched her for many years be the "second-hand man" to my grandmother in the kitchen and this is exactly what my purpose had now become. The gravy needed stirring while the pies were placed in the oven for warming; I was there. After our early lunch, about 11am, we all sat down for some much needed rest and pie. Around 4pm, we left the house for a movie. My sisters are six and seven so the movie of choice was A Christmas Carol in 3D. This was our Thanksgiving Day; nothing elaborate because we don't have family in the area, but it was exactly what I was wanting. I have yet to go out because I feel like I can do plenty of that when I return to Tech. I have enjoyed my sitting on the couch, decorating the house for Christmas (our after-Thanksgiving tradition), and doing Calc homework (it never fails). As everyone else began decorating the tree, I received the request of making my grandmother's recipe for Buckeyes. These are bite-sized balls of sugary peanut butter dipped in chocolate and place in the refrigerator for hardening. As I am writing, the balls of PB are sitting in the fridge waiting to be dipped. The only problem? When I went to buy the ingredients, the local grocer didn't carry the parafin wax necessary for thickening the chocolate dip. My mother and I had much fun rolling these sticky, greasy balls of PB. Mom resorted to using two spoons and made some not-so-spherical forms. But I insisted on doing it as I had seen my grandmother do it, digging in with both hands covered in powdered sugar to minimize the stickage to my hands. This was interesting, but nevertheless, it was tradition.

I remember watching my grandmother spend hours in the kitchen baking and once I was old enough to learn, I began to help. Of course, when I was younger I had a much smaller attention span and baking became uninteresting after the first couple of steps. I would always leave after the stirring had been done. It was nastalgic to think that I had now become the head baker in the family since mom was busy orchestrating my sister's decorating and arguing in the other room. Throughout the past couple weeks, I have noticed my interest shifting from baking to also cooking. I was never really interested in food, but sweets were a binding part of the meal in my mind. Dessert was the most comforting to me. I have encouraged Mom to start doing more cooking like she used to. She's always had this interest for trying new dishes; we never eat the same type of food during the week. One day we will have Italian, the next Indian. It is amazing the things my mother can come up with. I have vowed to return on the eighth with ideas and recipes for my family to try. I have become a lot more adamant about my sisters turning down the juices and snacks for milk and water. At the same time, I have refused to let my sister prepare new food when there is plenty for her to choose from. I think Pollan really got into my head about everyone sitting down and eating the same meal at the same time. This is one thing I grew up with that I am determined to instill in my sisters.

My First Thanksgiving Experience

Well all of you must be home for thanksgiving,but there are some of us international students who cannot travel the distance for the holidays.Well here i am,going to tell you about my first thanksgiving experience ever, an amazing day and the food i had during thanksgiving even though i had to stay in Georgia Tech for the holidays.

On Tuesday night my high school friend from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh flew down to Atlanta for the Thanksgiving break,to spend the break in Tech.Georgia Tech was practically deserted by Wednesday,so my other high school /Tech friend and I decided to show him around the city and give him a taste of the food in Atlanta (obviously a much bigger city than small town Pittsburgh,PA).After sampling all the flavors of coke in the World of Coca Cola,we ate in the Johnny Rockets burger joint,where he had chili fries,i had regular fries and my other friend had a regular cheese burger.We then headed through Centennial Olympic Park to the CNN center where we all had ice cream floats and hung out at the food court while we bought sodas from Arby's.We topped off the day by heading to Atlantic station for dinner.We decided to eat at California Pizza Kitchen.I had a White Pizza (contains spinach and Parmesan cheese) while my other friends had pizzas with 4 different mushroom toppings which were supposed to be absolutely delicious.We finally wen't to the movie theater where we had a small popcorn and soda each while watching 2012 and Ninja Assassin.

On Thursday as you know,all restaurants in Atlanta were closed.We headed to Atlantic Station to catch the show of 'Dead Bodies' and eat at a famous Mexican restaurant 'Rosa Mexicano' there.But Atlanta resembled a ghost town on thanksgiving day.We didn't get to do either since both were closed by the time we arrived there.We headed to The Georgia Aquarium,next on the list(practically the only place open for Thanksgiving) where we ate carrot sticks and mayo in the cafe along with double chocolate chip cookies and subway sandwiches.After seeing the variety of crabs,fish,sharks,turtles,otters and other sea creatures in the world's largest aquarium,we decided to head back to Georgia Tech by MARTA.

