Meat, Poultry, and Fruit

After reading each of these articles I realized the authors all took a different to how they wrote the essay. Pollan’s article was long and he went with the “I'm going to tell you everything about a subject” to make my point. I also found his article the most boring. Maybe because it was 12 pages, maybe because I'm still a fan of eating red meat and will continue to be for a while, although now I'm going to try to notice where it comes from. I enjoyed reading the Tomatoland article a lot because I'm from an area that grows tomatoes in the summer and I appreciate a really fresh tomato right from the garden. Estabrook took the approach of using a personal story to then give background information on the production aspects of tomatoes. The infographic by Cook used the fear approach. It told us everything bad about chickens in a span of 2 pages. It crammed everything in and there was little information left unnoticed.

The Estabrook and Cook piece focus a lot on the production side of the food. Estabrook focuses a lot on the Florida tomato laws and pre-production as well as production. I found it interesting how the laws in Florida calls for an unblemished, round, hard, green tomato so that it can then be pumped full of chemicals and turned into the tomatoes we eat during the winter. I also liked the series of events the author used when describing the indestructible tomato.

In the infographic I found a rather long quote at the top of the second page to be very interesting. It reads

"Inedibles'' such as the head are transported by auger to the "of- fal room," where they are ground up and then poured into a gi- gantic vat to cook. The few unlucky souls who tend this room must endure sweltering heat and remain ever mindful that the horrible fumes released by the decomposing blood can, in rare cases, become poisonous in a confined space. Of more immedi- ate concern are the augers, mixers, and blenders that crowd the room: workers must avoid getting caught in the machinery and dismembered. What comes out of this room? Chicken feed. (Cook 79)

It was more that I was shocked than interested when reading this until the last words. The fact that chicken heads and other assorted parts made chicken feed made me laugh a little. By the definition of the word they are cannibals because they are eating their own kind. Either way that article was a little on the messed up side.