The Science of Taste

Sean Dwyer

5/21

WC: 233

“In late 2011, about 400 workers’ rights advocates marched to Trader Joe’s headquarters outside Los Angeles. They wanted to present management with two letters, one signed by 109 rabbis, the other from more than 80 Southern California pastors. Both letters simply asked Trader Joe’s executives to work with the coalition to address labor abuses in the tomato fields – nothing more.” (Estabrook 196)

“That snub was nothing compared with what happened next. Police arrived and ordered the interfaith leaders to disperse, which they did. But as Rev. Halverson walked away, she saw someone from inside the building open the door, step outside, rip the letters from the glass, and crumple them.” (Estabrook 197)

“It’s hard to believe that a group of rabbis and pastors was threatening” (Estabrook 197)

“No matter how hard I try on Sunday to get ready – Monday mornings are always untogether. I’m saying all this to say that I’ll be writing you later in the week when I’m more together.” (Smart-Grosvenor 160)

“My heart beats heavy every time somebody even mentions his name. If your food is life stuff is true then I ain’t got no lie. I ain’t got nobody to cook for.” (Smart-Grosvenor 171)

“Get a holt of yourself. Spring is coming and there will be new songs to sing… P.S. Thanks to Dr. Christiaan Barnard, we know that the heart that beats for you is not always your own.” (Smart-Grosvenor 171)

“The production of food is based on how much money a farmer or a corporation can make from the food they’re growing. Farmworkers are a liability in their financial statements.” (Guillen 5)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/05/21/protesting-notre-dame-students-walk-out-of-mike-pences-commencement-speech/

The theme from this week’s text is that you can’t run from unprocessed emotion. The first quote regarding the executives of Trader Joe’s shows how a simple request can be perceived as so much more if the capability to do much more is known. The utilization of corporate power was an immature reaction to remove protestors from the scene because it brought up recognition of an unavoidable change as shown in the frustration of ripping letters posted to the glass and crumpling them. As described by the first quote from Vibration Cooking, Stella’s heart beats heavy every time she is reminded of the projected love she felt through the embodiment of her relationship. She has no one to see herself through. The following quote that says “the heart that beats for you is not always your own” helps outline the importance of your own heartbeat and the beauty of hearts beating in unison as touched upon in the following quote about farmworkers being a liability in their financial statements. A farmworker spends time in the field because there is work to be done. A farmer can become complacent in reflecting on the quality of time spent in the field when financial statements are relied upon to show that time was spent. We all have time to spend, and the clock ticks whether we want it to or not.

Sean Dwyer

WC: 360

5/20

“Years of living in the city had convinced Stark that the food-savvy citizens of Gotham would be eager to embrace his off-beat harvest.” (Estabrook 171/172)

“Nosebleed – catch the blood on a piece of brown paper and burn the paper to stop the nosebleed.” (Smart-Grosvenor 136)

“Stark says that paying by the amount picked is simply illogical. Different varieties of tomatoes yield different quantities of fruit.” (Estabrook 176)

“They said they went to each grower and asked for his best. Well, they certainly didn’t come to me. I would have never given them a Cherokee Purple. So who did they go to? I don’t know. At least it didn’t do any harm to my business. My customers still like my tomatoes.” (Estabrook 178)

“Cigar ashes – a dental tip from an eighty-five-year-old lady who uses them to brush her teeth.” (Smart-Grosvenor 136)

“…food had become a very scary subject in our house; we worried that ‘eating the wrong food’ might ‘bring the cancer back’.” (Esquibel 1)

“The bright, sweet pop of taste was followed by a lingering, pleasant tartness – that essential balance that defines a great tomato.” (Estabrook 187)

