• 4 large Idaho potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1 can artichoke hearts (non-marinated)
• 3 Tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup milk
• Salt and pepper to taste

Artichoke Mashed Potatoes

We're tweaking the recipe for size and we are using fresh artichokes, not canned; this is just to give you an idea of what the end result will resemble

The word feedlot is thrown around a lot these days, and the meaning is lost on many. A feedlot in its purest form is a place where livestock is sent once it reaches a minimum weight requirement and are "finished" this finishing prepares the livestock; whatever it may be, for sale in the marketplace. What is meant by finishing is essentially a glorified form of fattening up, the animal is fed a large amounts of grain and energy dense foods so each animal produces as much meat as possible. Feedlots weren't always around, in fact it is a rather young concept that only came about in the last forty or fifty years. Originally feeding operations were separate from all other parts of the industry. This was true until around the 1960's when usage of hybrid grains and new innovative irrigation techniques allowed for a large amount of cattle to be fed on site. Thus the birth of the modern day feedlot, and though it brings increased productivity and a controllable environment is it truly ethical to take away this animals quality of life and essentially turn it into a walking pile of meat? On top of that they are injected with all sorts of antibacterials to prevent spread of disease because they are kept in such close quarters. Sounds harmless I know, but what do you believe happens when you eat the beef, you're getting very low doses of the same injection. What this does is it kills of all the weakest specimen of bacteria and only the well adapted survive which means we're essentially breeding super bugs.

"This is caused because consumption of the feedlot beef is likened to dosing yourself over and over with a very frail version of the anti bacterial injection. This causes the weaker variants of the bacterium to die off but all the strong and healthy specimen survive and we essentially breed super bugs." Pull Quote

Movie Reflection

The first thought I had after seeing this movie was surprise, for once I had gotten all the hard hitting data and pure factual information without any of the fluff. The presenter had done an abundance of research and explained our possible paths in terms of energy generation for the future. One of the things that struck me was what he said about nuclear power, and if we were to be able to generate the extra thirteen or so Tera watts that we needed we would have to build 10,000 new nuclear plants, or one every other day for fifty years. What really surprised me was the data on solar power, the potential energy that is wasted every day is staggering, to think that there is so much of it, 600 Tera watts per day was the number I believe. And though it is obvious we do not have the technology to use it properly as no one has come up with a way to properly store it that is cost and energy effective. Even the cells themselves are currently a very expensive venture as you have to sell the energy at roughly seven to eight times the cost of fossil fuel energy to make a profit or simply break even. In the end I believe the most realistic outcome would be humanity relying on various forms of power from renewable sources like wind energy to whats left of our petroleum. Though this may be naive and optimistic but I hope and believe that we will in the near future be able to optimize the energy that bombards the earth everyday from the sun.

This article touches on reform of our food industries and even references the farmer in chief piece that we read in class. It opens with the quote stating that if we ever hope to reform out health care system we must first repair our severely damaged and perverse food industry. Because as long as our current system is in place and chronic disease caused by our daily diets remains in tact reform is but a dream. It is essentially a very weak breakdown of farmer in chief but it does bring up a few of the more interesting statistics such as the us health care system spending 147 billion dollars to treat obesity annually and another 116 billion for diabetes.
"America Must Reform Its Food Industry or Go Broke With Health Care Costs: Michael Pollan." Organic Consumers Association. 15 Jan. 2010. Web. 22 Jan. 2010. .

This article entails information on a study done on two feedlots, one of them natural in which no antimicrobials are used, the second being commercial where the antimicrobials are present. Tests are run on the cattle's water for E. Coli and Enterobacteria and figures show that the pathogens were significantly higher in the commercial feedlot's water supply. Though they do have increased resistance to these foreign bodies the use of antimicrobials in farm animals can lead to unusually resilient bacteria, and these cultures could eventually mutate to infect humans. Though these tests are merely preliminary their results are rather chilling and until further researched cannot be dealt with.

The Medical News. 20 Feb. 2008. 22 Jan. 2010 .

The article opens with a reference to "The Jungle" and how our current food situation is a parallel to it, a "Jungle 2.0" if you will. Because of the recent peanut butter salmonella incident our country is neared a record high of food recall for 2009. Food safety also effects trade with over 3000 products recaled and the cost impact of all this came up to near 1 billion dollars. Infact the recall of peanut butter resulted in sales dropping over 25% for the entire industry losing roughly 500 million dollars. It hurts not only the large conglomerates but the small family bussinesses which are unable to bounce back from such losses. The article states that to reform food we must reform agriculture.

Murphy, Dave. "We need to reform Americas food safety system from the farm up | Grist." Grist | Environmental News, Commentary, Advice. 12 Mar. 2009. Web. 22 Jan. 2010. .

Farmer in Chief Seminar

I found that the seminar took a bad turn when we began discussing junk food. Not because it was a dull or uninteresting topic but once we hit junkfood we didn't get anywhere else. Once I believe it was Diana that brought up the idea of banning junkfood we got stuck on the topic, and the seminar seemed to die just then. I found various aspects of the packet interesting like the idea of feedlots and the counterproductivity of feeding the livestock antibiotics that would lead to stronger new strains of bacterium and virus'. The fact that the livstock were in kept such horrible conditions that they no longer had a legitimate functioning immune system struck me profoundly, and disturbed me. The idea that came to mind was rather than attempting to create more effective antibiotics we reform the whole system of livestock. I believe that we should return to the basics and go back to farm-raising and free range animals. Not only does farming need a reform but our whole system of food production needs to be reformed, we're burning through fossil fuels at an alarming rate and at a ratio of one food calorie per ten fossil fuel calories burned we won't be getting anywhere. This is a great task and I believe the best place to begin is educating the public. Before we put new policies into play we must inform the general public of what this destructive cycle of consumption will lead to.

Farming Lineage

To my surprise my uncle is a farmer, he grows a kind of citrus fruit commercially and although the fruits name escapes me I'm quite astonished by this. Even my mother was a farmer, albeit not commercial they did own a plot of land and grew various crops for a multitude of uses.

Natural World Phenomena

Something that I've always found intriguing is the aurora borealis, I understand it is a phenomena that occurs in the natural world but what conditions are necessary for it to exist? I do believe they occur in the earths ionosphere and are often found in the north and south poles but aside from that I know nothing.