Preview

Harvest for Hope: a Guide to Mindful Eating Book Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1007 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Harvest for Hope: a Guide to Mindful Eating Book Analysis
Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating
By Jane Goodall Jane Goodall, a renowned scientist of primatology, ethology, and anthropology, began her studies when she ventured to Africa to work for Dr. Louis Leakey in 1957. From there Goodall earned her PhD at Cambridge University in 1965. She continued her studies, focusing especially on the study of chimpanzees; hence Goodall's nickname "the chimpanzee lady." In 1977, she established the Jane Goodall Institute to educate young people about conserving chimpanzees and all the other animals of this planet.
Most of Goodall's books focus on her progressing studies, however, in Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating, she discusses another issue focusing on human consumption. Goodall begins her book by touching on the roots of early agriculture, including national dishes from many different cultures and traditions. Then, she dives into modern agribusiness, a new lifestyle where commonsense farming has become more and more rare, especially in the United States. She discusses how mass consumption has developed from the idea of a monoculture, where farmers plant acres of the same crop. This creates a problem because if that one crop fails to grow, then the farmer has no other crop to rely on for profit, causing the farmer to use chemical pesticides. Insects developing resistance towards these pesticides led to the idea of genetically modifying crops so that they develop their own "natural" pesticide. Nonetheless, all of these techniques are poisoning our foods and our environment. The issue is rapidly destroying all farms mainly because GMO's spread easily through pollination and are difficult to kill.
Furthermore, Goodall addresses the issue of animal rights, going into detail of animal treatment and cleanliness of animal factories. For example, battery farms, or sheds filled with hundreds of cages crammed together, contain up to 70,000 caged birds. The farmers will trim their beaks to prevent them from pecking

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Michael Pollen is an authoritative figure in the realm of food that, indeed, has portrayed some very interesting and beneficial perspectives. However, he also has a tendency to use his position of power to infiltrate societal views when it comes to agriculture and eating. In “Visible Farmers/Invisible Workers” by Sarah D. Wald, Pollen is dissected critically for his lack of attention paid to the workers that allow the United States to produce megatons of food each year.…

    • 376 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, is divided into three sections: corn, grass and forest. This review will cover part I of three, which are all within the corn section. Pollen starts with corn, just one kernel of it in a field in Iowa, and tries to track its journey to our dinner plates. It turns out an unexpected amount of corn appears in processed foods, non-food products and diets of animals who were never meant to eat it. This section will make you take a hard look at how prevalent corn is in our lives and why. In Part I, the Industrial Food-corn, takes the reader from the farm, to the feedlot, following the processing plant and finally to the consumer.…

    • 618 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Not only this, but “the farmers profit margin dropped from 35% in the 1950 's to about 9% today.” (Mckibben, 54) This means that “to generate the same income as it did in 1950, a farm today would need to be roughly four times as large.” (Mckibben, 55) As a result of this perpetual growth and centralization, problems like “huge sewage lagoons, miserable animals, vulnerability to sabotage and food-born illness”(mckibben, 61) have become commonplace. Not only this, but “we are running out of the two basic ingredients we need to grow food on an industrial scale: oil and water.” (Mckibben, 62) The situation has become so dire that “we are now facing a near simultaneous depletion of the underground aquifers which have been responsible for the unsustainable, artificial inflation of food production.” At this point of realization, Mckibben begins indulging the reader in a large number of facts that promote a more localized form of farming as the solution to a seemingly endless number of issues. Initially the point is raised that “sustainable agriculture leads to a 93% increase in per-hectare food production.” (Mckibben, 68) The next idea raised is that, “since World War 1, it has been cheaper to use…

    • 3032 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Michael Pollan embarked upon an incredible journey throughout America’s Heartland, known as the Corn Belt, to bring us his eye-opening account of just exactly what is behind putting food on our table in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” In the first three chapters of the first section of the book, Industrial: Corn, Pollan not only questions what exactly is in the foods we eat, but also where, precisely, does it come from? Though Pollan covers all the critical elements of a good read; conflict, dastardly villains, and even sex; all with touches of sardonic humor, one must keep in mind this is non-fiction, and be prepared to be shocked and somewhat disturbed at his findings.…

    • 587 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, have been a minor but relevant issue since they became popular. They exist almost everywhere in America, but countless people continue to debate whether they should remain. Andrew Pollack’s article “Genetically Engineered Crops Are Safe, Analysis Finds,” for instance, leans toward GMOs. In contrast, Danny Hakim’s “Doubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops” gravitates against them. While exploring their perspectives of GMOs, the articles most prominently include an obvious audience, strong but contrasting uses of information, and various rhetorical appeals, all of which help demonstrate their purpose.…

    • 1330 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jane Goodall was born on April 3, 1934 in London, England, United Kingdom. Goodall attended Uplands private school until 1950. She was good at school, besides suffering from prosopagnosia, which makes it difficult to recognize faces. Jane was unable to afford college. She is known for studying the behavior of Tanzanian chimps. She is still alive today at age 82.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the final section of the book, author Michael Pollan attempts to prepare a meal by gathering all of the ingredients himself. In the chapter called Forager, Michael talks about how he wants his meal to feature all three edible kingdoms: animal, vegetable, and fungi. He will hunt, gather, or grow all the ingredients needed for his final meal. In the end he makes a salad out of the greens from his own garden, and makes bread using wild yeast. He feels that this meal will help us to “reconnect us with the natural origins of food and also human history”. He also stated that “agriculture brought humans a great many blessings, but it also brought infectious diseases”. This links back to what we have been studying in class. Agriculture has dramatically changed over the years as technology has advanced. Farmers are now adding all of these nutrients and pesticides to plants to try and promote growth, but it has also brought harmful bacteria.…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The film, Food, Inc., argues that our food system has been corrupted by corporate interests; as a result, we are put in danger by very items that should guarantee our survival. We should reclaim our right to health by eating more locally produced organic food and ensuring all people have access to such food. The film wants the viewers to think negatively of the business of mass production of the foods that we eat on a daily basis. The logical fallacies allow the film to capture the attention and emotions of its audience by giving a reason for their concerns, but without any legitimate statistics or facts to back up their claims. The use of these logical fallacies in the film help strengthen its arguments by making the audience feel as if the corporations are exploiting the farmers and their traditions, causing families to go through avoidable obstacles, and making the companies and government look like the “bad guys” in this web that is called the food industry. However, the reality is that the food industry isn’t as evil as depicted by the fallacious arguments in the film.…

