Abstract

While there is a plethora of corn in America because we can use it for many different things from ethanol to food additives, it has been shown that sugar cane and algae are better alternatives.

The number one crop in America is corn. We can use it for tons of different things from Biofuels to High Fructose Corn Syrup. It is in virtually every food we eat and a lot of it is also fed to the livestock we raise. Data from the National Corn Growers Association shows that; around 80 percent of all corn goes to livestock, foreign and domestic. Another 12 percent is consumed by humans, either directly (corn products) or indirectly (High Fructose Corn Syrup), leaving only 8 percent of all American corn for making things such as ethanol.

The problem with this is that we spend a ton of money growing corn as well as using a lot of the limited fossil fuels we have. In Sao Paulo Brazil they grow sugar cane and use it to make Biofuels. Sugar cane doesn’t deplete the soil of the nutrients that corn does, and it yields more ethanol than corn. Unfortunately sugar cane doesn’t grow in North America so the government would have to begin importing the sugar cane, which is something they most likely wouldn’t do. That is where the newest alternative fuel comes into play, Algae.

The biggest advantage Algae has over the other Biofuel producers is that it can be grown anywhere in the country. And on top of that it can double its mass in a few hours giving it the ability to produce over 5,000 gallons of oil per year.

Corn is a cleaner source of energy, but sugar cane and algae are much better alternatives and should be taken advantage of.


Pull Out Quote

“While corn ethanol's energy ratio hovers around breakeven, we get eight units of ethanol for every one unit of fossil fuel"

- Isaias Macedo

Recipe: Grilled Lemon, Asparagus and Artichoke Spring Pasta

Ingredients:

10 ounces dry pasta of your choice, cooked al dente

3 organic artichokes

1 bunch organic asparagus

1 ½ organic lemons

2 garlic cloves, minced

4 tablespoons olive oil

¼ cup organic cream

¾ cup organic feta cheese crumbles

Salt and pepper

Directions:

Halve artichokes. Fill a medium-sized bowl with water and squeeze ½ lemon into the water. Soak artichokes in the lemon water. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Cut the very tips off the artichokes. Transfer the artichokes to the boiling water and boil for 12-15 minutes until tender. Remove from water and drain.

Heat grill to medium heat. Melt butter and mix with juice from ½ a lemon, a pinch of salt and cracked pepper. Place artichokes and asparagus on the hot grill. Brush with melted butter mixture and turn the vegetables frequently. Cook for 8-10 minutes until slight char starts to form. Remove from grill. Cut asparagus into one-inch pieces. Pull large green petals off the artichoke and set into a small serving bowl. Quarter the hearts and remove the bitter purple insides.

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add minced garlic. Sauté for 30-45 seconds and immediately add asparagus pieces and artichoke hearts and juice from remaining ½ lemon. Stir to coat with oil and garlic. Toss in pasta. Add heavy cream and feta. Stir until feta starts to melt and cream is warm. Remove from heat. Serve immediately. Serve asparagus petals with easy garlic aioli (recipe below) on side.

Easy Garlic Aioli Ingredients:

¼ cup olive oil mayonnaise

1 garlic clove, minced

¼ teaspoon dijon mustard

½ teaspoon lemon juice

Cracked pepper

Directions:

Use a mortar and pestle to smash garlic into a fine paste. Transfer to a bowl. Mix in mayonnaise, mustard, lemon juice and pepper with the garlic. Serve.




http://blog.cascadianfarm.com/category/food/recipe-grilled-lemon-asparagus-and-artichoke-spring-pasta.aspx

Food Inc.

I honestly got angry when I watched this movie. It made me angry that the animals were treated that poorly and nobody stood up against it. It made me angry how big corporations are just allowed to monopolize and run everybody else out of business. The farmers who were taken advantage of and had basically stupid lawsuits against them.
I have two big questions I took away from this movie;
The first is How can there be such strict laws against people hurting animals like cats and dogs, but there is no punishment held for the cows and pigs and chickens that are basically tortured everyday until they die? I don't really understand how that is possible or if people in power could think its okay. At the same time however, it doesn't make me not want to become a vegetarian. I'm still going to enjoy my steak, pork tenderloin, and fried chicken as much as before. The way these animals are treated does upset me, but I enjoy eating meat, and its to much of a hassle for me to start eating free range and organic meat.
My second question is; how are giant companies allowed to take advantage of smaller family farms? I honestly still get angry thinking about the farmers that basically had there lives ruined because they wanted to have some control over their own land. How can a company release their product, accidentally or not, and then take a survey of somebodies private property and decide they "stole" their product. whats to stop them from just flying planes over crops and dumping their seed on them and then bring up lawsuits against random farmers?
I guess the biggest thing I got from this movie is that; the more money you or your company has, its a lot easier for people in power to turn a blind eye to your actions.

