Guiding Questions
11/4/2018
Today’s reading task is from the beginning to Page 31. For a book like this, I strongly recommend you read the INTRODUCTION so as to have a thorough idea about where this book will lead you.During the reading, feel free to omit the terminologies, the statistics, whatever you don’t like, but do focus on looking for the writer’s opinions as well as evidences, cause my questions are gonna pertain to those arguments and logics.
Q1: Tracing back to the very beginning of the food chain (such as the producing area/the food processing company), where do you think YOUR last supper come from?
My supper is Korean BBQ which is probably from a feedlot nearby Chengdu, regardless of the ad board in front of their door claiming their meat is from Australia.
Q2: How does the author connect chicken nugget with corn?
All elements, all I would say molecules could be traced back to corn. The interesting thing is I never thought where starch comes from. And it turns out there are various types of starch made of different plants.
12/4/2018
Today's reading task is Chapter Two The Farm(page32-56)
Question 1: Since 1920s, the yields of corn have raised from about 20 bushels per acre to almost 200 bushels per acre. Why or how are the yields able to increase so much?
Rapidly increasing yields is a combined result of technology and market incentives.
Question 2: Where does the excessive fertilizer end up?
It will poison the soil and water eco-system, eventually goes into the body system.Sigh~ Our mankind will take consequences of our own actions.
13/4/2018
Today we’ll have a rather easy reading: Chapter Three The Elevator (pp 57-64). In this Chapter, Pollan depicts what the grain elevators are like, and the possible manipulating forces behinds those“giant barns”.
Question 1: How does the government manage to keep corn production high and corn prices low?
The government offers a subsidy to farmers to motive them increase yields. Farmers are free of the market mechanism indeed.
14/4/2018
Today’s reading task is Chapter Four The Feedlot (pp. 65-84).
In this chapter, Pollan traces the life of a steer (牛) from its birthplace to its feedlot. It used to take a cattle 4-5years to get slaughtered, but now the growing time has been compressed to 16months. In this highly unnatural process, something wrong must ensue.
Question 1: What problems do cattle have when their staple food is corn?
The cattle are not adapt to the new type of food and become sick and obese.
Question 2: What risks can the human have if people do not properly dispose the feedlot wastes?
Same as the answer to 12/4/2018 question 2.
Again, it reminds me of an essay about nature. Nature does not need us and quoted from《三体》“毁灭你，如你何干？”We human have no standing to say this sentence, but often we think we do. Quite opposite to the false delusion, this will be the line of nature, sooner or later.
Question 3: After reading this chapter, do you want to eat industrial meat anymore?
I will. Meat is my favorite and I will try to not think where they are from. Because I guess vegetable will be inevitably related to something dark too.
Question 4: When you read this chapter, did you find Pollan’s language humorous, with a sense of pathetic irony?
Not yet, irony, yes, humorous, no. In a conclusion, I think this book is talking a serious topic with a serious tone.
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