    • 1923 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jane Goodall was born April 3, 1934 in London, England. She was raised in a close knit family and was greatly influenced by her mother, Vanne and grandmother, Danny. Jane has a sister 4 years younger, they share the same birthday. She first started her interest in chimpanzees when her dad, Mortimer bought Jane a stuffed animal chimpanzee. She named it Jubilee after a chimp at the zoo. Jane was automatically attracted to animals at a young age and continued her passion at Cambridge University. She studied primatology, ethology, and anthropology. Jane is most famous for her 45 year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. Even in their quiet little town, Jane and her family could see the planes, hear the bombs of…

    • 509 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Additionally, the authors’ provide a more detailed outline of industrialized farming and the many forces and dangers involved in putting food on the tables of consumers, from food cultivation to distribution. Cultivation involves planting, fertilizing, and growing, which involves seeds, land, soil, fertilizer, and farm workers, but also includes GMOs, chemicals, air, water, and soil impurities, and workplace hazards. Harvesting and processing require further farm labor and factory work, which includes additional workplace hazards and…

    • 1250 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jane Goodall was born April 3, 1934 in London, England. Animals were always a big part of her life When she was 2 years old, she was gifted a small stuffed monkey named Jubilee. The soft brown fur and dark brown eyes fascinated her. As an adolescent, she stayed at a farm to study how chickens lay eggs. Ms.Goodall attended the Darwin College, Cambridge, in 1962. This launched her…

    • 356 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In order to be able to sell food cheaper we have begun adding chemicals like GMOs and pesticides to our crops and containing our animals through the use of AFOs. Over the past century American agriculture has dramatically changed due to the fact that small, commercial farms are finding it harder and harder to compete with large-scale (mostly indoor) animal feeding operations (AFOs). Agricultural occupations such as farming often do not offer economic prosperity, thus pushing workers to seek financial advances. Many farmers look to GMOs and AFOs because they provide an easier way to gain surplus in the product. Pesticides and steroids are examples, as they alter growth providing larger products faster. Knowing these practices have major negative effects, farmers still use these outlets as a means to gain advantage over other competitors. Centner sees a worsening situation, as individual farmers are finding it necessary to alter their practices and hurting the environment for financial reasons. An example of this is the new terminator gene spoken of on pg. 86, which is said to be more harmful to the environment than helpful. Since farmers grow so much food using pesticides and GMOs, there is talk to find a way to limit production, allowing for conservation. Programs are being looked into where we can pay farmers through grants and…

    • 1143 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    In Defense of Food

    • 1328 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In the book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, author Michael Pollan commences his tale with a few straightforward words: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants”. In his introduction, An Eater’s Manifesto, Pollan discusses how the dietetic wisdom that was passed down from older generations has been heavily tainted by “nutritional science and food industry marketing” (Pollan, 2008). The first volume of the book entitled, The Age of Nutritionism”, delves into this problem and helps uncover the cause of today’s “nutritional confusion and anxiety” (Pollan, 2008). Nowadays, it is not uncommon to have “edible foodlike substances” displayed in every aisle of the grocery store with all products promoting some kind of nutritional benefit from their consumption. These dietary facts are often modified to showcase dietary benefits that are barely present in the food product, if present at all. With such prevalent misinformation, today’s society has become so overly concerned with nutrient enriched food that people have either forgotten or are unaware of the importance of the fundamentals. Pollan further explains that humanity has become “a nation of orthorexics” meaning that people have developed “an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating” centred on the theory of nutritionism (Pollan, 2008). Chronic diseases that have the highest death rate such as obesity, coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer, can be attributed to the “Western diet” which consists of “highly processed foods and refined grains; the use of chemicals to raise plants and animals in huge monocultures; the superabundance of cheap calories of sugar and fat produced by modern agriculture; and the narrowing of the biological diversity of the human diet to a tiny handful of staple crops, notably wheat, corn, and soy” (Pollan, 2008). In the second volume entitled “The Western Diet and the diseases of Civilization”, Pollan analyzes the…

    • 1328 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    how gmo effect life

    • 313 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In Oryx and Crake, Atwood creates a world where food is no longer the work of nature; instead, it has become a man-made creation. Her overall argument about genetically engineered food is that if taken too far, it can override ethical and safety concerns. Atwood does, however, in a way talk about the benefits and advantages of GMO’s. For example, Crake tells Jimmy to “look at it realistically. You can’t couple a minimum access to food with an expanding population” (119).…

    • 313 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Food Inc. Case Study

    • 1504 Words
    • 5 Pages

    eat. When we think about farming, we think red barns, green grass, free-roaming animals, etc. Farming, now-a-days, is far different than the image the industry has lead us to believe. Farming has become a highly industrialized and mechanized business. The reality is our food is no longer coming from farms; it’s coming off assembly lines in factories, just like automobiles.…

    • 1504 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays