Post 2: Prepare a Meal - Lasagna!

For my prepare a meal post my friends decided to help me make lasagna for this assignment. The first thing that I had to do was to figure out the ingredients that we needed to make lasagna. I used a recipe from the food network online. The main ingredients were lasagna noodles, ground beef, ground Italian sausage, canned tomatoes, and many herbs. This got a little expensive but I was making this meal with a few friends and we all pitched in to pay for it so it wasn’t too expensive when sharing the costs. We followed the recipe and ended up with really good lasagna! The clean up took a while, and I prepared this meal in a friends apartment. I would not be able to have made this meal if I had tried to do it in the dorms because the set up and clean up was long and I needed and oven and stove.

When Pollan is talking about a floor of damaging innovations I agree with his claims. He is saying that there is so much genetically engineered and modified foods, but we really need to just be looking at what is truly healthy for us, and find fresh foods. It felt really good to have made a solid meal all on my own from scratch. Pollan’s arguments about damaging innovations didn’t make me feel different about my meal because I think making it from scratch made is less of an issue. When I eat food from housing food in the dorms, sometimes I feel gross after because I know the food probably was not good for me.

I found an article that supports this idea that genetically modified foods are bad for you agreeing with Pollan’s arguments. It talks about how genetically modified foods have health risks, pose environmental hazards, and can cause economic concerns. This shows Pollan’s arguments in a slightly different way, but still stating the main argument that genetically modified foods are bad for your health.

Peer Response: Erik Houck's Blog

I did my last peer review on Erik’s post 5 on on making a meal and that being a cranberry walnut salad. Erik talks about how he knew that he wanted to make something that would be better than what he could get in the school cafeteria’s but he wanted it to be relatively cheap, easy to make, and easy to clean up. With this he and his friend came up the idea to make a cranberry walnut salad, which could be made easily and cleaned up easily.

He goes on to discuss Pollan’s claims about what people are choosing to eat more in this day and age. He talks about how most people choose to eat things because they have health claims and not choose to eat just a well rounded diet. He also talks about how one of Pollan’s major points in this section is that genetically altered foods are really bad for you. But, Erik found an article that showed that in some cases genetically altered foods, such as one that end up being reduced in calories or fat, could be better for you and can help reduce heart disease when these food are eaten rather than when in their original form.

I think that Erik’s post about making a meal was really well formulated and everything made sense. It was clear, concise, easy to understand, and easy to follow. I don’t see much that Erik needs to improve on because this post was organized and presented so well.

Post 3: "Real" Food vs. "Fake" Food

Something that I have eaten in both it’s real and “fake” form is pizza. The real pizza was made entirely from scratch and “fake” food was a store bought brand. When comparing the real and fake food the real version is much better. They look, taste, and smell different.

The store bought pizza looked like it was really processed and you could tell that it was not home made, and it didn’t smell that good either. But, the real version looked really fresh because it had vegetables on it, and the store bought pizza could not have fresh vegetables or ingredients in them. The real pizza smelled much better too. They also had very different tastes and just by taste alone it would be easy to tell the difference. The real pizza tastes much much fresher.

The fake version does not provide many nutrients for your body and is not really healthy at all to be eating. It claims that the cheese is fresh, but I don’t think that, that is really possible if the pizza had been processed. I started eating the “fake” version of pizza mainly because of convenience. To make a pizza from scratch is time consuming and much more expensive that it’s “fake” alternative. To make the fake version all you have to do is un-wrap it and put it in the oven.

I would really love to switch back to eating real homemade pizza but I don’t know when that could actually happen, because (especially in college) school work is extremely time consuming and would leave little time to make an entire pizza from scratch.

An article I found discusses all of the bad things that can happen through eating too many processed foods, both the ideas in this article and Pollan’s ideas align in the idea that they believe that fresh, un-processed foods are the best for you.

Peer Response: Danaan Mirr's Blog

I really enjoyed reading Danaan's post and analysis of a celebrity endorsement. In her analysis Danaan talked about Rap Snacks where are flavored chips and popcorn that are endorsed by different rap artists. The artists shown on the different bags are saying little slogans like, “Stay in School.”, or “Think Responsibly.” Danaan goes on to respond to this saying that because it seems like those celebrities are saying those things directly to the consumers they are more likely to actually listen to what the celebrity is saying and stay in school. I agree with Danaan when she says that because celebrities are saying these things that the consumer is more likely to do what the celebrity is telling them to do, which is a good thing and good marketing scheme because the marketers are tapping into the younger markets.

I really liked and agreed with Danann when she was talking about how this endorsement is actually likely and good promotion. The rappers and celebrities on the bags of chips probably actually could eat the chips, unlike when Olympic athletes endorse McDonald’s because they probably do not eat McDonald’s.

