List of five sources that I will use.

1.Book "Fast food nation"
2. McDonald's web side to get the ingredients that are use in the food production by this company.
3.Chemical Database
4.Movie "Food, Inc"
5.Old Polish cook book-That I will try to find online.

Paper 1

                Jolanta Naspinska

ENG 101

            Nowadays, many people are trying to answer the question: “Why in 21th century which brought us to modern technology, discoveries and advance medicine we cannot choose a right diet for ourselves?” We all know that fast foods are bad for us. Many scientists proved that this food contains many chemicals that are dangerous for our health and life nevertheless, we are still likely to buy food for example in McDonald’s than to make some healthy meals at home. I believe that the food a hundred years ago was much healthier from the food that we can buy in a grocery store or in a restaurant currently. Probably, my grand great parents did not know much about the vitamins and nutrients contained in the food they were eating every day but their diet was healthier because they did not use any dangerous pesticides to grow their food or antibiotics to feed their animals. My great grandparents used to leave in Poland, a country located in Eastern Europe where they had a small farm. The food that they produced to eat was organic and very fresh because they planted all their fruits and vegetables that they liked to eat. Moreover, they prepared all their meals at home and they eat at the certain hours.  Their daily life looked much more different from my life in New York. The food that they were eating every day was much ritual than now because during that time all the family members gathered together to eat. Our lifestyle in 2011 is much different from our “ancestors” life. We have more choices about the food. We can choose the fast foods or healthy organic food; also we have a greater knowledge about the food nutritious and vitamin that we need in order to be healthy. Nevertheless we are likely to choose inexpensive food like McDonald’s than to find some time for preparing homemade food.

 I believe that my great grandparents ate more healthy breakfasts than I am eating every day. Their typical breakfast was homemade and mostly included a cup of fresh milk that was not pasteurized before and came from cattle that was fed a fresh grass mostly outside, in a clean not polluted environment. My great grandparents also ate a bowl of oatmeal that was plain and unprocessed. My breakfast that I am eating everyday include a bowl of processed instant oatmeal with artificial strawberries. This meal contains unhealthy sugar, colored fruit pieces that are not even the promised strawberries and some other chemicals that keep this product fresh and tasty for few months. I also drink a cup of coffee with skim milk that was pasteurized. This milk like most of the milk productions in America is produced in an industrial milk production. Those industries are most likely using antibiotics to protect cattle from the diseases, which are causing at the same time damages in our immune system. These meals are very similar, but the way they were produced completely changed their nutrients.

I think that my “ancestors” ate less fat food than we are currently eating. Their dinner was very reach in healthy nutrients. Their meal contains mostly mash potatoes that were cooked in salty water and did not contain any other ingredients. Meat like chicken was also cooked with the vegetables that were organic. They did not use any seasoning only natural herbs like thyme or rosemary. Usually on a side they ate a lot green vegetables like cucumbers or green beans that were mostly consumed raw. They also drank natural dairy yogurts and sour creams.  My dinner is much different from the food that my great grandparents were eating a hundred years ago. I am eating my dinners mostly in McDonald’s for so many reasons. This fast food is very close to my work, it is low-priced and convenient. My favorite meal that I usually order includes a Caesar Salad with Crispy Chicken, small French fries and Orange Juice. I believe that this chicken is not organic and mostly processed long before is served in a restaurant. French fries do not remain me healthy potatoes at all because they are fried in very unhealthy oil that contains a lot of Tran’s fat. I believe that only healthy ingredient I am consuming that’s the green salad.

I agree with the Quotation “You are what you eat”-Franklin P. Jones. I think that we should really take seriously all the warning about the fast foods and start to leave a healthy life style. With all the processing and manufacturing that fast food goes through, a lot of essential nutrients go missing. Fibers, vitamins, and minerals get destroyed during this process and what it leaves us is just unhealthy fats and empty calories. This food cause us lead to long-term life-threatening illnesses such as obesity, cancer, heart diseases, and diabetes. I believe that our “ancestors” had much more healthy lifestyle than we created a hundred years later. The way how they produced and prepared the food they were able to avoid the deadly diseases that our population is suffering from currently.

"Food, Inc."

Watching the movie “Food, Inc.” made think how dangerous our food can be, that we are eating every day. The filmmaker Robert Kenner revealed shocking truth about the production all kind of foods like meat, corn or dairy products. Nowadays, food production is highly mechanized and controlled by corporations that mostly put profit higher than our health. The companies that are producing the food need to follow the national standards that are far away from our human moral values. For example farmers who are producing the poultry products cannot raise their chicken the way that they just to do it many years ago. They are forced to keep them inside the overcrowded building with closed windows and feed them modified food that let them grow fast in a short period of the time. Moreover, they are forced to use all kind of antibiotics that are at the same time dangerous for us. Another segment looks   at the industrial production of vegetables and grains like corn. These days food is genetically modified and unhealthy also contain pesticides and fertilizers. The movie showing us also the modern fast food industries that mostly cares about their own profit not our health. This movie accurate criticized large American corporations that are environmentally harmful and abusive for animals and at the same time to us. I believe that we should really think what we are eating. If we have a chance we should buy organic products that are healthy; we should avoid also fast foods like McDonald’s. I think that we should make our food choices not by the commercials that make us buy the product but instead of that carefully read the label. I think that this movie made me think that if we do not take care about our food that we are eating every day we will not be able survived on this planet.