While walking back home from the MARTA station we found a small fast food joint called 'Goodfellas' (Our last option on the freezing cold day) where most people who didn't have family or whose family was away for the occasion celebrated the evening with a nice thanksgiving dinner(in our case without the traditional turkey,i'm vegetarian:-D).We cozily sat in one of the benches.I ordered a cheese Calzone while my friend ordered a pizza with pineapple toppings.We enjoyed our food,talking to other people in the restaurant who were also away from their family during the holidays and also to the waitress who was working extra hours during the holiday.We finished our food and left,contented with the day.

My friend left the next day for Chicago,to spend the rest of the break.Now i heave a sigh of relief since the restaurants are back open today and eagerly await the Georgia Tech-UGA game.

GO JACKETS!

Thanksgiving at "The Inn"

My dad is currently working in Louisville, KY; my mom is presently living in Roswell, GA. The fact that my father had to work the day after thanksgiving made it difficult for him to make the six hour drive down to Georgia twice in two days, and there is no homely atmosphere up in Louisville for us to give thanks in, so we compromised and met somewhere close to the halfway point between the two cities, in Tennessee. We met a homely place in Kingston called Whitestone Inn, where we all stayed the night before going our separate ways, but this a food blog, and the food at the inn is what I am writing about.

There, Thanksgiving is a traditional-style Thanksgiving meal: a buffet of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie, and anything else turkey day related. It was a great meal, as it should be, and I was quite full when I set out to the dessert bar. That is one area that really made the meal outstanding. The desserts included pecan pie, gingersnap cookies with a pumpkin puree (with a much fancier name than that, I am sure) that complemented each other nicely, and a frozen cream pie (again, a better name probably exists). The pie was exceptional, the cookie dunkers were witty and wonderful, and the pecan pie was, well, perfect. I had a lovely time and would recommend, to the traveler trapped in Tennessee, a stay (with a dinner) in Whitestone Inn.

An Untouchable Yet Decorative Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is often the time when people look for the huge turkey and make a ton of plates such as mash potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and more.

My Thanksgiving meal was exactly that albeit earlier than usual. Due to my brother being invited to another Thanksgiving annually, my family celebrates it during lunch. However from living away from home for quite some time, I am no longer use to my family's timing for lunch. I woke up an hour before Thanksgiving and was still groggy when the turkey was making its grand entrance to center stage. In addition to my sleepiness, I had begun developing a cold, which often leaves me with little to no appetite.

I still managed to eat a small amount and got to taste my mother and grandmother's cooking. The creamy white mash potatoes with the over-the-top gravy was absolutely to die for. It was definitely a shame to not get to eat more than a few bites. Aside from the mash potatoes, there was cranberry sauce and the turkey. The sauce gave a distinct taste leaving a person to simply ask for more. Sadly I can't say the same about turkey as to me it is just as I remembered from previous years before. I reckon it is a tasty turkey that my grandmother and mother prepared but I guess I'm not quite the turkey fan. The turkey had delicious skin but the inner parts were simply bland or so I thought.

As if my grandmother knew the turkey's lacking taste, she gave another turkey to each of us! The second turkey she gave was no other than a chocolate turkey, which was wrapped in colorful aluminum foil. My grandmother confessed they were really from my aunt on the west coast.

With the chocolate turkey at hand, I quickly excused myself and returned to a long overdue treat -- sleep.

Wow

Wow what a blast. I went out 7:30a.m. in the morning walked to the marta station with my luggage, arrived at the airport at 9a.m. Since I still haven't eaten breakfast I brought a bacon and egg sandwich. Then when I arrived at New York at 1:00p.m. I got a Pho' noodle after that at 6:p.m. I had turkey with my family. Yep today was a blast went from eating a bacon and egg sandwich in Atlanta to eating turkey with my family. Best day ever!!!