Peer reviewed articles

1. A Not So Sweet Story High Fructose Corn Syrup, Jacqueline Jacques ND.

This article talks about how HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) came to be. How up until around the mid-80's most products in the U.S. were sweetened with cane sugar, but when it became a lot cheaper to use HFCS instead of importing sugar companies switched over. The rest of this article talks about how people are trying to connect HFCS in sweetened to drinks to the obesity epidemic. One fact that I found interesting was "U.S. soft drink consumption grew 135 percent between 1977 and 2001." The article discusses how fructose is different from glucose and how they are both used in your body and what they do to it when you consume it. I liked how this article says at the end that while it seems likely that HFCS are causing all of this obesity not enough evidence has been found or shown to prove this to be completely true.

I can use this article to talk about HFCS and how bad they are. I think it is a good place to start when looking at why American's grow so much corn. It has links at the bottom of it where she used to sources so I could definitely dig around those to find other information too. The author of this article is also a Naturopathic Doctor so her knowledge of how your body handles fructose and glucose is going to be correct.


2. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
The Author of this article is recounting when he went into the factory of a company that produces most of the flavor and scents in America's food. He talks about how using different chemicals can give different foods the flavors and smells they should have. How you can add to acids together and make it smell like a hot dog. It talks a lot about how for something to taste good it has to look good, and also how food tasting good is the main priority for food companies. He talks about the FDA and their restrictions on flavors and food and IFF (International Flavors and Fragrances) which is one of the largest in the world.

This website is good for when I want to talk about fast food companies basically making whatever they want because they can decide what their food is going to taste like.

Nathan Lewis

His lecture basically put everything into perspective for me. I new the amount of CO2 U.S. was producing was bad, and new that we needed to find new sources of green energy was important. But his lecture kind of opened my eyes and made me think about the other countries again. In the begging I knew that solving climate change and getting green energy was a job the entire world had to participate in. However over the past couple of months all I've really been hearing about is how bad the U.S. is in all of this and how we need to do all of things to be like the other countries. I really liked how one of the very first things he said was that climate change is something everybody needs to work on and not individually on a person to person scale of on a whole country scale. Everybody needs to put forth effort or else it really wont work.
He also did a good job of showing the pro's and the con's to us. He wasn't really lobbying for green energy he was just showing numbers good and bad and then saying we need to make a choice. And if we do go with green energy we need to find cheaper/more effective ways to produce and distribute it because the way they are doing it now is way to expensive. He showed how much of each energy source we need and then basically why it would be almost impossible to do it.

2nd Round of Research

1. "Study finds a healthier diet and a return to traditional farming can help reduce energy consumption in US food system by 50 percent," Eating Less Meat And Junk Food Could Cut Fossil Energy Fuel Use Almost In Half July 24, 2008, Science Daily, February 10, 2010, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080723094838.htm

It is estimated that around 19% of the energy used in the United States goes to processing food. The article discusses ways to cut energy consumption down by 50% using a few different methods. The overall picture of the article is that the American consumer ultimately controls the energy consumption by what they buy and eat. It was suggested that people should simply just eat less and also that we should buy locally from farms that use environmentally friendly farming methods.


2. Ruskin, Gary & Schor, Juliet "Who's to Blame for Childhood Obesity?", Junk Food Nation August 11, 2005, The Nation, February 10, 2010, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050829/ruskin

The article focuses on how junk food companies donate millions of dollars to government officials for support on many different controversial issues. They funded the Bush administration to gain support on claiming that sugar and processed foods don't lead to diabetes or obesity. They also gained backup on laws and bills to keep junk food out of schools and restrict junk food companies ability to advertise to children. This shows that junk food companies and lobbyists have started to gain access into the same circle of privilege that tobacco and oil companies have.