The arctic seed bank that was going to save us all is flooding

This week’s texts had a theme of beautiful people living their own beautiful lives. The quote about the food-savvy inhabitants of Gotham was written with such elegance it caught my eye and not until reflecting did I understand why. Stark lived it, and knew it. As written in Vibration Cooking, you can stop a nosebleed by catching the blood on a piece of paper and then burning the piece of paper. Some things you can only try to see if they work for you. The following quote from Stark describes how different varieties of tomatoes yield different quantities of fruit, so even if the farmer is willing to create unhealthy competition and stress for the farm workers, the crops would all have to be the same. If you aren’t willing to try new varieties, you might end up clinging to your one remedy; running around bleeding everywhere looking for a brown paper bag and a lighter is a good way to get smoke in your eyes. The following quote suggests that if you do focus on one variety, you best be willing to accept that journalists will be journalists and sometimes there won’t be the opportunity to show your best tomato. Does it matter what a journalist thinks? No. Stark’s customers still like his tomatoes. This had me thinking about page 176 when Stark says he still has a gardener’s mentality. That is why Stark’s customers still likes his tomatoes, not because he doesn’t listen to anyone. The final quote from Vibration Cooking about the eighty-five-year old lady who suggests using cigar ashes made me smile when I looked up if it was possible. It destroys your teeth over time, but the chemistry shows that it will make them whiter. Does that work for an eighty-five-year-old lady? Yes. Does that work for you? Maybe in the moment. The listed quote from Food First #7 describes my inner turmoil over the last few months. I was too busy looking at how white the eighty-five-year old grandma’s teeth were and forgot to show mine with a smile. A culmination of instinct, drive, grit, and little bit of luck through quite the journey is encapsulated in the final quote.

Sean Dwyer

5/20

“To me, Beddard’s fields looked exactly like those of Ag-Mart, Six L’s, Pacific Tomato Growers, or any other large conventional grower.” (Estabrook 154)

“He says that his yields are lower than his chemically dependent colleagues, sometimes significantly, but he more than recoups the differences in yields through the higher prices he can command for organic produce.” (Estabrook 155)

“The main man looked at her and at me, then he walked her to her stateroom. Later he came to my stateroom to offer the apologies of the Holland-American Line. He said, “Believe me, everyone wants you on the boat. We are terribly sorry, etc, etc.” – (Smart-Grosvenor 124)

“For example, the Homestead Act of 1862, a massive federal subsidy program, transferred over 50 million acres of Native American lands to mostly white male colonists and land speculators through 160-acre homesteads in exchange for five years of farming or payment of $1.25 an acre.” (Davy et al.)

“Now, if a squash and a potato and a duck and a pepper can grow and look like their ancestors, I know damn well that I can walk around dressed like mine.” (Smart-Grosvenor 118)

“The funny thing was everyone said I had a glow that evening and I kept saying that I didn’t feel good and the glow they saw was fever. They said I had the glow of health.” (Smart-Grosvenor 104)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/report-trump-says-firing-nut-job-comey-took-off-pressure/2017/05/20/ba35568a-3d2c-11e7-a59b-26e0451a96fd_story.html

This week’s texts triggering passages held a theme of growth and malformed perception. The first quote from Tomatoland demonstrates the absurd homogeneity of commercial farming in order to compensate for the high financial investment of defying nature, which is interestingly reflected in the following quote. The organic Florida tomato farmer uses a very similar method (without harsh chemicals and exploitation of migrant labor) only to get lower yields and he recoups the difference in yield by getting more money for the produce from those who can afford its purchase. Commercial farming has roped this organic farmer into supporting a way of farming that puts pressure on him to put constraints on consumers (or exploit farm workers and/or poison the farmworkers and consumer) because he wants to grow food and not directly hurt people. This reminded me of the main man mentioned on page 124 of Vibration Cooking because saying sorry for the company he works for rather than expressing his gratitude for her patience because he couldn’t think of some way to do the right thing and keep his job is similar to knowing you can get by because people will pay more to not eat poisoned food so he can have more than one farm. That being said, this farmer could decide to use pesticides, and the main man could have decided to not make an apology for the company.

This reminds me of a quote from page 167 in Tomatoland “‘There’s need out there,’ he said. ‘And if no one else is going to fill it, I have to step into the void.’ He shrugged philosophically and added, ‘And even if we fail, those new units will still be there.’” This quote put in perspective the contrast this farmer is creating by showing organic farming in Florida is possible while demonstrating the support consumers will show for a higher quality food product. The food first article touches upon the United States’ history of discriminatory, greedy, and spiteful decision making that has yet again undermined the ability for African-Americans to have opportunities at the expense of Indigenous peoples. The following quote from Vibration Cooking describes the silliness of claiming a living being to be yours because you declare it to be so and then continue to declare power over a person who celebrates the loving embrace of their heritage. The final quote from Vibration Cooking describes Vertemae’s glow when her self-determination left the boundaries of her body and her physical ailment revealed the strength of her spiritual health.

I could not find a Week 3 Seminar Post in my google docs so I wrote another and posted it. This is the original Week 3 Seminar Post.

Sean Dwyer

4/18/17

WC: 306

“An industrial Florida tomato is harvested when it is still hard and green and then taken to a packinghouse, where it is gassed with ethylene until it artificially acquires the appearance of ripeness.” (Estabrook 2011: 28)

“No consumer tastes a tomato in the grocery store before buying it. I have not lost one sale due to taste.” (Estabrook 2011: 28)

“He bought his freedom, but fell in love with a very beautiful slave girl named Namomma. Since he did some work for the master of Namomma, he saw her often. He was free; she was a slave, and slaves couldn’t get married like other people – not really. They didn’t know what to do. He wanted to have her for his wife, so he asked the master how much it would cost for her freedom. The master said $500. The master thought that was a fair price cause she would make a good breeder. For seven years my great great grandfather worked to get that $500 – and when he got it, he went to the master and said that the price had gone up to $1500. My great grandfather knew it wouldn’t be possible to save that much money, so he took out his free man’s pass and burned it, and offered himself to the master as his slave as long as Namomma was his slave. He made one clause in the bargain. If the master ever tried to sell her or any of their children, he said to kill him first. Otherwise he would kill the master and his whole family. And he said if the master tried to sell them after he was dead, he and the ghosts of his ancestors would put a curse on the house of Johnson and all their children thereafter would be cursed with ugliness. Master Johnson was so taken back that he let his daughter go and gave them both free issue passes.” (Smart-Grosvenor 1970: 24)

“[The] great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed [is] to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves.” (Holt-Giménez, Harper 2016: 4)

The assigned texts this week held a theme: you can’t fake the real deal. The allegorical language of Estabrook in Tomatoland suggested similarities between the treatment of tomatoes and people. The disgustingly detailed process of growing a living organism in a habitat not meant to support an organism that needs such delicate care was yet another frightening reminder that caste systems have developed with such detail the only requirement is for the organism to try and grow. The first quote reminds me of the development of a hard-headed, “greenhorn” who thinks they are adequately brave because they found their way back to the packing house after a rough trip on the sea. It is there in the place of arrival where the greenhorn is gassed with ethylene and convinced that the wear and tear shows ripeness, but the bruises only show a readiness for healing. The passage from Smart-Grosvenor’s Vibration Cooking can be used to explain why the South Florida Tomato farms throw out any tomatoes that are starting to ripen. Smart-Grosvenor’s great great grandfather was free and with that freedom started to fall in love. He used his freedom to try and free his love, but after years of hard work realized it wouldn’t be allowed. He then took out his free man’s pass and burned it, and offered himself as a slave. The tomatoes that start to ripen have more plant value than those who haven’t, but cannot be picked because a naturally red tomato stands out amongst the rest, and people start to wonder why the others are not like that. Smart-Grosvenor’s great great grandfather’s strength would have challenged his oppressor’s ability to exploit, oppress, and rape by virtue of his power, as described in the final listed quote, because Master Johnson’s inhumanely manufactured power was challenged in the rawest, most humane way.

Sean Dwyer

5/15

WC: 307

“These New York roaches are working together with the people who make the spray. You buy a spray and they disappear. You tell your neighbor that you used such and such a brand and she uses it and they go away. In the meantime, they come back to your place and you try something else and they leave again and go to your neighbor and you tell her to try the other band and it goes on and on and the old roaches always return.” (Smart-Grosvenor 72)

“If you ask commercial seed companies why they are making tomato varieties that have lost all their flavor, the answer is very simple… They have focused all their energies on their customers. Who are their customers? The commercial growers. What does a grower get paid for? Yield, size, and appearance. They make more money for very large tomatoes than they do for small ones. The grower is not paid for flavor. So you have a fundamental disconnect between what growers want and what customers expect.” ( Estabrook 148/149 )

”The driver told my grandmother that he didn’t have to take people like her… Well, when he said that, I saw red. I thought of all the years my grandmother personally had put up with the whims of white folks and told the driver that this night he would go to Penn Station or I would go to my grave. He went. I grabbed the door handle and he pulled off and I pulled my legs up and I held on. People were screaming and I held on. I thought of Sam and Dave, just keep holding on. And I did. He stopped at Second Street and my grandmother got in. He said, “Who do you people think you are?” and I said, “We are.” (Smart-Grosvenor 86/87)

“However, the state trumped the rights of the Standing Rock Tribe once again – the North Dakota Environmental Protection Agency insisted that composting amounted to burying waste and would be considered illegal dumping.” (Deetz 3)

A theme from this week’s text is communal service for self-afflicting reasons. The roaches are the elephant in the room. Communal shunning of the unmentionables, a movement so united Plato is likely rolling in his cave. How people trick themselves they got rid of the pest of all pests with a chemical that satisfies the cockroach fury within themselves is reflected in the return of the roaches for fear of your neighbors not being as chemical-savvy as you persists more greatly than the roach. What’s a roach to a human anyway? This bug can live for a week without it’s head, humans can live for years without a head. The elephant nervously shift from one leg to another causing a thundering of the floorboards, inciting self reflection even amongst the roaches, and eventually the elephant can walk out of the crumbled house and start the return to the savanna.

As the second quote describes, the success of Tomatoland stems from the ability of the investors to adore their own ingenuity, for they are the customers, the investors, the managers, and the only people to enjoy the tomatoes they produce.

The quote from the Food First series shows that the roach persists. The worst nightmare of the roach is a mirror, and however clearly it pines to be sprayed, if you appeal to your neighbor who’s watering a dead bright green lawn with plastic flowers planted in plastic pots to understand the same artificial spray isn’t working, it won’t pay off as we learned from Standing Rock. Lessons can be learned from the iron fist of Vertemae; “I thought of Sam and Dave, just keep holding on. And I did.”. Then there was a moment the roach caught a glimpse of his reflection in the answer to his question; “Who do you people think you are?” – “We are.”

Sean Dwyer

5/8

WC: 345

“How unnatural can you get! Big juicy orange and you got to take it in forkfuls instead of letting all that juice run on your hands and then licking your fingers. But at the time I thought it was hip. For years I thought it was. Then one day back in South Carolina and I picked some figs and stuck them directly in my mouth. I didn’t dare tell anyone that I had been eating prosciutto and figs rolled together with a fork.” (Smart-Grosvenor 66)

“What you don’t see is tomato fields. But they are there, hidden behind ten-feet-tall berms covered in scruffy vegetation and broken sporadically by access roads festooned with “No Trespassing” signs and guarded by private security men. Less than an hour after leaving Naples, you round a long curve and enter the city of Immokalee.” (Estabrook 73)

“This subcontractor system enables a corporate farmer to avoid direct responsibility for day-to-day abuses that occur in his fields.” (Estabrook 101)

“Because of the crucial role played by victims and witnesses in the Flores case, congressional legislators inserted a clause in the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act allowing victims of slavery who cooperate with law enforcement officials to receive T-1 visas, documents that allow them to stay and work in the country for four years and can lead to permanent residency. In the Navarrete case, Lucas Domingo and his fellow slaves agreed to testify against the family that had brutalized them in return for T-1 visas, even though they feared for their lives, especially if the brothers were acquitted.”  (Estabrook 92)

Yates Set to Testify about White House Meeting

Barrett, D., & Horwitz, S. (2017, May 08). Yates says she expected White House to take action on Flynn. Retrieved May 08, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/yates-set-to-testify-about-white-house-meeting/2017/05/08/ade2ca2c-33f7-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html?utm_term=.80e82fbf4ca6

The assigned reading this week had a theme of personal affliction even when it is not presented as such. As the daughter of Steven F. Grover reaches out to strangers, her dad coerces them. As the Navarette brother breaks down and pleads guilty to five of the less serious charges involving harboring aliens, Don Pacito drinks quietly in the streets living in fear of Navarretes’ friends. In Tomatoland, the assigned chapters started with the funny-money prices of the homes in Naples and I couldn’t help but notice the contrast to what the Navarretes did to other humans to steal some of the hardest earned $240,000 from people working in a dishonest system for honest reasons. The first quote regarding the tomato fields describe the hidden signs that are shown in plain sight, and in the context of the second quote from Tomatoland, the subcontractor system separates the handle of the whip from the tassels with one hour long drive from Immokalee.The first quote describes her change in perspective returning to South Carolina from Paris, where wealth set the trend of swanky to flaunt the normative with absurdity, to enjoy the metaphoric orange juice making her fingers sticky just to lick the juice off. In Vibration Cooking, Vertemae touches upon her experience questioning what man would want a 6-foot-tall woman.  She decided that the bohemian life was the only one for her because they were tolerant of everyone, and she couldn’t have been more right when she was learning to cook on an alcohol burner with a six-foot-tall Swedish girl in Paris. As described in the final listed quote, Lucas Domingo and his fellow slaves are getting oppressed in a system that creates pathways for exploitation and provides a laughable jail sentence for inhumane crimes if the slave drivers are convicted. A T-1 visa allows them a chance to be exploited less, as the indentured servants did hundreds of years ago, for they have survived the first wave – and must continue navigating rough surf to eventually be able to exist with several unjust stipulations.

Sean Dwyer

WC: 246

5/2

“At every turn Sultan is driven to think the less interesting thought. From the purity of speculation (Why do men behave like this?) he is relentlessly propelled toward lower, practical, instrumental reason (How does one use this to get that?) and thus toward acceptance of himself as primarily an organism with an appetite that needs to be satisfied. Although his entire history, from the time his mother was shot and he was captured, through his voyage in a cage to imprisonment on this island prison camp and the sadistic games that are played around food here, leads him to ask questions about the justice of the universe and the place of this penal colony in it, a carefully plotted psychological regimen conducts him away from ethics and metaphysics toward the humbler reaches of practical reason. And somehow, as he inches through this labyrinth of constraint, manipulation, and duplicity, he must realize that on no account dare he give up, for on his shoulders rests the responsibility of representing apedom. The fact of his brothers and sisters may be determined by how well he performs.” (29)

“People complain that we treat animals like objects, but in fact we treat them like prisoners of war. Do you know that when zoos were first opened to the public, the keepers had to protect the animals against attacks by spectators? The spectators felt the animals were there to be insulted and abused, like prisoners in a triumph.” (58)

“Shame makes human beings of us, shame of uncleanness.” (47)

“I am not a philosopher of mind but an animal exhibiting, yet not exhibiting, to a gathering of scholars, a wound, which I cover up under my clothes but touch on in every word I speak.” (26)

The texts provided a theme of being scared of reason, for reason can be a powerful tool to appeal to a logical understanding of a provided environment when the provided environment lacks complete explanation. The first passage is well scripted to depict the opportunity for an allegorical understanding of the ape’s displaced environment. The carefully plotted psychological regimen transforms Sultan’s existence to acceptance as an organism seeking life through the encouragement of utilizing one for another and guides Sultan’s mode of thinking to persist through an environment that does not provide satisfaction for him and in order to continue existing must appeal to his responsibility to represent apedom. In this, there is a fear of reason, or a lack of reason, for if an understanding is not found, what next? A section of the second quote, “the spectators felt the animals were there to be insulted and abused, like prisoners in a triumph” reminded me of the Stanford Prison Experiment and the growth of abuse that occurs from dominance hierarchies and placed importance within roles. The third quote describes the malleability of shame as a tool to reason why one should be in a cell, a method of containing the uncleanness, a hole to bury one’s self in by digging through another’s chest. The last excerpt from the passage summarizes the animal exhibiting pain through the appeal to why the keepers keep the way they do and to wear the clothes that conceals the spade’s clefted mark left by another’s desire to bury their wounds into another’s heart. Such power, the power to persist through an environment similar to Sultan’s, all for the fact of our brothers and sisters.

Sean Dwyer

WC: 258

4/25

“If God came I was supposed to say that “my mother is not home and I’m not allowed to have any company. God never came by but some kids would try to get me to come out.” (Smart-Grosvenor 31)

“They told me that Santa would come on the Saturday after Christmas but the rent was due on that Saturday and he didn’t come at all. So I had lost the faith and I wanted my party then.” (Smart-Grosvenor: 31)

“I thought what the hell am I doing in Iceland eating this terrible fish stew. Another time was when I spent a lot of money and it didn’t turn out very well. I later found a food shop that sells bouillabaisse in the can for 98 cents. It’s not bad, at least not as bad as mine.” (Smart-Grosvenor: 39)

“Carlitos’s little sister was born in 2010, “a beautiful baby” according to Yaffa. “Carlitos’s birth stands for a whole lot more than a child born without arms and legs,” Yaffa said. “This child has changed the system.” Or part of the system.” (Estabrook: 72)

How could someone do those things? Why? There is a quote, “Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die”. Yaffa reminds me of the book Watership Down, the allegorical tale of a few heroic bunnies proudly creating their niche amongst a group. Yaffa felt a goodness in his ability to be good, and was able to change his perception of his effort to be good to match the familiar sense of his perceived goodness, and when a reason to doubt his ability to be good came about his effort to reinforce his perception of his sense of self became present, although his true sense of self might surprise his perception. Yaffa has skills as demonstrated in the recording of the courtroom discussion, but how those skills were developed becomes clear when the recognition and affirmation of his skills were no longer present. Yaffa thought he was Lord Frith and became El-ahrairah in that moment because he didn’t know they were the same, “a classic case of the fox guarding the hen house” (Estabrook: 44). Lord Frith does not exist because they are a lord. The trial in Tomatoland is no different than The Trial of El-ahrairah. Cisneros is Hufsa. Hufsa, as described by the wikipedia on Watership Down, is “a rabbit placed in El-ahrairah’s warren as a spy, thwarting many of El-ahrairah’s plots and tricks before discovered. To rabbits, Hufsa’s name is synonymous with “traitor”. Before howling at Donald Long, or Mr. Simmons (Smart-Grosvenor: 31), are you in Donald Long’s den? Or your own?

Sean Dwyer

WC: 406

4/18

“Botanists have but one name for all those oddball cultivated tomatoes: S. lycopersium.” (Estabrook 11)

“To get around this problem, field managers examine the crop and then tell pickers on a certain day to take all the tomatoes below, say, the third row of supporting twine and none from higher up. The less mature fruits higher on the vines will be picked by crews that pass through the field again a couple of weeks later.” (Estabrook 31)

“You’re really changing the environment… and that causes genetic shifts from one generation to the next. It’s artificial selection.” (Estabrook 17)

“She said, “I’m sorry child you’ll have to fend for yourself” and started to throw me in the fireplace but all praises due to the gods Aunt Rose caught me.” (Smart-Grosvenor 3)

The triggering passages from this week’s text held a theme of humans playing god from a place of denial of the self. Estabrook discussed the history of tomato varieties that were linked to Mayan culture and how the usage of the term variety was describing its appearance rather than genetic difference. The theme of mythical origin stories developing from the malformed growth of American culture that I explored last quarter helped me understand how the tomato, and other celebrated crops such as corn, had to be monopolized to uphold the impressive stature of the American way. What one brings to their approach to growing reflects the quality of the food as reflected in the second quote listed. Rather than “getting around this problem” and adapting to a natural method of growth the quality of the product had to be sacrificed in order to continue the style of production. The third quote describes this process as artificial selection. Rather than utilizing the wisdom of Mayan culture to support nature’s mode of selection by propagating appropriate varieties with varying genetic structure to create resilience, the ego’s resilience overcame “this problem” and the people harvesting, the consumers, and the creators who repackaged the appearance of the same tomato. The genetic shifts have not been occurring in the plants and farms have been designed to create negative genetic shifts in the humans involved due to a large scale commodification of food. The quote I chose from Vibration Cooking describes Vertamae’s unlikely survival in her infancy and I saw a connection with youth being thrown to the fireplace. The artificial selection that has been used on humans rather than the natural selection of plant varieties artificially supports those who have an Aunt Rose. Rather than becoming stranger, strength can be found in finding the strength of those dedicated to sustaining their sense of self, but my version of “this problem” is differentiating between how we sustain our true sense of self and not an artificial development that we have identified as our self through our own origin story to be happy in our provided environment. If we have not developed our sense of self independently we are still subject to the whim of others seeking to validate their own perception of emotional compromise, which underpins a larger problem of growing through artificial methods, inhibiting our gift to be social creatures without the perceived need to socially sustain our artificial concept of the self.