Blog Post #4

Health is important. You can hardly deny this viewpoint. Today more and more people begin to care about their health statues. They go to the hospital to check up every year; they do exercise every week; and, they eat so called healthy food every day. They can easily find the nutrition values table on the package and they believe that they can find out how is food by these data. However, no matter how reasonable an opinion is, there are always some one who stand on the opposite to contradict the opinion. In the book “In Defense of Food”, Michael Pollan argued that nutritionism could not improve, or even deteriorate the quality food and human’s life.

Michael Pollan tried to use a great deal of facts and statistics to prove his observation. He successfully persuaded me that nutritionism changes food in the first Chapter of his book. But, when I moved on through the book, I can scarcely agree with him because of the bugs in his logic.

In the book, the author mentioned that people are living an unhealthier life than before. He listed many general diet-related diseases which were not so popular several decades before. But these facts are not credible. In 1900, a diabetic might not be able to know that he is a patient because the medical technology was not well-developed then. We can only say that more people are diagnosed as patients today, but not more people become patient today. What’s more, because of nutritionism, the rate of diseases caused by undernourishment is getting lower and lower. Michael Pollan averted to write about these facts in his book in order to demonstrate his own view.

What’s more, even if it can be confirmed that nowadays the physical situation of human beings is getting worse and worse, is it food that causes this tragedy? In this book, the author didn’t provide enough evidences to show the relationship between food and health. He pointed out that the change of food and the change of health status are happening at the same time. But this might just be a kind of coincidence. We can not always say that one of the two things happened together is the cause while the other is the effect. In addition, he produced some instances, in both Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, to elucidate that some compound from which modern food is made might cause some diseases. But, actually, these examples are merely some special cases. The author used some micro study results to explain a macro argument, that it is the change food which makes people unhealthier than before. His logic is approximately the same as “In 2009, all the flu is swine flu because my mother had swine flu this year.” In fact, besides food, many factors can worsen human’s physical condition, such as environmental pollution and high mental pressure. We can not reach the conclusion that it is food which makes people sick.

To sum up, though Michael Pollan provided plenty of convincing theories and facts to prove the seeming truth of nutritionism makes food become unhealthier, his argument still can not be accepted by me since his logic is coherent and credible enough. An ancient proverb states: Every coin has two sides. It seems such an obvious wisdom now. Michael Pollan’s contention is unilateral and subjective. He should study an object from different aspects, but not focuses on only one dimension by using all the positive illustrations and ignoring all the adverse ones.

Fine, I will take Herman's advise

{It is a poem that I wrote in Chinese and then Herman saw it and told me that I should translate it and post it here. Well, so I did, after a little bit editing.}

From today, I am going to be happy

Waking up in the morning, seeing through the curtians, no matter rain or sunshine, I will smile

Telling myself it is a good weather

From today, I am going to be happy

Feeling the unfair side of the world, wanting to complain, telling myself a joke

Telling myself that my life is not acomplished unless I experience it

From today, I am going to be happy

Facing difficulties, willing to give up, I will try my best to forget about it, and cheer myself up

Telling myself that I can and will make it through

Escape? Fruit！

Sad? Chocolate！

Tired? Meat！

From today, I am going to be happy

If I want to cry, I will smile,

and go eat！！！！！！！！

ps. picture taken at M&M store, time square, NYC

Returning to the basics.

By Adrian Simonis

Michael Pollan’s manifesto, “In defense of Food”, is a detailed work that stresses the insufficiencies of our diet and how to correct the unhealthy additions we’ve added to it over the years. Pollan’s main argument is that we should return to eating the basic substances we used to, and not the food like substances we currently consume day in and day out. He lays down many simple rules to easily do so, such as not eating things that your grandmother wouldn’t recognize and avoiding foods that boast healthiness. He continues on to explain the American paradox: the more time we spend worrying about food and trying to correct our diets, the less healthy we actually become.

Pollan continues to explain where the title of his book comes from, including the odd concept of defending food and why something so commonplace would need defending. The reason Pollan feels the need to defend food is because we have taken home grown produce and injected so many unnecessary additives that they can barely be considered “food”. Pollan argues that we should return to the original foods that we produce and consume them without the artificial ingredients as opposed to our current fake foods. Pollan also feels the need to defend food from the industry that creates these fraudulent foods and advertises them as “healthy”.