Initial Plant Write Up

I want to grow carrots. They grow best in cooler conditions and can easily survive a light frosting. A good soil temperature of around 65 degrees Fahrenheit needs to be maintained or else they could have a weird shape, color, or taste. Having a pH around 6.5 is ideal. Carrots also don't require much nitrogen in the fertilizer, as having too much nitrogen will cause the carrots to grow multiple roots. Using compost is a great way to loosen the soil, which will make it easier for the carrots to grow. Keep in mind not to use too much compost, as it will cause your carrots to fork. Try and have soil that is free of chunks and stones to make sure your carrot looks good. The first weeks of carrot growth are critical in shaping the carrot and having rocky soil can cause an ugly carrot and interfere with proper carrot growth. To ensure that your carrots avoid frost damage, plant them about 3/8 inches down spacing the rows about 15 inches apart. Carrots should not be transplanted since the roots are likely to for when replanted. It is recommended to cover the seeds with a thin layer of organic mulch and then add up to 3 or 4 inches after the seedlings emerge. The best way to prevent flying insects from attacking carrots is to get a row cover and if necessary only use natural or organic pesticides.

Source: http://www.carrotgardeningtips.com/carrotresources.html

Starting Research

Sources:
1. Bourne Jr. Joel K. "The End Of Poverty," The Global Food Crisis, June 2009, National Geographic Society, 20 Jan 2010, http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/06/cheap-food/bourne-text
2. Pollan, Michael, "An Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief," The Food Issue, 9 October 2008, The New York Times, 12 Jan 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html
3. Nichols, John. "The World Food Crisis," 24 April 2008, The Nation, 21 Jan 2010, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/nichols

Because the governments have began to subsidize cash crops, wheat, soybeans, corn, and rice, that is all farmers will grow. It has caused many regions to become monocultures where they only grow one crop. The lack of crop diversidy has made it almost impossible to grow healthy crops without the help of chemical fertilizers and pestisides. Farmers have also turned to raising livestock in feedlots where they pump the animals full of so many antibiotics that new drug resistant bacterial strains have been created. The way that farmers grow and produce these cash crops use a tremendous ammount of fissil fuesl and water, both of which are unrenewable resources.
Another startling fact is that 40% of all world grain output is fed to animals which another 11% for cars and trucks. That leaves only 49% of the worlds grain supply for human consumption. And who knows how much of that 49% goes to processed junk food. It may not seem like a big deal but consider the fact that most places around the world now only grain because it yields the most money.
Right now most countries import and export a lof of food. But what happens when they have major food shortages? They are going to start keeping all the food for themselves. Eventually there could be wars over food. I'm sure our country couldn't survive on just wheat and feedlot beef.
We need to adopt new farming habits and techniques that involve getting away from monocultures. We need to grow a huge variety of fruits and vegetables.
In poverty struck food deprived places in INdia and Africa they have begun to give the tools neccissary to grow grain. Lets teach them how to grow other crops as well.

Commander in Chief

The other day we had a Socratic seminar on a paper, written by Michael Pollen, called Farmer in Chief. It was a letter to the president, or at the time, to the President-Elect. The main focus of the article was to address how the government needs to focus on getting food in America under control. It touches in on a lot of different issues from how easy it would be to attack the American people trough the mass production of all staple foods and how the way we farm and produce food is slowly killing the environment. It also gives suggestions on ways to fix the problem by using the sun to grow our plants rather than chemical fertilizers and to create more farms and then keep the produce closer to where it was grown.
During the Socratic seminar we focused a lot on junk food and how it negatively affects the people in America. We talked a lot about how junk food will cause a lot of health issues for younger kids like type 2 diabetes and heart disease. For the most part the class threw out ideas on how to help prevent these problems and get junk food regulated. The first idea thrown out was to ban junk food all together, which sparked somewhat of a controversy in the class. it came down to how the government would have to specify what junk food is, so they could ban it, and in doing that most food in America would become banned. We also decided that if we banned junk food the world economy would fail because it rakes in so much money for many different countries.
All in all, the Socratic seminar stayed on the subject of junk food and all of the health problems it brings. The main discussion focused more on why junk food is bad and why we should get rid of it rather than fixing the food system in America.

Farmers in my Family

There have been farmers on my mom's side of the family for a few generations.
My grandma raises cows.
My great uncle has a farm and usually grows wheat and corn and green beans, and then winter wheat in the colder months.
My great grandfather grew the same as my uncle but also had oil wells and had two racing horses which he raced at the Kentucky Derby.

All of these farms are located in Ponca City Oklahoma

What is one thing in the natural world I am curious about?

I am really interested in the ocean. I like to sit on the OB cliffs and stare out at the water and just wonder about the seemingly never ending body of water in front of me. Its crazy to think that at one point in time the water I am looking at or swimming in could have been off the coast of Japan or chillin' in the Arctic Circle. There are so many crazy animals and organisms living in the ocean as well. Squids that glow in the dark and fish that fish for other fish. The ocean just blows my mind and I wanna learn so much more about it.



I think another thing I am interested is the study of botany. I don't that much about it but I think I would like to learn more.