Chapter 11:
Gems: " It was hard to believe this hillside had ever been the gullied wreck Joel had described at dinner, and even harder to believe that farming such a damaged landscape so intensively, rather than just letting it be, could restore it to health and yield this beauty. This is not the environmentalist's standard prescription." - pg. 209
" By means of this simple management trick, Joel is able to use his cattle's waste to "grow"large quantities of high - protein chicken feed for free; he says this trims his cost of producing eggs by twenty - five cents per dozen." - pg. 211
" It's all connected. This farm is more like an organism than a machine, and like any organism it has its proper scale. A mouse is the size of a mouse for a good reason, and a mouse that was the size of an elephant wouldn't do very well." - pg. 213
" Pig happiness is simply the by - product of treating a pig as a pig rather than as " a protein machine with flaws" - flaws such as pigtails and a tendency, when emiserated, to get stressed." - pg. 219
" Its a foolish culture that entrusts its food supply to simpletons." -pg. 221
Questions/ Thoughts:
How come we haven't found a way to get polyface farm to provide our food instead?
Is it because the government doesn't agree with way they farm?
If we gave these farmers more land and less debt I believe they'd be able to produce a lot more in these polyface farms.
Chapter 12:
Precis: On Wednesday it was not about " the ecstasy of life on a farm" but the day to slaughter the chickens. Unlike other farms Joel slaughters them in his very own farm not another facility. The workers became mechanical no longer felt morally troubled about killing the chickens this is why it's so easy for them to kill them than for us to watch them. In the end the customer can even chose its on chicken and out in plastic bag to ensure their chickens aren't just another processed food product. Joel saw all the chickens waste or guts or other things that are usually thrown out as treasures because unlike other farms nothing goes to waste and all have a cycle where one thing helps and leads to the other.
Gems: " Joel's reasons for wanting to do this work here himself are economic, ecological, political, ethical, and even spiritual. " The way I produce a chicken is an extension of my worldview." he'd told me the first time we'd talked." - pg. 227
" I couldn't make out any insects in the gizzard, but its contents recapitulated the Polyface food chain: pasture on its way to becoming meat." - pg. 234
" Joel can seethe future of this one in a way I can't, its promise to transubstantiate this mass of blood and guts and feathers into a particularly rich, cakey black compost, improbably sweet - smelling stuff that, by spring, will be ready for him to spread into the pastures and turn back into grass." - pg. 238
Questions/Thoughts: Wonder if the author after experiencing all this will he continue to eat meat?
Why does the USDA see what they are doing as wrong when it is so much better than the other farms they regulate?
Wonder what Joel thought about letting chickens living in their own waste?
Chapter 13:
Precis: It is Wednesday and today comes the day when the consumers of Joel's polyface farm come, some as far as a few miles away. The buyers have the chance to connect with who and where their produce grew creating a trusting bond between consumer and producer and are more willing to pay the higher price. Joel says if we took off all subsidies the mass - produced food has, it would "level the playing field." Which in reality in a way is true the price we see in supermarket, it is not the actual price due to the government policies.
Gems: " After that, it didn't surprise me to read that the typical item of food on an Americans plate travels some fifteen hundred miles to get there, and is frequently better traveled and more worldly than its eater." - pg. 239
" Don't you find it odd that people will put more work into choosing their mechanic or house contractor than they will into choosing the person who grows their food?" - Joel pg. 240
"This is the chicken I remember from my childhood. It actually tastes like chicken." - pg. 242
" One day Frank Perdue and Don Tyson are going to wake up and find that their world has changed. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen, just as it did for those catholic priests who came to church one Sunday morning only to find that, my goodness, there aren't as many people in the pews today. Where in the world has everybody gone?" - pg. 261
Questions/Thoughts:
These people who have access to a polyface are lucky i believe they can meet and see where their chickens are grown letting them know their food is safe.
Will we one day no longer buy from mass- produced but instead from these type of farms? or will it just never happen?
Chapter 14:
Precis: I decide to try this food I've watch grow and be killed in front of my eyes, at first felt a little queasy at thought of me being able to eat it. But I cooked a dinner for two friends from nearby buying two chickens, eggs and corn from Joel's farm to make dinner. ( Although he gave it to me free as a gift.) With a good conversation, surrounded my friendly people and good and healthy food.
Gems: " The anthropologist Claude Levi - Strauss described the work of civilization as the process of transforming the raw into the cooked - nature into culture." - pg. 264
" Willie agreed there was something neat about the alchemy involved, how a plant could transform chicken crap into something as sweet and tasty and golden as an ear of corn." - pg. 265
" When chickens get to live like chickens, they'll taste like chickens, too." - pg. 271
" I closed my eyes and suddenly there they were: Joel's hens, marching down the gangplank from out of their Eggmobile, fanning out across the early morning pasture, there in the grass where this sublime bite began." - pg. 273
Questions/Thoughts:
When he described what this food tasted like, he to me seemed to speak honestly of what the chicken and eggs tasted like and that it didn't taste out of this world but the chicken did taste more chickeny and the eggs had a "muscle tone."
My question of if the author would ever eat chicken after having seen the farms and foods process to his own plate was answered in this chapter, he did. He came off as proud and happy to be eating these foods form Joel's farm.
Chapter 15:
Precis: I've decided to do the thing that will connect me with my food more than going to supermarket or even a farm could ever. Become a hunter gatherer. After finding someone who knew this style of living. Started with easier part the gathering, after recognizing a couple plants found a wild mushroom that matched what chanterelle mushroom is but he faced the decision to eat it or not. The omnivore's dilemma.
Gems: " My mother had inculcated a fear of fungi in me that put picking a wild mushroom in the same class of certain - death behaviors as touching downed power lines or climbing into the cars of strangers proffering candy." - pg. 278
" Anthropologists estimate that typical hunter - gatherers worked at feeding themselves no more than seventeen hours a week, and were more robust and long- lived than agriculturists, who have only in the last century or two regained the physical stature and longevity of their Paleolithic ancestors." - pg. 279
" Some very basic things: about the ties between us and the species (and natural systems) we depend upon; about how we decide what in nature is good to eat and what is not; and about how the human body fits into the food chain, not only as an eater but as hunter and yes, a killer of other creautures. " - pg. 281
Questions/Thoughts:
The fact that the hunter gathers were healthier than we are today but we can't just go back to this way of living because there is not enough wild game for everyone to eat.
This way of livng brings a new view of what you see around you at least in the woods because it all has potential as a source of food.
Chapter 16:
Precis: The omnivore's dilemma is what one as humans face every day in our lives and due to the flavors we taste, disgust, sweetness, bitterness are some of what helps us decide what to eat and what not to eat. In America it is even harder to decide because of the types of foods many of the immigrants who come bring and the constant fads and diets we have. We also have certain ways to eat the food like raw fish with wasabi to minimize danger of eating. Cooking led to another way of eating to bringing more energy to us humans.
Gems: " The blessing of the omnivore is that he can eat a great many different things of nature. The curse of the omnivore is that when it comes to figuring out which of those things are safe to eat, he's pretty much on his own." - pg. 287
Questions/Thoughts:Its interesting to know how much goes into the decision we make every day on what to eat, how other animals like rat or koala have their own ways of deciding what to eat.
We rely on others to know what to eat and not to but why do we when we are still eating things that may be food we shouldn't?
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