Capitalism and Overcosumption

The visual piece above is a modified warning sign of crossing pedestrians. The alterations were made to be obese pedestrians. A cautionary color is used by the piece; implying that there is a cautionary tone embedded into its message. On the rectangular sign below the pedestrians is the cautionary message of "Childhood Obesity." A blue sky may imply the future, there are clouds implying the coming of conflict.

Perspective is composed in an interesting fashion. One looks up to the cautionary sign and looks up to the sky which may symbolically represent the future. This intentional placement of the image contrasts these two things as a merging reality; obesity is in the forecast. However, the sky is blue, which might imply that there is still some hope for obesity to be changed early on as a possible future towards something else. The obese pedestrians adopt a cultural universal since they may be applicable to any person since they are generic black silhouettes. The colors for the sky are cool to allow greater emphasis place on the warm yellow sign.

The message may fail for the following reasons. The written rhetoric conflicts with the visual rhetoric. The obese pedestrians are adults. Contrasting these two together creates a paradox in interpretation: is childhood obesity to be warned of, or rather are the obese adults the ones to be cautious of. Inconsistencies such as these interfere with the message intended. This may have been unintentional by the author, but the effect is critical.

 Possible audience for this visual image might be to parents. The composer wishes to question what values and decision making skills they might impart to their children. Certainly this is a cautionary sign that warns of the dangers children now face. A sorrowful reality that lies in the choices made by both the children and the decisions their parents set forth in an environment of processed foods and bombardment of advertisement directed at overconsumption of nutrients.

Locating and Using Sources

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/135/4/900.full.pdf+html

This journal article has the proper credentials from the University of Washington. The intended audience for this article is for experts in the field of nutrition. There is nutritional jargon embedded into the article. The article is able to convey its message thoroughly because it is very consistent and very specific on what is discussed. The article is centralized around the concept of economics and food prices as the basis for influencing obesity. The article appeals to logos and uses a very technical and numerical approach to support the claims found in the article.

Key points to note are the costs and their influence on American decision making and the link to obesity. The trend of convenience foods has rooted itself in American customs. Lowered prices have lead Americans to consume cheaper macronutrients and calorically dense foods. These trends have overtaken many American consumer habits. The low cost of the high energy dense foods is attractive in the lower households due to their affordability and their palatability over expensive nutrient rich foods.  The convenience of these foods also plays a factor in obesity. Money is emphasized by the article as one of the main factors driving obesity. Since money is so heavily tied to decision making; in terms of budgeting and in times of hardship. It is more logical to a person with low income to purchase a shelf stable product rather than fruit that may rot faster and lack the rich flavors food industries have to offer; this enhances the efficacy of obesity in America.The article also looks at the lawful implications that obesity has had a role to play in. The legal cases concern addiction caused by energy dense and nutrient dense foods; the food companies defended their case by stating that it was at the individual's liberty to not consume the products that lead them to overeating complexes.

Carnival Mirror

When you look, think, feel, and dream of something with hours on end, what do you see? Part of American culture lies within addiction, obsession of particular objects, people or random things. Depending on the severity of these particular things, they may either be minor or require legal sanctions.

There are particular addictions involving controlled substances that are demonized by society. The use of these drugs are definitely illegal, but the real question is why do we fall in these pit traps. Taking it from an anthropological standpoint we have to take a holistic view on the issue. Are there consequences for not giving in to the particular addiction? For example, are peers pressuring the individuals and pushing them down these stray paths? Do we seek out these dangers ourselves? Are personal reasons enough to justify these actions? Is our environment primarily to blame for these behaviors. Does upbringing affect the events leading up to this behavior?

Other behaviors are just as detrimental. Addictions to computers and the aspects associated with them. For example video games, there are people who neglect real life events. How did they come about to deciding on going on with the bare minimum in other aspects of life, but at the same time they are so passionate about the other drive in their life? Is that what addiction really is? A passion deemed taboo by society? A quasi-forbidden fruit we seek for diverse reasons. Is such a passion worthy of the negative criticism it receives? Subtly, society as a whole fractions off desirable and undesirable behaviors ultimately assigning stigmas to them.

What types of "passions" do you have? How did you come about to embrace or condemn your "passion"?

Ying and Yang

America has felt the shock and consequences of mass produced foods. This rippling effect will have terrible impacts on the medical care America already struggles with. Certainly enough Norman Borlaug would have not foresaw such a regression in American nutrition: Overnutrion. City life changes the way we eat. The average American eats out more than 10 years ago. This culture of workaholics has left a dent in the nutritional intake of Americans. Why make your own food when conveniently enough there is some fast alternative. This is the economical thing to do, right? What is the quality of your food? Are you really getting your money's worth? What if you were to find out that there is a culture out there that only consumes fat, very little amount of grains and starches and their vitamin intake and heart disease rate is plainly said, better than ours. These people are our distant neighbors in the northwestern parts of Alaska. The Innuits, and their notable paradox: high fat intake and very little rate of cardiovascular disease.

So, how is this even possible? How are they able to consume such a gargantuan amount of fats and remain thinner than the average Houston citizen? Step back for a bit, and look at what you are eating. Ok now come back here when you are done.

Glad to have you back, did you notice something in your food? Probably not, you might have thought something like: "My food is not a problem to me, I work out."

Well, the Inuit have quite the interesting array of cuisine. Their diet is all fat, from seal, walrus and other marine animals that have juicy scrumptious amounts of fat enough to make your mouth water for hours on end. Now you are thinking why does this matter? Back to the previous point made, what is the quality of your food? Have you ever asked how the actual ingredients that have come together to become my meal what is their journey? What practices put together the foods I have now in my hand?

Biochemists and Nutritionists have come together and attempted to put their resources together and come up with the solution. The fats in our diets are saturated trans fats the factory produced livestock animals with only a limited diet of grain have gone through obesity and butchered to harvest their flesh.

The Inuits are unfortunately limited to what they can eat, the frigid temperatures do not allow them to have any fresh fruits and vegetables. They must engineer for themselves the essential nutrients necessary for human function. Some of these are integrated into the fats of the animals they eat. Some vitamins are readily dissolved in fats due to hydrophobic structure composition. These fats are close to getting multivitamins with caloric content. Although fats, they must not be forsaken like they are done here in the States. It is through this very mechanism that they are able to survive and thrive as human beings. They are hardworking and always active.

It seems that the closer we are to the city, the higher the probability we will succumb to the temptations of lifestyle choices detrimental to our aging. Will you forsake the life in the city, with LCD galore, cars, air conditioning, and money for a better quality of life? Do you support the mass production of obese animals? You are what you eat correct?

On the surface

I have never had the opportunity to swim because I had never had to. It was never a part of my life, I have never lived by the coast. Nor had I had the opportunity to. Everyone around me enjoys gliding through the water. They understand the language of the body and how to maneuver their way in water to stay afloat and move with the grace of a whale.

                As important as picking up a language is there are other aspects of culture that must be learned in the same manner or rather in a similar way. These customs are necessary to function normally in society and they will have to come about them.

                Swimming was a language of interest to me, I have always envied those Olympic swimmers for their graceful races in water. I had to have this skill, it interested me so and there is always a chance to use it whenever around water. Also another thought that drove me to learn the language was someone told me about its impact. The knowledge was worthwhile as it could potentially be life saving. If it came to one day I walk by and there is an accident I don’t want to be a part of the bystanders who are on their phones recording the event rather than helping.

                Swimming is the language of your body and helping you orient yourself in water space. For this you must understand how your body works and how to use it to help you remain in the water without falling to an oxygen lacking grave or someone else’s. This is the importance of the skill.

What life changing skill can you pick up?

McDonalds with no Burgers and Extra Fries, a Tale for Vegetarians and the like

Recently in government there have been spending cuts but the one of interest here is the spending cut on meat inspectors from the USDA. Not only is this illegal because all of your meat whether you knew it or not has to undergo meat inspection. The only people authorized to do this are federal meat inspectors. The billion dollar meat industry will have to get shut down because of this economic misconduct. The consumer will most definitely be denied the privilege of purchasing USDA approved meat. To make matters even more interesting there will be a sequestration of the meat products that don't get inspected. This matter is still pending and the actions have not been made final.

Don't get me wrong, despite it being lent and no meat on Fridays being the custom to follow. I cannot think of the world without cooked meat. Its almost close but a mere hyperbole to the American consumer a world devoid of oxygen. How are prices being affected? There is no concrete evidence on this. However unemployment sure is to follow, those inspectors have to be laid off and the processing plants have to be shut down.

There is an alternative to this, and that is to formulate imitation meat products from naturally occurring sources such as soy, and seaweed. Ever wondered how a steak made from soy proteins tastes like? Well it can be made all there is to it is to isolate the proteins in soy from the natural source via thermal processing and addition of acid to separate it from the gran. This is then centrifuged or in layman's spun around to separate the whey from the solid protein. The solid and the whey are separated and the solid part is curdled protein. To reform the protein addition of base is necessary to bring the protein structure back together. Steak can be made because the structure can be made in the lab and make the micro-filaments and fibers from the soy source. These can be woven and mimic the real thing. Coloring is added and the two meats look the same. Quality may be different but the flavors can be adjusted to taste like the real thing. Soy steak, yum. How about seaweed? Sounds like an alternative to me.