In order to correct these problems, Pollan promotes an idea that’s been around for centuries, yet is rarely followed: eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. By following these seven simple words, we agree to abide by Pollan’s idea of nutritionism, which includes returning to eat what is truly food and only food that is completely free of detrimental preservatives. Pollan encourages us to escape the western diet confronted in a majority of supermarkets, compacted into packages that don’t carry food, but rather an unhealthy substation of food. We can create a healthy diet by avoiding these mock foods and returning to sensible food consumed in proper context.

Pollan does an effective job of presenting the harms of our current food industry and the unnecessary additives that are so commonplace in our current food markets. He brings up the point that people won’t be reading his ideas on how to stay healthy if they don’t want to change their eating habits, and uses multiple examples on how we can efficiently do so. Pollan shows us how to clean up our increasingly unhealthy diet and the consequences we will suffer if we don’t do so.

One of the main drawbacks in Pollan’s argument is his assumption that all foods claiming to be “healthy” aren’t always the opposite of what they claim to be. Foods that are composed of basic organic substances and have little to no added ingredients are allowed to bear the title “healthy” and may choose to do so. Although most of these products don’t need to do so, they still reserve the right and can claim to be healthy while being completely accurate with their statement. While it may not be a big shortcoming in his argument, it’s still unfair for Pollan to advertise a general rule of thumb that any product bragging to be “healthy” is automatically the opposite. Aside from small setbacks like these, Pollan combines multiple arguments with countless examples to both explain and show the western culture why it is beneficial to return to eating plants and how easy it is to do so.

Blog Assignment 4:

BREAKING DOWN POLLAN’S “IN DEFENSE OF FOOD”

by Hasan Abdul Tawab

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The idea that food needs defending seems absurd at first, until you realize that ‘real food’ has become very rare in the marketplace, having been replaced by ‘foodlike’ substances. The rapid industrialization and commercialization of food, abetted by the rise of fast-food culture over the past century, has coincided with a nearly parallel increase in chronic diseases and the overall deterioration of our health.

It is in this context that Michael Pollan, a major proponent of the ‘slow food’ movement, gives us this unique eater’s manifesto. It can be summed up (albeit a little cruelly) as “Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.”

Pollan begins by outlining the surprisingly recent rise in what he terms the “culture of nutritionism” and shows us how the scientific community has unknowingly collaborated with the processed food industry, giving us synthetic and modified foods that might kill us, while leaving our collective food conscience confused. He proceeds by looking into the various causes and possible remedies, and finally prescribes his own set of rules which if followed, would make us healthier.

Beneath the rhetoric, the data, and the analogies, Pollan spearheads a very radical argument: What Americans eat today and how they eat must change. By returning to our roots and eating “food that our great-grandmothers would recognize” (which we might call unprocessed and organic food), we could return to a state of health that our ancestors enjoyed.

Why is this argument so radical? Because what Pollan proposes is essentially a change in the American way of life, a revolution which would result in drastic consequences for the food industry, loss of jobs, and possibly even a civil war.

But Pollan is smart enough to overlook these costs in his book, not only because it weakens his stance, but more importantly – he does not want to remind us of the problems associated with unprocessed food: disease, failed crops, hunger, famine, social unrest and ultimately war. The Great Famine of Ireland is a case in point. It is reported to have killed over a million due to hunger and resulted in a mass exodus of another million people to America in the middle of the nineteenth century.

But it could have been easily remedied had the current food scenario been in place. Without genetically-modified/fertilized seeds, the potato crop was a disaster waiting to happen. Without preservatives and processing technology, there was no way the Irish government could bring in produce from other countries, or provide an alternative to feed the population. In the absence of supermarket chains, there was no other place to get food, and nothing else to eat either.

The Irish famine is just a snapshot of what might result if we depend on farms too much.

