Food Assignment 7 - LATE

Ingredients

•Rice
•Chopped vegetables such as broccoli, peas, carrots, onions, celery, etc.
•Other options include chicken, beef, pork, tofu or eggs
•Soy sauce

Preparation

1.Cook your desired amount of rice and let cool.
2.Heat about 2 tablespoons of olive or vegetable oil in a wok or skillet.
3.Stirring your rice constantly add in your vegetables, meat or tofu and egg.
4.Add a little soy sauce to taste.



This was actually a new experience for me; cooking without my mom nagging me. I was kind of nervous because I thought I would mess up and I think my mom didn't really trust me either. She wanted to do it her way but I wanted this experience to be something I came up with so she left me cooking by myself. I think I kind of messed up during the process; I put too much soy sauce and a little too late, so it came out looking like shit -_- I added cauliflower, bok choy, and mushrooms. Although it didn't look good, my sister said it smelled good and it tasted pretty good.

Industrial Food

The Meatrix

Moopheus: "Have you heard of the Meatrix?"
Leo: "The Meatrix?"
Moopheus: "Do you want to know, what IT is?"
Leo: "Okay."

Leo's lack of enthusiam to learn about the Meatrix reminds me of people who seem to be just going with the flow. Like some people, they go to math and science class because they have to fill up the hours of school. Even though they think it is a waste of their time, they do not do anything about it. Similarly, when it comes to choosing what kinds of food are healthy, people also go with the flow. If someone reliable says something is healthy, then people will also say it is healthy, not knowing what makes it healthy. Also, when Leo was nervous to take the red pill, it reminded me of people who are afraid to break free from their comfortable world to learn about the truth. Like when we were learning about the American Way of Life, I did not think that America had such a dark side but what we learned did make sense and the truth is the truth.

The Meatrix II: Revolting

The way that Leo was deceived into thinking that family farmers can stand against large corporations is how most Americans are deceived. People think that cows are let loose to eat grass and that there are people milking the cows. What is really going on is that there are machines extracting the food and unnatural substances added into the food. If you pay attention to the setting, particularly the color of the skies, it changes from a bright blue to a dull color when corporations took over. It seems as if the color change symbolizes corporations poisoning the environment, the food, and the animals.

Response to Quote

"Whatever native wisdom we may once have possessed about eating has been replaced by confusion and anxiety. Somehow this most elemental of activities - figuring out what to eat - has come to require a remarkable amount of expert help" (Pollan, page 1 of The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals).

I think that this quote does not really describe me because I eat whatever I want to eat and not whatever people say is healthy. The things I eat can be delicious and unhealthy but I still eat it because of the taste. My mom would tell me not to eat certain things when I am sick but whenever I am hungry, I would consume them. Although I do think that this quote has some point; during dinner, it is my mom who buys the groceries and does the cooking. Dinner is a mix of what I like to eat, and what my mom says I must eat because it is healthy. She allows me to choose what to eat, but she adds vegetables and steamed fish to the table.

Grocery Store and Habitual Food

In a typical week, I would be eating cauliflower and Chinese cabbage. Sometimes, the cauliflower would be steamed and made into soup (my favorite), or it would be mixed with crabs and/or fried eggs. As for Chinese cabbage, my mom would cook it by itself or, like the cauliflower, mix cabbage with crabs and/or fried eggs. My mom would buy apples, because that is the fruit that I mostly eat, and might stock up on tangerines. We do not really eat nuts at home, except for this kind that my mom would buy raw, and then fry it herself as a side dish for breakfast with porridge.

The grocery stores I go to, or at least the supermarkets I go to, are different from the ones I have seen with the class and are pretty different from Pathmark. In the supermarkets I go to, the do not stack the vegetables so that there is a particular at eye level. Instead, they spread it out next to each other. The fruits, are outside the supermarket. I noticed that my mom would never walk down the condiment aisle, and I think that is a factor as to why my food do not really have a taste. Since I mostly eat Chinese food, I feel that my knowledge about other cultural food is not as vast. On special occasions, I would go to a Japanese restaurant or a Malaysian restaurant to eat, and I would find my older sister ordering my food because I have no clue what are the good stuff.

Brookyln Food Conference

During the first session, I went to a Teen Program: Nutrition 101 hoping to learn something since it was a teen program. Turned out, it was boring; it was taught by two high school sophomores and I felt that they did not know what they were talking about. They were reading from their papers and I was not absorbing anything from that so I ditched half of the session for the stuff in the gyms. We talked about nutrients, sugar, fats, etc; waste of my 45 minutes.

I thought that the second session was more interesting; I went to the School Food Activism workshop. They talked about some of the main problems with school lunch and what can be done to solve them. The lack of resources and the lack of participation hinders them from getting students to eat healthy. I agree with the fact that people (not just parents but students too) are not doing things to make school lunch something better. They also mentioned that students should talk to the manager of the kitchen to let their voices be heard. I feel that students lack that knowledge; but then again, if there were students (like myself) who were educated about this, they would probably not do anything. One of the reasons might connect to the tactic of control: fear. Students might be afraid that they do not have enough power over the authorities to make a change. Others, might just need a plan to unleash their leadership skills. Students need to know that they can change the food that are being served at school and they can choose what is being served. Hunter surveys show that students do not want to be labeled as being poor and that reminded me of the Food Stamp issue. I think it is just stupid to care about what others think of you regardless of the situation. Someone at the session mentioned food meditation and she said that doing the meditation allows one to actually taste the food, even though it might take an hour to eat a strawberry. I started to take food meditation into consideration and started to think about the way I eat my food. First, I imagined myself meditating at the dinner table and then I saw my mom telling me to finish my food. I feel that people do not take the time to appreciate the food they are getting and they do not think about how the food come about. Then on the other hand, I am not saying to sit there and spend your lunchtime thinking about where the food came from instead of getting your energy.

May Day

I think that the fact that May Day is celebrated almost everywhere else except the United States supports the argument about using fear to control. In Chicago 1886, workers were shot by the police for striking (International Worker's Day). This incident has set an example for the Americans; if they celebrate May Day, then they will get killed. Americans are being controlled with fear by the government and they should break free of that. If they can turn the tables and show the government that the people are in power, then they can do much more than just celebrate May Day.