FOOD PROJECTFood Project Reflection
By Derek Pansze I think that the food project was my favorite project of the year, because it is so relevant to our daily lives. Over the course of this project, we learned about everything in the food business, from GMOs to slaughterhouses and even the many uses of corn. After we learned about these concepts as a class, we chose to study a subtopic deeper and do extensive research on it. The final part of this project was to write a 3-5 page paper on your issue and create a piece of art via any medium that represents your topic in some way. As I said before, I felt that this was a project that was very relevant and interesting because, well everyone eats food and it is important to understand what you are putting into your body. In the beginning of this project, I thought that after it I would become a vegetarian and only eat local vegan tofu because of the injustices I would see, but in fact my eating habits have hardly changed. Yes, I will still eat a twinkle even though I know it isn't good for me and that i am basically eating a glorified ear of corn, but I will only eat one instead of pigging out on the whole box, because i know of the serious health risks associated with eating too much processed food. I also understand the harm industrial farming is doing to our environment, which is important because we only get one planet and we have to take care of it, and it is impossible to protect our home unless we our informed about it's ailments. This project was difficult because it felt controlled and micromanaged, which made it a little difficult to do a lot of individual thinking in the first part. In some parts like the SAC, it felt like we were being force-fed words and then regurgitating them without absorbing and of the information. It was also hard to stay focused during the work time because we had all this excess time because we only had t do a small amount of work each day to stay caught up because the pace was so slow. The content was sometimes difficult also because we had so much repetition so it was hard to get distracted. During this project, I learned that my writing process is kinda strange. I found that i write my best when i sit down and bang it out in a large chunk of time. But even though I write best in one sitting, i think I brainstorm the best in shorter timeframes with little breaks between brainstorming sessions. As you can imagine, this doesn't work out well for me because I can't brainstorm and write at the same time very effectively. I also learned that it can be difficult for me to focus for large chunks of time during school, and that being away from my peers does wonders for my focus. I believe that there is no real answer to this question. I think that the answer is different for everyone. While watching Food Inc, I was talking to a peer who admitted he quit eating fast food for a month the first time he saw it, but continued to eat it after that. This shows how even though he knew about the terrible things that happened to the food he was eating, he could put those aside because his food values said that the end justifies the means, and that it was tasty so he ate it. But for me, I am now trying to limit my processed food consumption because my food values say that food shouldn't just be tasty, it should also be good for you. In the end though, it all goes back to how you were socialized into your food values and what YOU value in YOUR meal. |