Overlooked aspects aside, Pollan presents his argument in a very convincing manner. By stating that before the rise of the food industry, humans had managed to not only survive, but prosper, he appeals to the sense of nostalgia that several Americans are undoubtedly in the midst of. He cleverly uses what he calls the “American Paradox” to his advantage. The paradox here is that the more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become. The logical solution to this anomaly then, is that we stop worrying about nutrition. But imagine what would happen if we did: this book would fall flat in the bookstores. It wouldn’t sell a copy!

The harsh fact is – Americans continue to worry about nutrition, diet and their health. It’s just that up to now, the food industries have been using this to their benefit, engineering and re-engineering products as the scientific claims and fads come and go. Now of course, our obsession with nutrition can be used as a lever for promoting a new way of life. Pollan thrives on nutritionism, like it or not.

There are subtle hints throughout this book that this was meant to be more than, well, just a book. Witness the naming of the sections – “The Age Of Nutritionism”, “The Western Diet And The Diseases Of Civilization” – all of which lend a rather grandiose quality to his prose. By titling his prose with headings which would not look out of place in a history book, he delicately manipulates our weakness as mortals, and our latent desire to be remembered in a positive light in the annals of history (We don’t want to be remembered as the generation which let the evil food corporations take over, do we?). Or take a look at the rules he sets out towards the end of his manifesto – rules which are thinly-veiled commandments. Pollan may not be a megalomaniac, but In Defense of Food turns out to be something eager for a biblical following.

Pollan must be commended for his rigorous and extensive research – considering that more popular ways of eating and dieting have been adopted by the masses without any significant examination. But the onus is on him to package his argument and “provide the prescriptions that Americans so desperately crave”, in the words of The Washington Post.

To put it simply, Pollan’s book can be broken down into two sections: the first being ‘In Defense Of Food’ where he explores and builds his position, and the second being ‘An Eater’s Manifesto’, where he dispenses his nuggets of advice on how to go about eating the way he recommends it (unfortunately for many people, this may seem like the whole point of the book).

All that I Know is that I Know Nothing

     Michael Pollan knows food. At least, he thinks he does. At the very least, he claims he knows food better than the thousands of nutritional scientists around the world working hard to find the simple elements that, when added together in a diet, can create the perfect nourishment for health and happiness. These scientists know nutrition, not food. That, Pollan says, is their Achilles’ heel.
     Ever since the discovery of macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates), scientists have been trying to find the exact amount of specific nutrients that will lead to the perfect diet. The foods that our ancestors had been consuming for millennia have been broken down and analyzed. The results are in. According to lipophobes, as Pollan addresses them, fats are bad, carbohydrates are good, and protein makes kids grow to be big and strong. Public health warnings were created against fats. Over the years scientists have discovered we need to consume fats to survive, carbohydrates make people obese, and too much protein can be toxic and very harmful to the body. Public health warnings changed. Pollan provides evidence to show that as soon as the formula is shifted around a bit, a new harmful outcome is created. Maybe the perfect formula lies in something else beyond these three macronutrients.
     Breaking food down even further leads to the discovery of micronutrients including vitamins and fatty acids. Science has proven that a lot of these micronutrients are essential to human wellbeing and have begun fortifying food products with them. Pollan explains food fortification, by introducing breads with omega-3 and vitamin-fortified milk, both of which can be found in grocery isles throughout America. What the packages fail to acknowledge is that these products are practically stripped of many of their nutrients in the first place. Wheat contains protein, folic acid, antioxidants, and even omega-3 fatty acids before it is turned into flour used in bread. If people had to take the engine, A/C, and speakers out of their car to install a CD changer, we would all still be driving around listening to cassette recordings. Pollan claims that this is the logic of many fortified foods, and recommends staying away from fortified processed foods for this reason.
     One of Pollan’s other arguments is the notion that maybe the sum of all the nutrient parts in a food does not equal the food itself. Basically, a single food is actually a system at work, and it cannot be derived by simply taking every nutrient separately and ingesting them. For example, the olive oil some cultures enjoy with their tomatoes actually helps make the lycopene in the tomatoes more easily accessible to the body. If this is the case, it may also be possible that one nutrient in a food interacts with another so as to optimize the effects of the two. This would not occur if the nutrients were ingested separately, as many nutritional scientists try to persuade their audiences. In fact, Pollan cites studies that have shown that this is true. As more experiments come in, Pollan expects that this philosophy will have to change to accept the results.
     Pollan also uses thyme to explain his argument. Thyme contains about 35 different antioxidants. Rather than trying to isolate and analyze each antioxidant separately, a task which is nearly impossible to do in the first place, we should just accept that the antioxidants are all contained in the plant to protect it, and the fact that thyme alone is good for us should be reason enough to include it in our diet. People do not need to see which antioxidants are helpful and which do nothing at all, as long as the overall effect is beneficial.
     This leads into what Pollan spends his entire book explaining. He believes that the perfect formula that nutritional scientists are looking for is right before our eyes. Food is the perfect formula. From an evolutionary level, it makes sense. Plants need help germinating, and they attract this help by being healthy and nutritious to the carriers of their seeds. Animals that eat healthy have meat which is, not surprisingly at all, healthy. So rather than spending time, effort, and money on a science which has failed to understand how even the most basic of nutrients work, people should just eat whole foods as they were meant to be enjoyed. Scientists are trying to understand nutrition rather than the foods themselves, and it is not making diet any healthier. Michael Pollan knows this, so he is already one step ahead of so many nutritional scientists.