Now imagine yourself going to the store only to find empty meat aisles. Processed foods and perishable vegetables are at your disposal. How would this impact American dieting? Does this mean the end of the fast food giants for a temporary time or will they adapt and try some seaweed burgers?

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Business/AMI-boss-to-Obama-Meat-industry-will-shut-down-if-you-furlough-federal-meat-inspectors

Casted Light

Steps clacked in the distance to his right. If he weren’t drunk he would have believed them to belong to the reaper. In a drunken man’s reasoning, imagination hurt more than the reality, he would have had to return the morning after his hangover, the bright unforgiving light. Days before he managed to remember his last resting place. By accident he tripped over the demising hard wooden borders of a sandbox. He fell in head-burst into the yellow sand, luckily he was excessively drunk to keep his eyelids open, let alone believe collective equality could actually sound as a swell idea to stir insurrection. The following day he was found by a shirtless young girl, confident not only in her strength but in her self-determination to reject the current swindling fashionable ideas spat out by wiser men than him. She smiled at him as she pulled his hand and gradually dragging him out of the pit-box. Overwhelmed at where such immense strength originated from, he failed to notice the sand coming out of his shirt pockets.

“Mister, you shouldn’t have slept there, that is the resting place of Homura. She is an unforgiving sprite that hides behind the curtains of day, and performs her imprecating song when the masses sleep.”

She turned his back to him, leaning her head down to stare at her own shadow then she said voice deep and mature, “Those who sleep in the forest, have their soul eaten…”
Before he could ask her what meaning it held, or why she spoke in such a manner, she vanished into the lush of the park scenery, the sun’s irritating rays. As he stood up he noticed something peculiar and frightening, his left hand shivered. One thing came to his mind as he brushed away the remaining sand, he felt as if half of his body weight had ceased to exist. No matter how he looked at it no amount of vomit could ever make a man in his late twenties lose over half of his weight! His footsteps hardly took extortion of any kind from his muscles and ligaments. It took him a matter of seconds to finish dashing seven hundred meters. Little did he realize his indulgence blinded him to the fact that such an unrealistic turn of fortune could ever happen. He pinched his cheeks until they were raw. Still. No change. His feet were lighter than the dried yellow leaves falling at the beginning of autumn.

Although knowledgeable enough to know that pond water would give him the runs later, he eagerly took in all the microscopic pathogens into the sanctity of his newly, he thought adjusted biologically superior monolith. He splashed some water through his rich brown oily shampoo-deprived hair. Euphoria rushed throughout his body, feeling eccentric enough to run another kilometer in just a matter of seconds became his current objective.

As he finally decided to run for it, his muscles petrified at the sight of something more hair-raising than finding out his wife cheating on him with his former best bar buddy. His shadow! The blob of darkness most people care as much as they do for the gum sticking to the soles of their shoes. An existence manipulated by children to create living forms from the bases of their hands under a beacon of light. A necessity to have for one to identify themselves as… human. GONE!

He panicked wondering how such a thing could have happened. Picking out the pieces, flipping them as if part of a puzzle he never bothered finishing the night before, nor the night before that one, and so on. All of his future plans shattered before him as if it were made of thin sheetrock half-crafted out of depth handiwork and the other half…

One thought darted through his head, and as soon as he considered it, he knelt down realizing that gravity had also betrayed him. Then parts of the earlier conversation he had with the shirtless young girl echoed through his ear canals.

If only knowledge was always available our decisions rational and our hearts kept at bay. The things we keep even the insignificant ones when lost bewilder the mind and trouble us. Depression surely follows thereafter. What have you lost and how has it impacted your decision making? The above was an original work created by yours truly in spirit of narratives and story telling.

Rugby Rhetoric

This blogger analyses the composition and the abilities of the college rugby teams competing in the Las Vegas Invitational this weekend. One of these fortunate teams will come out on top as champions, but the blogger is opinionated more on the divide between the teams that tend to come out on top (according to him, Arkansas State University, Life University, University of California, and Brigham Young University) and the teams that dominate "locally in their respective regions" (Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor) are at a disadvantage as always in tournaments like this. For example, the blogger used results from last week indicating a Cal team dominating a "Tennessee team 99-0, an Arizona State team crushed 99-0 by Life University, and UC Davis losing to St. Mary's 81-0". Texas A&M's Rugby team was mentioned several times throughout this blog, but with very few positive notes from the blogger such as losing "70-7 to nationally ranked Arkansas State."

