Food Glorious Food: Food, Foodies, Farmers Market and Handmade Food Renaissance

I started to care for what I eat since taking a health class in high school. The teacher explained the dangers of saturated fats, trans fats, sodium and cholesterol. He also explained the benefits of having vitamins, iron and other nutritional values in your daily diet. The movie “King Corn” changed my perception on today’s food market. I’ve started looking at the ingredient’s labels and on the back of products; furthermore noticing that

High fructose corn syrup is highly popular among everything. King Corn elaborated that corn was genetically altered and it’s not what it used to be. The fact that high fructose corn syrup contains a toxic ingredient makes me question the safety of all these products; why doesn’t our government put stricter regulations on such a thing?

I’ve personally changed my habits with the persuasions of King Corn. My usual morning activities include brushing teeth, getting dressed and eating a cereal most likely the “Corn Chex” brand cereal. I managed to find successfully a substitution by buying the “Rice Chex.” “Rice Chex” tastes as good as the “Corn Chex”, but it isn’t corn driven. Eating something Corn based seems silly after being informed through ‘King Corn”, when I get close to “Corn Chex” I’d start to have mental pictures of all these laboratories altering corn with possible negative effects on human body. I am not the only one learning from our class, my family has been strictly lectured of the importance of excluding food purchases with a numerous adds of high fructose corn syrup. However, it is astonishingly hard due to the fact that very other product is fortified with it.

“Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace was the most influential from taking English 2100. I never actually took a moment to think about the processes that an animal undergoes before reaching my plate. David Foster Wallace is highly successful with using vivid descriptions and adding onto to the fact that while cooking lobster, we technically boil it alive. I used to love going to “Red Lobster” with my grandmother, which conveniently was located in Times Square, near my grandmother’s work.  We used to love going to ‘Red Lobster” on Friday night and getting our favorite “Lobster, Crab and Seafood-Stuffed Mushrooms” dinner special with a side of iced tea. But now I can’t eat a cooked lobster without imagining the poor “Sebastian” from The Little Mermaid trying to fight his way out of the pot to run for his life, just like in the good old cartoon.