2/23 English Reading Response

Omnivore's Dilemma Chapter 16 Response

Essentially I gathered two concepts from this chapter. FIrstly I understood that one reason human might have a higher intelligence than the other species of plants and animals that cover the earth, is because of not only what we eat, but also how we eat it. By cooking things, humans found a way to unlock nutrients that would otherwise be harmful to them. Also, I understood that in current times instead of humans being able to eat freely and safely (which would be due to all of the knowledge that has been collected over the centuries about what is and what is not safe to eat), they instead must be just as cautious as they were hundreds of years ago, because instead of natural defenses, companies that produce food have now made other types of unsafe edibles, and we must again interpret what is safe and what is not. I find this interesting, because I never quite understood what the big deal about additives was, but now I see that food additives can be just as dangerous of natural ones.

Chapter 17 Response

This chapter of Pollan's ever fascinating book was something that I think about often. In this part of the book Pollan discusses how killing an animal has far more consequences than just dietary, and humans ought to know the exact process of killing an animal in order to understand the moral issue behind it. The reason this chapter was intriguing to me, was because though I am a huge supporter of animal rights, but I am also a huge supporter of anti-vegetarian diets. Though it may be hard to understand how I can be both, I do indeed love animals, and my cat is my baby, but I also love to eat meat. I guess I just feel like some animals have to die, but since it's only a few species of animals that are routinely eaten, I feel like that makes it ok. Really I guess its not. This issue if this omnivore's dilemma.