Blog Post #4: A Defining Moment

A writer’s goal, his “whole purpose,” is unique in many ways from any other writer, but the end result of his writing a work of nonfiction is, inevitably, the same: he makes and supports an argument. Some writers are woefully inept at the execution of such a simple task as making and supporting an argument. Michael Pollan, however, is not. In In Defense of Food, Pollan argues that the Western concern for health coupled with the sidelining of what he deems to be food has resulted in the “American Paradox:” increasing worry about nutrition leads to increasing deterioration of health. Pollan’s argument for the American Paradox is not only clearly stated and restated frequently within the book itself, but also well supported by eloquent prose calling on evidence ranging from the scientific to the anecdotal and everything in between, persuading via adroit manipulation of ethos, pathos, and logos to further his argument.

Pollan initially addresses the American Paradox by discussing the attitude of Americans with respect to food and eating. His argument appeals to logos in many aspects, often citing specific examples and extrapolating from them to draw his own conclusions. He then supports these conclusions with sufficient evidence to make them feasible in the eyes of the reader. For example, Pollan claims that the Puritan origins of the United States are partially responsible for the widespread American disdain for culinary hedonism. He then assesses the attitude of the Puritans at the time and why they might upturn their noses at excessive enjoyment of sustenance: Puritans of the past believed, as do many Americans of today, that food is merely a source of nourishment, not an item to be treasured and revered. What he does here is establish a strong argument that uses logic to analyze a historical fact—he uses both logos and ethos here to establish a strong base from which to make the finer points of his argument.

Pollan continues to develop his argument for the existence of the American Paradox by defining exactly what it is—in his own words. Defining the concept that he will try to prove is a brilliant, well-known, oft-used strategy of writers of persuasive prose. Defining exactly what he thinks the phrase means allows him to fit the definition to the evidence that he will provide later on in the book, which makes the evidence appear to perfectly fit the definition, giving the illusion—whether true or not—of very strong evidence for the argument that he is making. In the case of the argument for the existence of the American Paradox, Pollan defines it to be thus: the more we worry about what we should eat, the less healthy we seem to become. A great aspect of this definition, from the point of view of an author, is the extreme vagueness of his argument. He can, and does, transform the word into all of its many synonyms in establishing his main points. He appeals in every instance of worry to different modes of persuasion: sometimes to pathos in describing a person trying to be healthy, but failing; sometimes to ethos, describing with statistical data the effects of choosing poorly; sometimes to logos, with verbiage addressing the simple logic of his way of doing things.

Pollan effectively uses his prolific writing skills to establish an argument that is nearly flawless by developing a phrase that he purposefully defined to best support the data that he used to support his position. This strategy is very effective in persuading the reader into the way of thinking of the writer because it combines all three modes of persuasion cleverly and with great uniformity. The repetition with which Pollan bombards the reader really drives his points home, and the fact that Pollan is able to make each new persuasive point sufficiently different from the others that he is able to maintain a level of interest without compromising thoroughness. Pollan argues artfully and cunningly to make his argument greater than any counterargument.

Blog post 4: Too Much Science

Michael Pollan, in his book “In Defense of Food,” uses considerable scientific evidence to argue that western diets should escape from the nutritionist approach and follow the common sense approach. Pollan builds all his arguments by strongly referring to scientific evidence. First, he establishes a statement that people should not depend too much on nutruitionism. Then, he explains how nutruitionism affects western diet in the era of industrialization. Lastly, he advises people should “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” to escape from nutruitionism. However, he uses too much scientific analysis for his argument, which makes his argument less effective.

Pollan uses too many professional scientific terms to establish his arguments, but they are not very effective and necessary. For example, Pollan writes abstruse words such as cell membranes to explain what Omega-3 and Omega-6 are and how they affect people. Nevertheless, do readers really care about how Omega-3 and Omega-6 work scientifically in the human body? The answer is no. Readers are not scientists, so they are not interested in understanding every complicated scientific word. They only care the fact that people who consume less Omega-3 become less healthy.

Although Pollan points out that science cannot explain the nutruitionism very well in his book early, however, he still uses a lot of scientific analysis to claim how and what we should eat in late part of the book. For instance, Pollan argues that nutrients such as calories cannot indicate whether food is healthy or not, but late, he also encourage people to eat more plant-based food because plant-based food has fewer calories, which is protective against many cancers. This contradiction confuses the readers and weakens his argument. On the one hand, Pollan mentions that nutritionism is “bad science.” On the other hand, he uses science to explain plant-based food is healthy. Moreover, one eating advice is also a contradiction: Although he says food cannot be simply broken down into nutrients, he still suggests to “be the kind of person who takes nutrimental supplements (multivitamin-and-mineral pill).”

Hence, Pollan focuses too much on food science instead of the food culture and history. In fact, culture affects people's eating habits more than science does. For example, the Japanese eat fish because of their culture, but not because of scientific information. Although he mentions some influence of culture, his analysis of culture is negligible compared to the analysis of science. Hence, history also changes people's diet effectively. American food is not as healthy as food of France and China largely because Americans have only two hundred years history of diet. The western diet is not developed enough.

Pollan always uses science to explain how food affects people’s health, however it could be wrong. For instance, Pollan suggests people to eat wild food and drink wine because scientific research shows that people who do that are healthier. However, wild food and wine may not make people healthy at all. People who eat wild food and drink wine are on average richer than people who do not. Rich people certainly have better house, better health care, and they live in cleaner environment with less worry about financial problems. All of these can be the reasons that they are healthier.

In all, in the “In Defense of food,” Pollan uses too much scientific analysis and argues too scientifically. His book looks like a textbook about health and biology. A lot of people cannot truly understand the scientific analysis in the book. After reading the book, how many people really remember the difference between omega-3 and omega-6?

Blog Post 4: A Reader's Manifesto

Michael Pollan’s most recent book, titled In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, attempts to investigate the correlation between the metabolic syndrome, the American diet, and the rise of nutritionism in America. Pollan defines nutritionism as the public’s concentration on the individual nutrients and components of a specific food rather than the whole food itself. The main thesis of In Defense of Food features the simple instructions to: “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Michael Pollan’s evidence for his thesis includes giving off negative impressions of food science and food processing. The book sheds light on some of the drawbacks of food processing, such as the loss of vitamins during cooking. Pollan mentions that processed foods aren’t true foods and should be limited in consumption. He also advises that one should only eat foods that his grandmother’s generation would recognize. Lastly, In Defense of Food features an extensive argument about the implication of consuming too many omega-6 fatty acids and consuming too few omega-3 fatty acids. Pollan contends that the large gap between the number of omega-6 fatty acids and omega-3 fatty acids in the American diet is one of the main contributors of the increased prevalence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease over the past forty years.