In other words, teams like A&M represent the crunched, middle class of the rugby hierarchy, while teams like Cal remain at the peak of the pyramid. The blogger, with minimum efforts however, uses logos to appeal to the readers the reasons (whether it'd be "money, commitment, university support, or athlete performance"). These arguments do make sense however, a university with more money would be able to afford to support the travel expenses and equipment maintenance for the players. Rugby is not a cheap sport to play, and if athletes have to "work at fundraising events or pay out of pocket to the point where playing is not affordable for certain players. Some teams have gone as far to offer scholarships, but most of these are based on high academic merits, while certain schools have enough cash subsidiaries to offer scholarships or loans to players with not-as-stellar qualifications.

The blogger asserts correctly that in the United States, rugby is NOT a varsity sport, but then he uses his own opinions without any factual support to say that it should be. His reasons are that 1) "varsity athletes can receive substantial support from the university, whether it'd be academic, physical or financial. 2) the program is affected as a whole, rather than if it were to recognize itself as a club," bringing with that label implicit and exclusive qualities.

His final argument, is the overall reason certain teams remain ahead of the pack in college rugby: admission requirements. As mentioned previously, he bases these facts with more logos, but with no hard evidence. (stats, expert input, etc) He states that universities with lower admission standards "have a substantial and some would argue, insurmountable advantage over schools that must rely purely on the relative academic merits and competitiveness of the student athletes to gain admission to the school of their choice." Overall, he argues that Arkansas State and Life University receive high performing athletes that were turned down by prestigious universities for academic performance and as such, remain at number one and two nationwide.

http://alliedrugby.com/blog/pre-season-and-vegas/

Misunderstood Sugar

Today we can’t drive by without once seeing a fast food restaurant. It has become an integral part of American society and with childhood obesity on the rise what will become of us tomorrow? Slowly the food habits are eating away at our heart and one day will consume it whole. Who is to blame? The focus of this blog is to analyze some misunderstandings of a certain food ingredient that has shifted the markets due to a recent rise in health fads.

Who else but High Fructose Corn Syrup 55? Well what is it exactly? It is a very common food ingredient that comes out of the process of inverting sucrose into its component sugar monomers fructose and glucose through an enzymatic or acidic reagent. The number 55 indicates the concentration of the fructose monomer relative to glucose. So it’s 55:45 fructose-glucose syrup.

Skepticism has been pushed about the naturalness of the product, this misunderstanding comes because of the lack of the appreciation for the chemistry behind the ingredient. As explained briefly above, the process is deriving 2 sugar monomers from sucrose using an enzyme or an acid thus eliminating the notion about its naturalness.

What about its impact to the American diet and health? Well the food additive has been unjustifiably linked to obesity. Those with little to know appreciation for statistics know that to create causation for the responsiveness of a certain variable is unjust. There are other factors affecting obesity than just one mere food additive. In short there is no scientific evidence supporting the claim linking the two together conclusively.

These factors are due to the proliferation of Television and Video games leading from the 1970s up to today. Fast food has been on the rise due to its economic convenience to feed a low income family on such small amounts of money. More women have entered the workforce as well, which has led to a slight dependency of fast food as well.

Companies now are shifting away from using HFCS55 because they don’t want to attack the consumer on how their lifestyle choices have made them what they are today. What kind of business would criticize their consumers? So they then offer an alternative, “We are now organic” or “Reduced fat” are some of memorable examples.
With that in mind do you agree that HFCS55 should continue taking on such a bad reputation? This stigma on the food ingredient that the FDA acknowledges as a natural ingredient is quite unreasonable.

Global buffet

Dining at the Global Buffet Culture is too variable among people but overall it means to share ideas, customs, beliefs and norms among a populous. The diversity of culture is great today because man has diverted from his early days of band and tribal communities. Even those early humans shared these commonalities that cohesively bound them to one another to create a society. The details may have changed from then, man has grown in brain power and has lead to a great advent of discovery of the unknown world. 

In modern 21st century Earth culture is spreading globally due to the flattening of the world due to the effects of cheaper communication technology. American culture for example can now diffuse rapidly to other countries within the click or stroke of a key. This collaboration of ideas paves way for a global culture where the ideas of people will be similar. It’s almost like we are moving toward a global conscious of man powered by the fiber optic cables of the internet. Strange how man once nomadically traveled the world to search for sustenance and now that very world is behind the screen of an LCD display. 

Aimé Césaire would agree that culture should be inclusive and to deny something from culture would be a pretentious ploy by those who consider themselves elitists who shy away from undesirables. One shouldn’t be picky in their foods because they not only limit their horizons but there are cultures out there still waiting to be discovered and admired. 

http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/the-world-is-flat