Annotated Blog

FOOD FIGHT:

Brownell, Kelly D. Food Fight. McGraw-Hill: Chicago Il, 2006.

Food Fight is a very factual account of the American food crisis. Divided into three sections beginning with Biology Mismatched With The Modern World, followed by The Toxic Environment, and closing with the simply titled Changing Things, Food Fight addresses many angles of the food industry, and their effects on the global community. While it points out the industry’s shortcomings, it also discusses in-depth, possible solutions to this colossal problem. My favorite aspect of Food Fight is the highlighting of key facts. Since the book contains so much information the highlighting enhances the accessibility of the various statistics. If there is an inherent downfall within Food Fight it may be that at times the presentation seems too steeped in facts. Unlike Eric Schlosser’s approach in the culinary classic Fast Food Nation, Dr. Brownell does not blend real life examples with the numbers and hard evidence. This makes the book a very dry read, and a challenge to focus on for an extended length of time. When it’s all said and done, I think the merits of Food Fight far outweigh any deficiency. Dr. Kelly D. Brownell clearly addresses the problem, discusses its major issues inside and out, and even provides recommendations to the public and possible answers for this enormous issue.

IN DEFENSE OF FOOD:

Pollan, Michael. In Defense Of Food. Penguin Press: New York NY, 2008.

Unlike the other books I have chosen, Michael Pollan’s In Defense Of Food takes a different approach in the quest to find a way out of our modern food quandary. Where books such as Eric Scholsser’s Chew On This and Dr. Kelly Brownell’s Food Fight concentrate largely on Fast Food, Pollan moves beyond the Fast Food industry to focus on another movement that has also played a large role in today’s food crisis. Dubbed “Nutritionism” by the Australian sociologist Gyorgy Scrinis, this movement is defined as a belief that it is necessary to engage foods exclusively on their nutritional and chemical constitutes. Pollan later describes the movement’s hallmark in simpler terms stating that the nutrients found in food should be divided into groups of good and bad. Although there seems to be nothing wrong with this outlook Pollan suggests that we take another route. After covering the various problems of Neutritionism including that it is based on questionable science, he suggests a solution that is radically simple: “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants”. By carefully looking at ingredients on packages and having a basic understanding of natural ingredients, Pollan says we can eat food that is far more beneficial to us then anything created in a lab. His simple guideline is that we “shouldn’t eat anything our great grandmothers wouldn’t recognize as food”. Food Fight is a breath of fresh air. It addresses the same problems that other works cover but provides a new perspective. It challenges much of what we have been taught and because of this it added a unique element to my research.

CHEW ON THIS:

Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson. Chew On This. Houton Mifflin: Boston 2006.

Eric Schlosser once again tackles the never ending Fast Food issue. In his first work Fast Food Nation Schlosser puts a great amount of emphasis on the Fast Food Industry itself. He concentrated most of his chapters on what the business has done its employees, our natural resources, and economy. In his second round attack on Fast Food, Scholosser and partner Charles Wilson place more of their focus on the food. It tells the tale of the animals we eat, uncovers the secret ingredients used to make our favorite dishes, and talks about the industry’s founders. It reveals how a few restaurants grew to a few thousand, and how a clown named Ronald became an American icon. What makes Chew On This a good source is that much like its predecessor, the information is interwoven with the personal stories of real people. This gives the book a good mixture of statistics, hard facts, history and storytelling which makes both the reading more pleasant and the significance of the information evident to all readers. However, at times Chew On this came off as a watered down version of Schlosser’s pervious work. Some of the same information covered in Fast Food Nation was rehashed in Chew On This. Aside from a few interesting points I found Fast Food Nation to be a superior source.

PERSONAL ANECDOTE:
While serving in the military I had my first experience in the food service field. When most people think of the Coast Guard they think of it as a division of our nation’s military focused primarily on lifesaving. Rarely do people consider the operational logistics and roles each member of the service actually performs. In between launching helicopters for counterdrug operations, and doing armed searches of dhows in the Middle East, I was cooking and preparing meals on ships. It was as important to me to provide healthy meals as it was to justly enforce wartime laws in Iraqi territory. I would estimate that I spent a little more then $110,000 supplying the crewmembers of my unit with provisions during my thirteen months deployed in the Middle East. Some meals served were obviously more popular than others. Without a doubt two of the most popular dishes served were actually side dishes. I couldn’t keep enough French fries or chicken nuggets onboard our small ship. So it came as no surprise to me that a fourth of all vegetables consumed in the United States are the infamous deep fried delicacy made popular by our nation’s Fast Food chains. Also in my travels around the globe I can honestly say there are few countries that I went to that were out of the reach of our nation’s largest Fast Food conglomerates. While on one of my armed transits in the Middle East I passed the legendary McDonalds of Kuwait City that once had a line of 15,000 customers on its opening day. I couldn’t name the amount of times I walked past the plethora of Fast Food establishments while in the Kingdom Of Bahrain’s American Alley. Just down the road from Camp America and Camp Delta, where some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world are confined, our solders, sailors, airmen, and marines enjoy their favorite items off the Guantanamo Bay McDonalds’ menu in a restaurant that looks just like the one in your neighborhood. So it came as no surprise to me that the McDonalds Corporation is the largest holder of commercial real estate in the world. All this puts the providers of food in an interesting position. I was required within limited resources, to supply and prepare meals that were both nutritious and delicious. However, like the rest of America, our nation’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have a taste for fast food. It is showing now more than ever. Everyday each branch of the military turns down potential recruits because of their unhealthy weight. Regularly, service members are placed on report and even discharged for not maintaining their respective weight standards. Finally, our veterans are being treated for conditions that result from the high fat diet they have become accustomed to consuming at their favorite burger joints. If the protectors of the free world are not safe from the grips of Fast Food then who is?