Patel's Stuffed and Starved is not an easy read. It is difficult on many levels. Difficult because it is chock full of more information than we can synthesize, and much of this information points to difficult realities.
I know that there are some in the class who don't think it is worth their time to read this book and that there are others who feel that it offers them something, despite the difficulty.
How do you see this book's relevance or NOT to your academic discipline or to your own life? If you think there is no relevance, then use the processes of your discipline to critique. For example, bio majors, in science one of the major premises is testing (that your evidence is reliable and can be reproduced)--critique Patel using the scientific method. If you find relevance, then talk about that and use the book to support your view.
When reading ch. 6 & 7 in Stuffed and Starved, I found ch 7 most interesting because it was about soy beans. "Today, soy still spawns exotic pleasures, physical and medical. But most exotic of all, and thousand of miles away from the origins of soya, are the political satisfactions" (Patel p.167). The soy bean had been developed into many types of food such as tofu and miso soup, one of my favorite dishes. When I was younger I never really liked tofu nor did I like the bean itself. To be honest, the soy bean does not look or sound appetizing. However, after trying Edamame, which is immature soy beans boiled in water with salt, my taste buds decided to change. At first I never knew what it was until someone explained it to me and thats when I fell in love with soy beans. Moreover, learning about the benefits of eating soy beans from my nutrition class and from this book encouraged me to add it to my diet. So, every once in a while I would substitute tofu instead of eating meat and every time I go to a japanese restaurant I always order Edamame. I thought it was interesting for Patel to write about soy beans after writing about chocolate, it was something that I did not expect. Also, it was interesting to read about how soy bean plant helped during the Great Depression and actually could improve soil. This would be a win, win situation. I never knew that one little bean could have a huge history and it was explained in this chapter.
ReplyDeleteSoy, Good or Evil in the Food Industry?
ReplyDelete“Soy, it turns out, is not only a secret ingredient in chocolate. It is a component in nearly three-quarters of products on the supermarket shelves, and in most products sold by the fast food industry. It's also a key animal feed. Responsible for a thick slab of protein in meat. It's the main ingredient in a number of vegetable oils and margarines, which in turn are used at some stage in most processed food.”(166)
While growing up, my family would be considered by most to be very healthy. We rarely, if ever, ate fast foods, had lots of whole grains, and also, had soy products in our house such as soy milk and tofu. So while growing up I associated soy products with always being healthy, but I was a naïve child. After reading this section of the reading I am really starting to become aware of what is in the food I am consuming. When I used to think of soy, I would think of it as a great source of protein in my diet and an all around healthy food product. After reading this part of the chapter it has really altered my views on soy and soy products. While tofu and some soy products are healthy, I never realized how many unhealthy thing have soy as well. Basically all fast food products contain some kind of soy, which I would have never guessed because I have always associated soy with healthy, whole foods. After reading this it really makes me wonder if soy is doing more good or bad on the food industry today. While you have healthy soy products on one end, does that outweigh all of the unhealthy foods soy is being processed and put in today. I was very surprised to read that the oil from soy makes up 70 percent of the oils and fats produced and consumed in the United States. I also didn't realized this about soy, but in ordered for you to get most of the protein from it, the soy has to be processed. So if you were just eating unprocessed soy products, your body would have a hard time getting protein from it and would get very little. On the other hand, animals can process it very well and get a large amount of protein out of unprocessed soy products, but even then, they usually eat it as soymeal. After reading all of this about soy, it really got me thinking, is soy really that good for us? It makes up 70 percent of our fats and oils in the US, while to get anything good out of it, you must process it. After reading this section I'm really skeptical about soy products now because if what this book is saying is true, then soy might actually be doing more harm to the people of this country than good.
The "HEALTHY ADDITIVE"
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm not the greatest fan of this book, I do learn about the many important hidden subjects. While reading these two chapters I found many interesting topics touched that I could reflect on, but the one topic that stood out and caught my attention is the topic of soy; the healthy choice.
I've always known soy as an important addition to a healthy diet. Though I grew up in a healthy eating family, I did not grow up using soy. Well at least I had no knowledge of ever eating soy until I've recently (in the past years) added soy to my diet.
I was most fascinated when the chapter explained how soy was and still is an additive to many of the foods we love to eat. As a matter of fact many of our foods would not be without the addition of soy.
Soy seems to be making so many people happy and creating a sense of ease for farmers. Not only do we love eating soy, but farmers love using soy. It definitely helped farmers in a number of ways. With soy continuing to be a huge factor in the food industry, I believe happiness will continue to rise in all countries within the food industry, suicide rates will be lowered, and many will gain knowledge and learn how to survive. Soy is a cheap and life changing additive.
