Animal, Vegetable, Junk – Chapter 11 (01/31/22)
“Even non-caloric sweeteners make us want to eat more, sharpening our sweet teeth into fangs – thank you Dr. David Katz, for the image – and leading to weight gain. And sugar goes hand in hand with other nutritional vices: Ninety percent of Americans (including me) use caffeine daily, whether in sugar laced drinks like soda, iced tea, a variety of “sports” and energy drinks, or coffee, which has increasing become a fat and sugar bomb. Even some bottled water is enhanced with caffeine and sweetener.” (Pg. 193)
My sister is addicted to caffeine the way that I am addicted to TCH. Neither of us want to admit it but if we have to go to long without it, we will be irritable, distractable, and nauseous. We use it every day, and the same people who introduced us to our drug of choice are the ones that gives us the hardest time about it. Before I knew about the dangerous and addicting effects of sugar I wondered how two drugs that were different, in social status and chemical makeup, could produce such similar withdrawal effects, but reading about sugar has me curious if withdrawal is the same for almost every chemical and perhaps the severity just differs based on substance and how addicted you have become to your chemical? How does a sugar addiction differ from another kind of easily accessible addictive substances, like nicotine?
Animal, Vegetable, Junk – Chapter 10 (01/29/22)
“The industry exploded and consolidated in the next half century, when, according to a 2008 Pew Commission report, “the number of chickens produced annually in the United States. . . increased by more than 1,400 percent while the number of farms producing those birds. . . dropped by 98 percent.” Drugs paved the way. In the late forties, a researcher named Thomas Jukes began lacing chicken feed with aureomycin, an antibiotic, which he found prevented disease in large, crowded, and confined populations – and possibly promoted growth.” (Pg. 171)
What happens when profit dictates what food makes it to our table? What could have happened if we hadn’t lost 98% of chicken producers? I talked to my dad about this chapter because we have chickens, and he says that my grandfather used to talk about when chicken was more expensive than lamb or beef.
Taste: What You’re Missing – Chapter 10 (01/28/22)
“Why do beverage companies keep pursuing sugar-free soft drinks? The problem is that no other sweetener tastes exactly like sugar.” (Pg. 215)
We have allowed the weight loss and faux health and nutrition industries to demonize calories, specifically that of those found in sugar. While the calories may be lower, aspartame has been linked to cardiovascular dieses and cancer and we still don’t know the full extent of it. Where else do we see an abundance of fake sugar or artificial sweeteners and do they bring you the same satisfaction as sugar or foods containing sugar?
Experiment: Sweetness Profile
Materials:
-1 packet Equal
-1 Packet Splenda
-1 Packet Sweet’n’low
-Two tablespoons of sugar
-Warm water
Procedure: We divided our warm water into four glasses, one for each of our sweeteners and one for the sugar. We added our packets or loose sugar respectively and mixed until they were dissolved. We tasted each water, one by one with a pallet cleanser between each and recorded the following results.
Results and observations:
Splenda- The Splenda fills your mouth quickly with sweetness that leaves a strange film around the inside of your lips and on your tongue. While it wasn’t overpowering it did last for 18 counts and left an aftertaste.
Equal- The Equal hits your tongue with an overpowering amount of sweetness, but only last about 8 counts. It doesn’t leave the same film as the Splenda did, but it filled my mouth equally fast.
Sweet’n’low- The Sweet’n’low is an overpowering assault to the tastebuds. The sweetness fills your mouth quickly, and to the point of wanting to spit out anything that has come in contact with it.
Sugar- The sugar is a much slower release of flavor than the other sweeteners. The flavor is just as full but less overwhelming, and lasts about as long as the Equal did, It tastes much less of chemicals than the rest and was much more pleasant.
I much preferred the sugar to the artificial sweeteners. I didn’t find their flavors satisfying or pleasant, and often far too overwhelmingly sweet.
Community Gardening Log – (01/31/22)
I started my day on the farm by getting a hands-on lesson from Beth about pruning back grape vines. It took us about an hour to do the whole row, and included digging up an entire little grape bush because it was growing right by the trellis post and not along the wires. I loved seeing the little coils that the plant grows to hold onto the wires, it was kind of sad every time we had to cut one off of the fence because I know how much work the plant has to put into those tight coils just for me to cut the branch off from the node. The very last grape bushel was in it’s sixth year but was much smaller than the others. I agree with Sarah and Beth that it’s probably because it is more shaded than the others, but we decided to leave it anyway because it’s just starting to really take off. Beth told me that “In its first year it sleeps, in its second year it creeps, and in its third year it sleeps.” I thought this was really interesting because I hadn’t considered how a “growth spurt” in your plants could affect the layout of your crops. I also had a lot of questions that I asked Beth as she had me re-pot the grape vines that were growing by the post. I asked about the difference between agriculture and horticulture, herbalism and botany, as well as the definition of permaculture and how she had grown her flowing Kale. That was the first hour and a half or so of class, then Beth needed all hands on deck for our next project.
Top left: Grape vine tendrils cling to the wire in a tight spiral. Top right: Butch the farm cat creeps out from under a wheelbarrow to say hello! Bottom left: The smaller removed grape bushel as I feel out how mature the roots are to make sure the pot is big enough. Bottom right: Newly potted grape vines sit in the greenhouse.
The roof of one of the greenhouses had a massive hole in the ceiling from who knows how many years of use and weathering, and Beth decided that it was time to take down the old plastic so that the new stuff could go up. It was a bit of a process but I’m glad it was something we all did together, it was nice to be helping out and working with the rest of the class, I really miss the social times before covid and I really hope to spend more time with the class. We eventually got the plastic down from the roof of the greenhouse and a few other cut it into pieces and got it into the trash, while the rest of us rinsed the tools and ladders we had used and put them back in the tool shed and pole barn respectively. After the cleanup was done we had a quick wrap up and headed out.
Top: Casey on an Orchard ladder cutting around the edges of the greenhouse to remove the plastic. Middle 1: Laura on an Orchard ladder cutting around the edges of the greenhouse to remove the plastic. Middle 2: Beth giving instructions about what to do with the newly cut down roofing plastic. Bottom: An orange chicken comes to provide help in our trying times.
Farming While Black – Chapter 6 (01/28/22)
“The First Peoples of the West also freely gave their gift to the white colonizer, who disregarded it’s sanctity and turned that maize into a weapon against the givers. Maize was appropriated, exploited, commodified. Torn away from her sisters bean and squash, maize was forced into a monoculture that would rape the soil of its carbon, driving climate change, driving hurricanes into Puerto Rico, Haiti, and Texas, and wildfires in California,” (Pg. 103)
Time and time again we see our country as a whole do things to harm us seemingly for the purpose of harming us. We know of better ways to farm and we choose not to, the same way as so many other things under our current government. Later in the chapter we explore the different families of crops, and crop variations curated by Black farmers. Is there a way that we could both promote the sale and use of Black farmer created and produced crops, and how can we do it in a way that will be less damaging to our environment? What is going to kill us first, our planet or our plates?