I really like the link that Danaan chose to use in her blog that goes to the article about the use of celebrity endorsement in marketing. This made it easy to understand where she was getting her ideas from and explained easily the principles behind the use of celebrity endorsements. I think that the celebrities who are endorsing Rap Snacks are doing a good thing because it is helping their careers by getting their names out to the public, but they are also using their celebrity to try to influence young people to do good things, such as stay in school and off drugs.

Post 5: Compare Two Online Articles

The issue of abortion is extremely controversial and very easy to find a lot of information that supports both sides. People commonly align with two sides: pro-choice or anti-abortion.

The article on pro-choice talks about the history of abortions. It explains that the basic idea behind pro-choice is that women have the right to control what happens to their own bodies, thus giving them the right to terminate unwanted pregnancies. It talks briefly about the pro-choice movement and how the most well known pro-choice victory was Roe vs. Wade. Through the Roe vs. Wade decision the Supreme Court ended up legalizing abortion in all 50 states. I though it was interesting that this article also goes on to discuss arguments against pro-choice such as, that murder(and, some consider abortion murder) is illegal in all 50 states. I think that it was interesting that this pro-choice article was trying to lay out both sides so that you could decide for yourself.

The second article on anti-abortion is from a strict anti-abortion Organization. And had many articles about anti-abortion and why it was considered murder. Many believe that sense very quickly fetus’s develop human characteristics and begin to develop a heart and brain that they are always considered humans and not a fetus or cells. So through abortion murder is being committed and it should be illegal.

Not that I align with the pro-choice side, but I believe that the pro-choice article was more convincing because it laid out the information and arguments for both sides and then asked to you make the decision for yourself. Although the anti-abortion articles made a lot of scientific claims about fetus’s and fetus development, I found that they didn’t have much scientific evidence backing up those claims.

Peer Response: Shawn Perry's Blog

I think that Shawn Perry summed up Chapter 4 of In Defense of Food really well and was able to find the main point which was that is was necessary to change the western diet and to change what many people eat in order to lead healthier lives. Shawn was able to understand the broad, general ideas of the chapter and the more broad ideas of what Pollan wanted us to understand, but I think that Pollan was trying to get us to think more specifically too. Pollan extensively talks about the over-exaggeration of food health claims and the chemical content in food.

Shawn goes on to talk a little bit about over processed foods and I agree with his argument that processed foods are really bad for us because of all the additives and preservatives that are added in, during this he briefly touches on the idea of chemical content and over-exaggerated health food claims. I also think that Shawn missed a big point, being the use of science to back up health food claims. Pollan goes into detail to talk about how just because something is backed up scientifically does not mean that is it true and that, that food’s scientific “claim” will most likely change in the near future. I think that this was a big point Pollan was discussing and that Shawn should have mentioned that somewhere in his blog.

Shawn’s blog would have really benefitted if he had linked to an outside article that was able to support the ideas that he was presenting and to back up Michael Pollan’s ideas that he wrote about in In Defense of Food.

Demonstration Speech Self-Evaluation

Let’s start with my strong points: I believe that the informational content of my speech was good and that I was able to explain the topic in an organized way that progressed well and made more sense as my speech continued. I also think that I had really good use of visual aids and that the helmets and materials were extremely useful, effective and necessary in demonstrating my topic. If I were to give another demonstration speech I would not change my topic or make and significant changes to my visual aids. Overall I think that I did a pretty good job on my demonstration speech, but there was definitely room for improvement.

I think that I could improve a lot on my demonstration speech if I had the opportunity to do it again. If I did my speech a second time I would practice a lot more in front of an audience, I rehearsed my speech a lot but few times in front of many people and when doing it in class I found I was more nervous and flustered.

I would really want to focus more on the physical presentation and improve my eye contact and body language. While, watching the video I saw that I really was not making much eye contact with the audience and I could see that I looked nervous and almost unprepared. I would also need to work on my volume, fluctuations, tone, and pitch. I think that if I had worked more on these things my speech would have been more effective and drawn in the audience more.

The post I’m responding to is Jenny Molenda’s analysis of a celebrity endorsement. In Jenny’s post she talks about how LeBron James is a positive role model and that he is a good choice to endorse McDonald’s. Jenny talks about the new BigMac commercial where LeBron James and Larry Bird are playing each other in a basketball game for the BigMac prize. Jenny then goes on to discuss how James is a good choice to endorse McDonald’s because James and McDonald’s have the same values. At this point Jenny links to an article where Lebron James says, “We share many of the same core values, including a commitment to excellence and giving back to the community.” We, being himself and McDonald’s restaurants. Although this may be true that both James and McDonald’s share the same core values. I think that LeBron endorsing McDonald’s is a good choice on McDonald’s part because LeBron is a very famous athlete and a lot of people want to like him. But, I don’t think that LeBron endorsing McDonald’s is a good move on his part other than the fact that it is a multi-million dollar deal. Realistically for LeBron to be at peak performance and to be as great an athlete as he is, he would never be able to eat food that is served at McDonald’s because most of the food is not good for you. Jenny touches on this point that LeBron endorsing McDonald’s is inappropriate because of his job, and I completely agree with her. I think that Jenny’s post is clearly formulated and is it easily to understand her arguments and criticisms. I agree with her argument that there are both positive and negative aspects of LeBron’s endorsement deal with McDonald’s.