Stuffed and Starved: a book more than relevant in everyday life
ReplyDeleteI do find this book a little hard to digest and connect with at some points; but for the most part I think this is a very interesting and eye-opening book to read. It is very relevant not only to my major or academic discipline, but also in everyday life. Doctor’s play a very important role in food sustainability all around the world. Maybe less people would be going into see doctor’s later on in life if they were better educated on their daily diets earlier in life. Doctor’s can play a role in helping to better educate their patients on how truly important it is to eat a healthy diet. Also, doctor’s can take more time to ensure that their patients understand what that means, or what ingredients are in their foods they are digesting. This book is extremely relevant in our daily lives as well. Stuffed and Starved has taught me so much I did not know about farmers and farming. In chapter 6, it dissects what happen to Cuba after the U.S. put an embargo up and how they dealt with it. It does a great job examining how Cubans are living “sustainably” without, or with a minimal of many things we as Americans, now call “necessities”. “The solution, one Cuban soil scientist observed, is that to control insects, you have to give up controlling them” (160). I found this to be a very interesting observation and analysis. The entire end of that chapter describes what we as Americans do with our crops: use one pesticide on a crop for one bug, another kind for another bug, and so on. To invest our money on natural insecticides such as how sweet potato and maize keep the right bugs off of each other seems to be a better use of money than purchasing chemical insecticides that can damage not only our crops, but also our world and environment that we live in today. This book is filled with many unseen truths and facts I have never thought about or even heard of before.
While reading Raj Patel’s book I felt as if it had no relevance to my life. I feel like he tends to bombard us with information that is hard to really digest and it makes it difficult to really process what he is trying to say. Chapter 7 really reached out to me though because it showed how soy is so present in our lives, even when we don’t think it is. Before reading chapter 7 I thought that soy was only in soy sauce or edamame or tofu, I never knew that soy was in chocolate or found in meat and oil. Patel states that soy is in so much of our food that, “You’d have to be diligent to spend a day without coming into contact with it,” (166). He describes how lecithin which is found in chocolate is now made from soybeans. The lecithin is added to the chocolate to give it a longer shelf life, and makes it easier for shipping, and storing. It deters me from wanting to eat chocolate knowing that those ingredients are being placed in it to keep it fresh longer. Many people read the ingredients and don’t really know why they are in the foods that they eat. After reading this chapter it really put into perspective how important it is to know what you are ingesting and what is going on with your food. While I felt that this book had no importance or relevance to my life, after reading Patel’s chapter about soy it really put into perspective how important this book really is.
ReplyDeleteI see this book relevant to my profession because I am going into the health field. Being a nurse, I will encounter many patients with problems stemming from their dietary habits. Having knowledge about the causes and problems will help me to learn how to treat them.
ReplyDeleteIn Raj Patel’s book, Stuffed and Starved, chapter seven goes on to talk about how soy is such an impact in the food industry. It seems as if soy is in everything, but no one knows the repercussions of soy production is having. Patel states, “Increased international concern about deforestation in the Amazon, for instance, has led to certain modulation in the approach of large soy farmers” (Patel, 201). I think it is very important for people to know where the soy is coming from and the effects it is having on the farmers and ecological system around the world. A lot of world leaders are members of many foundations and associations, but at times their positions lie on different paradigms. And therefore they have a conflict of interest, choosing between their duty and their personal gain.
Global Questions and Phenomenons
ReplyDeleteFrom India to Zambia to Brazil, the revolution of the food industry has planted its feet. The story of the soy industry in Brazil is story that repeats itself throughout the world in different countries. I am personally familiar with the indigenous peoples’ struggles in the Philippines and Ecuador; and I can say that the Mehikanus’ sentiments in Brazil are not alone. These struggles make one wonder why things need to go so far for people to start recognizing problems and start learning solutions to these problems. Do humans really need to learn the hard way before healing the damages they have made? Are industries so desensitized that they can push forward with the kind of damage they do to society and the environment? These are questions that I have not really been able to answer.
One would hope that there is more progressive thinking towards social and environmental issues, like this solution to pests in farming:
“The solution, one Cuban soil scientist has observed, is this: ‘to control insects, you have to give up controlling them’. In other words, acknowledge that there are insects and learn ways to live with them, and minimize their negative impacts. Sophisticated systems of pest management have been developed in Cuba with this in mind, ranging from the cultivation of Bt insecticide to patterns of intercropping where, for instance, maize and sweet potato are grown together, and where the harmful insects attracted to one crop are driven away by those attracted to another” (Patel 161).
This solution suggested here is not destructive and sustainable in practice and nature.
Just a tangent- this quote struck me: “’Against barbarism, study. Against individualism, solidarity.’ MST Communique” (Patel 212). I like this quote; but if one will study, I would hope that they would study critically, with help from multiple perspectives. As for individualism, I have nothing against it; but it does need to intertwine solidarity. We as social beings need each other for keeping us grounded.