Reed 'n' Seed: First Quarter of "Fast Food Nation"

The first section of "Fast Food Nation" that I read was pages 1-59, which included the introduction, and two chapters out of section 1,The American Way, called The Founding Fathers and Your Trusted Friends.
The main topics that were discussed in this part of the book were: where fast food started, who started it, advertising for fast food, the comparison of Disneyland and McDonalds, creating a brand, and about who is eating fast food. It was actually really interesting to read about all of these young men that really came from nothing who worked their way up to owning and running these highly successful fast food restaurants! Many of these men were from the east coast or the midwest, and moved west to start a whole new life, which they truly did. It was also interesting to read about the fact that like Disneyland, McDonalds and other fast food restaurants were using similar strategies for becoming such a widespread business. At one point in the book the author touched on advertisement strategies that restaurants like McDonalds were using which were solely meant for kids, and how their are even journals out that teach people how to advertise to children.
One of the most surprising things I learned from reading this book thus far would have to be how fast fast food restaurants came to be. It was really sad to read about how these men traveled to California where there were rows upon rows of peaches, and lemons as far as they could see, but by the time a number of fast food restaurants had opened up not a single row of peaches or lemons was left standing. A term that I learned while reading that I also found interesting was synergy, which is the term used to describe a situation where different entities cooperate advantageously for a final outcome. Simply defined, it means that the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. I found this interesting because without the help of all of it's workers none of these restaurants would exist, yet the interest is really only for the company not the employee.
I feel like there is so much more I could write about, but the last thing I want to talk about is the implications of all of these fast food restaurants all over the place.  At the beginning of the introduction the author was talking about the Cheyenne Mountains and how beautiful they are, and how when we think of an old western movie the background would look something similar to the breath taking Cheyenne Mountains.  Yet we know that within the Cheyenne Mountains are the headquarters for North American Aerospace Command, The Air Force Space Command, and the United States Space Command.  This mountain has been turned into and underground city, which is highly guarded, and is strong enough to withstand being hit by a bomb.  Surprisingly enough within the highly guarded mountain you will find McDonalds rappers, Burger king boxes, and even a dominos box.  FAST FOOD IS EVERYWHERE!  Too many people are eating fast food, and too much of it!  The book hasn't really gone into where the meat is coming from and things like that, but I will definitely be keeping everyone up to date when I do read about those kinds of things.  Below is a picture of the entrance tunnel, in the Cheyenne Mountains, to the North American Aerospace Command, just to give you a visual!

Share and Voice: Alphabet Soup

In my Community Health class today the topic was Environmental Health.  We watched the YouTube clips below called Alphabet Soup-A Look at Pollution in the Ocean pt 1 and Alphabet Soup-A Look at Pollution in the Ocean pt 2, I was disgusted by what I saw.  I immediately knew that I wanted to use this clip as a share and voice.  This video is a real eye opener about water pollution, specifically looking at plastic in our oceans.  This video is educational and informative, it proves yet again that we need to start reducing the amount of plastic we are using, and to recycle plastic properly when we are using it.

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 2: Weekly Update

   My eco-chic lifestyle goal is to drink six to eight 8 ounce glasses of water everyday out of my metal water bottle!  I realized this past week that my goal may sound easy, but it truly is not.  I had to make a real conscious effort to drink my water.
   One of the biggest challenges I faced was that as it was getting colder outside, I found myself not wanting to drink the "cold" water!  I also found that water gets kind of old.  Starting today I am going to either add a lemon or crystal light to my water to make drinking it easier...atleast I hope it helps!
   Even though it was kind of a struggle at times drinking all of that water, it felt good to know that just by re-using my metal water bottle every time I was helping out our environment!  It feels good to know that what you are doing is helping out in someway or another!
   Something interesting I learned this week is that in order to make plastic water bottles 15 million barrels of oil a year needs to be used.  That is equivilant to fueling 100,000 cars for a whole year!
   I don't think I am going to change much this week except adding some flavor to my water!  I might even go to TJ Maxx and buy a class water bottle like Dr. V's for some added inspiration!

Blogged for the Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 2

Hosted by Amy@ Eco-Chic with Amy

Eye Opener: CSIP

 For this weeks eye opener I took a Tour of Food Supply in the United States.  The tour consisted of looking at a fertilizer factory, a factory farm, a supermarket, a hospital, a restaurant, a slaughter house, a feed lot, pesticides, feed grains, irrigation, a manure lagoon, a river, and animal feed.  When you click on each topic you are then shown facts about that particular place or topic.  Below are a few facts taken from the tour that I found very interesting:

"The energy used to manufacture the 22 billion pounds of fertilizer used to produce feed for livestock, could provide one year's worth of power for about 1,000,000 Americans."

"Contaminated food causes about 5,000 deaths each year.  About 1,000 of those death are from food-borne illnesses linked to meat, poultry, dairy, and egg products."

"Annual medical costs for food-borne illnesses and deaths from pathogens in meat products in the U.S. is over 7 billion dollars."

"In 2002 about 140 million cattle, pigs, and sheep were slaughtered in the U.S., about half an animal for every man, woman, and child.  Another 9 billion chickens and turkeys, which is about 30 birds for every American."

"Manure lagoons on industrial scale hog farms have broken open in storms polluting waterways and killing fish."

These facts are extremely alarming!  I had no idea how much money we were spending on fertilizer or how many people per year were dying from food-borne illnesses before I took this tour.  Not only are we harming ourselves but our environment is suffering too!  An interesting fact that was also stated was that Americans are consuming more meat than they need to be, meaning that if everyone were to cut back we wouldn't need to be producing all of this fertilizer to feed the animals that we end up slaughtering to feed Americans.  I really do think that if everyone started to really learn about what they are eating and how much is too much, we may be able to do something about these crazy statistics!