Question

Use proper spelling, grammar and sentence structure. A suggestion is given about the number of paragraphs needed but you may write more. You may use quotes but don’t overuse them as putting the author’s ideas in your own words is key to the learning process and will help you remember. If you do use a quote put the page number in brackets right after the quote.

Reading Questions: In Defense of Food, pp. 101-136

Transformation in our Food System:

1. From Complexity to Simplicity

(a) Explain why Pollan says the simplification of the soil through artificial fertilizers is not a good thing.

(b) Explain why the simplification of the species we are cultivating is not a good thing.

2. From Quality to Quantity

(a) Give two examples of how the nutritional quality of our food has deteriorated.

(b) Explain the term nutritional inflation and what it means for health.

3. From Seeds to Leaves

(a) Why has our diet shifted from leaves to seeds?

(b) What is missing in seeds that is found in leaves, and what are the health consequences of this deficit?

(Please answer all parts)

Answer 1

1(a) Pollan says the simplification of the soil through artificial fertilizers is not good thing because artificial or chemical fertilizers changes the soil chemistry or simply the composition of soil which leads to decline the aoil quantities and results in the simplification of foods grown in that soil. According to U.S.D.A figure, use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers reduces the nutritional quantities of the production in America. Artificial fertilizers only increase yields which is good for industrial view only but not increase nutritional quantities.

(b) Simplification of the species we are cultivating is not good thing. This processing depletes many nutrients present in food which can be added back through fortification. Because of the simplification, the actual number of species in the modern diet is depleted.

2(a) The nutritional quantities of our food has deteriorated by changing our agricultural practices and using synthetic fertilizers. Now days we get less nutritional food than ancient time. For example , we are geeting nutritional values from apples today has on third of apples 50 years ago. Also refined grains like polished and milled rice is less nutritional than the actual species.

(b) The business of agriculture promotes quantities over quantities. The nutritional values of whole food is greater than the sum of nutrient parts. The level of deterioration of nutritional values in food depends on the changes in the way we grow food and the kind of food is called nutritional inflation. Nutritional inflation does not only gives us less nutrients from food but it also forcing humans to eat more and become fatter and obsessed. It pulls down the consumption of nutrient rich food.

3(a) Grains are the durable seeds. We can store grains for longer time than leaves and thus grains function as commodities as well as food. Now days we rely more on grains than leaves as grains are exceptionally efficient as they transform sunlight into macronutrients like carbohydrates, proteins and fats. By feeding these grains to animals, macronutrients present in grains in turn transformed into animal proteins. Because of these reasons our diets shifted from leaves to seeds.

(b) Antioxidants, newly discovered phytochemicals and healthy omega-3fatty acids which are beneficial tj human health, are all found in green leaves but they are absent in seeds. Seeda have omega fatty acids only which is responsible for fat storage, clotting and inflammation response but omega-3 fatty acids which is present in leaves paly important role in neurological development and processing and glucose metabolism.

So from shifting leaves to seeds, our body is deficient in omega -3 fatty acids and has bad health consequences. This deficiency leads to heart disease, diabetes and sometimes learning disabilities and depression.