Michael Pollan’s main arguments within In Defense of Food are not complete enough to withstand careful scrutiny. Firstly, Pollan neglects to reveal the benefits of processed foods. Food science serves several important functions within modern society. Over the past one hundred to two hundred years, there has been a large population shift from rural to urban areas. Processed foods have provided people in urban areas with something to eat when they can’t grow their own crops nor raise their own animals. The processes that foods go through and the additives that are mixed in help give the foods longer shelf life. This is needed because sometimes foods have to travel long distances from the farm in the rural areas to the consumer in the city. While processed foods might be lacking in some vitamins, they give people the freedom to live in areas away from farms and the freedom to enjoy foods all year around, not just the prime growing seasons. Naturally, most foods do not need to have a long shelf-life as many foods were intended to be eaten right away. As humans migrated into regions that had harsh seasons and climates, they learned how to preserve foods available in summer for the winter time; they preserved meats by salting or smoking, and milk by fermenting into cheese. This was the beginning of the first processed foods. Additives in certain foods are also used to protect the food from bacteria growth. For example, the pasteurization of milk could be considered a type of food processing, yet it extremely beneficial to one’s health. Food processing can also provide fortification of important components within a certain food, like the addition of vitamin D within milk or the enrichment of folic acid in bread.

Pollan asserts that the main reason for the rise of unhealthiness in Americans is solely the fault of the diet. In order to prove his point, Pollan cites a study where Aborigines that had adapted the Western lifestyle were somehow cured of “western diseases” when they readopted their own lifestyle in the Australian wilderness. Pollan concludes that the reversion to a diet based on traditional foods cured the participants of all ailments. Pollan completely forgets one important aspect of the whole the study however. The Aborigines had readopted the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, not diet. Part of the cured ailments certainly had to do with the fact that the Aborigines were now working exhaustively for their food. Pollan never introduces the complete American lifestyle into his discussion of the Western diet. He doesn’t mention that reports indicate that as many as 50 million Americans are now living sedentary lives. He doesn’t mention that it is now common knowledge that if you consume more calories than you exert, you will eventually gain weight. While one’s diet is part of the problem, switching from processed foods to traditional foods will not help if one does not exercise accordingly. It is acknowledged within In Defense of Food that there are many different cultures within many different diets. Pollan contends that these diets are healthier because they feature traditional foods. However, couldn’t the people that eat these diets be healthier because they live different lifestyles? Maybe these different cultures aren’t as inactive as Americans. The focus cannot be on just the foods that these cultures consume but the complete lifestyles that these cultures live.

Michael Pollan is a big advocate of limiting omega-6 intake and a big supporter in the consumption of omega-3 fatty acids. Pollan uses the same scientific “nutritionism” approach that he states has been harmful to the American population with these two types of fatty acids. He does somewhat begrudgingly mention that fact within the book. However, the omega-3 fatty acids he clamors about for the middle part of the book may in fact be more harmful than he admits. The American Heart Association has recently refuted the claim that replacing the intake of omega-6s with omega-3s would lower risk of heart disease. The AHA went so far as to claim that “[reducing] omega-6 PUFA intakes from their current levels would be more likely to increase than to decrease risk for CHD (coronary heart disease).”

The intent of Michael Pollan’s manifesto is to encourage the reader to be more mindful of what he/she is eating. However, Pollan sets out to establish his goal by shining a bad light upon food science and the scientific process. Pollan is right about the unhealthiness of the American people but he is not completely right about the reasons behind the unhealthiness. Instead of bashing science, Pollan should have focused on improvements Americans can make in their lifestyle, not just their diet. One cannot just look at the ingredients of a lifestyle but instead look at the entire picture.

Works Cited:

American Psychological Association. "Sedentary Lives Can Be Deadly: Physical Inactivity Poses Greatest Health Risk To Americans, Expert Says." ScienceDaily 10 August 2009. 25 November 2009 .

Harris WS, Mozaffarian D, Rimm E, et al. "Omega-6 fatty acids and risk for cardiovascular disease: a science advisory from the American Heart Association Nutrition Subcommittee of the Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism; Council on Cardiovascular Nursing; and Council on Epidemiology and Prevention." Circulation 119 (2009): 1-7. Web. 25 Nov 2009. .

Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2009. Print.