Sources:

*Images taken from Google Images

*Links taken from Jenny Molenda's blog post

Post 4: Analysis Of A Celebrity Endorsement

A great example of celebrity endorsements are the many products that Tiger Woods endorses, including Gatorade and Tag Heuer watches. In Tiger’s watch ads he is shown looking at the camera with a golf club, wearing a Tag Heuer watch, and the slogan, “What Are You Made Of?”, is written on all of the Tag Heuer print ads. In the Gatorade ads endorsed by Tiger, there are pictures of Tiger, and slogans such as, “It’s In Tiger. Is It In You?”. Suggesting that if you use this product it can help you perform at peak performance, like Tiger Woods. I think that Tiger Woods’ endorsement of Gatorade is appropriate because he is a extremely successful athlete, and Gatorade is specifically designed to help athletes perform their best. But, Tiger’s endorsement of watches does not seem extremely appropriate because Tiger has no real professional qualifications that would make him qualified to sell watches. But, since he is a huge celebrity Tiger would probably be able to sell many different products with the right marketing plans and ads, including Tag Heuer watches. These endorsements have been beneficial to both Tiger and the companies, because Tiger is making a lot of money off supporting and using these products. And the producers of Gatorade or Tag Heuer watches are benefitting because the public wants to use products that celebrities use, so there is an increase in sales of Gatorade and Tag Heuer watches.

The name Tiger Woods has become a brand in itself, and Tiger chooses to endorse many products. I thought Tiger’s endorsements are interesting to examine especially after his recent scandals. I listened to a radio show online that was discussing Tiger’s endorsements and why some were falling through due to his recent scandals or if the companies were choosing to stand by Tiger. I think that this radio show really relates to the idea of celebrity endorsements and the many things that can happen with them. It also shows that the celebrities actions in public can effect the success of the product being endorsed.

Sources:

Cavanaugh, M., & Crook, H. (Speakers). (2010, January 5). Tiger Woods
Controversy Affecting the Golfer's Brand Name [Audio podcast]. Retrieved
from http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/jan/05/
tiger-woods-controversy-affecting-golfers-brand-na/

Tiger Woods Gatorade Print Ad. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://gossip.whyfame.com/
files/2009/12/tiger_gatorade.jpg

Tiger Woods Tag Heuer Print Ad. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.rvgoddess.com/
BLOG/2009/DECEMBER/Photos/TW-TagHeuer.jpg

Post 1: Response to 'In Defense of Food'

Pollan’s main arguments are surrounding what we eat, the chemical content of what we eat, and the influence of the media on what we eat. Pollan believes that we should be eating mostly whole, fresh foods, but since we are running out of space on the Earth it is hard to find fresh, quality foods. The chemical content of what we eat is a great concern too because often times we don’t really know what we are eating, and many chemicals can lead to build-up in our systems causing health problems in the future.
One argument that Pollan focuses a lot on is the argument that the media has a lot of influence over what we eat. I thought that this argument of Pollan’s was extremely valid and that it did cause problems for consumers. Pollan talks about how the health claims made about specific foods are often made up, false, or exaggerated. Pollan also discusses how ‘scientific claims’ are often completely wrong. Because a substance supposedly is a superfood and provides great benefits for us and this has been proven scientifically proven many people will not question this information. But, science is constantly changing and evolving, many scientific claims can be published will have multiple tests run on them or without having any extra information to back up their claims. These claims often times cause food fads because people want to think that they are eating the most healthy and ‘most fashionable’ food available. Claims can be made that something is healthy, but five years later the same substance could be labeled a deadly substance. Since, a lot of the information we may hear through the media is misguided or untrue it is hard for people to know what they truly are consuming, and what they really should be eating. I think that it is important to understand the impact of health claims on consumers and understand what the majority of people think about 'scientific claims'.

Sources:

Pollan, M. (2009). The Age of Nutritionism. In In Defense of Food (pp. 1-40).
New York, NY: Penguin Group. (Original work published 2009)

Roe, B., Levy, A. S., & Derby, B. M. (n.d.). The Impact of Health Claims on
Consumer Search and Product Evaluation Outcomes: Results from FDA
Experimental Data. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/pss/30000511

What is Body Burden? (n.d.). Chemical Body Burden. Retrieved February 18, 2010,
from http://www.chemicalbodyburden.org/whatisbb.htm