Sean Dwyer

4/10/17

WC: 547

“GDP is based on a false assumption: if you consume what you produce, you don’t produce.” (Shiva 2016: 112)

“…Brutalized men brutalize women” (Shiva 2016: 119)

“As a masculine model of production systematically devalues women’s place in the world, women themselves are devalued, displaced, and disappeared.” – (Shiva 2016: 118)

“I just do it by vibration. Different strokes for different folks. Do your thing your way.” (Smart-Grosvenor 1970)

News: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39568631

Misogyny and Artificial Food

When discussing the systematic oppression of women it is important to consider the quiet or not so quiet benefactor. Man’s desire for self confirmation blinds the perception of the symptoms of their own emotional unsustainability, which propagates a type of disease that grows within the false sense of self, yet the symptoms are more easily recognized in others. If one can sustain the self without the perceived “need” of self-confirmation beyond one’s self and limited dependence on a larger system, through homesteading for example, the need for biological and psychological satisfaction becomes channeled through the perspective of preserving one’s sense of self through a new system of personalized accountability. The quote on page 112 from Who Really Feeds the World? clearly outlines the inherent devaluation of self-sustainment present in the globalized colonization of capitalism discussed in the text because GDP measures your personal productivity in the context of what it means for people other than yourself. The female cook’s work is nullified and a woman’s capacity to sustain one’s emotions can become destroyed by a powerful, uncontrolled male intuitive desire to find emotional sustainability within themselves through the proxy of females as a mode of self-confirmation. If a human’s way of being is colonized, the ability to sustain the self slowly becomes terminated given previous methods, and with the use of lenticular logic, participation in the offered culture of one dominant system can be presented as one logically supported alternative to a human’s current experience. This disconnect from past to a forced present was exemplified on page 122 from the text’s example of James Dale’s vitamin-A rich banana experiments in Uganda being presented as a superior mode of consumption when mango powder, lotus stems, amaranth, neem, and rice bran provide incomparably higher portions of the vitamin and have already been in use by indigenous women. Why? The quote from page 119 addresses this subject. Physiologically speaking, diets without consideration of gastronomic health sustained by processed food for example, encourage the development of a prosthetic heart that is more familiar with the use of satisfying an internal placed emptiness by the use of an intuitive emotional crutch as a mode of happiness and in the process of a person trying to satisfy an immediate need corresponding to an artificially manufactured desire of taste, the unmentioned intangibles of a woman outcast by her society (and said intangibles as a sense of identity) become viciously consumed by men, and at times women caught in a similar emotional net. An artificial sense of flavor offered with misleading methods of self-sustainment, that only sustain one’s helpless participation in systematic oppression, unfold through the symptoms described in part by the quote from page 118. The quote from Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor beautifully suggests a mode of self-satisfaction that pleasures us all with a method particular to our own journey for self-empowerment that is experienced individually and can be shared collectively. A quote from Will Allen’s father that was discussed in Will Allen’s book, The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities, states “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die” appropriately describes the crisis of men unable to sacrifice their artificially manufactured sense of identity while continuing their pseudo-reinvention of satisfying human emotion through artificial food, amongst other methods.

Works Cited

Allen, W., & Wilson, C. (2012). The good food revolution : Growing healthy food, people, and communities. New York, N.Y.: Gotham Books.

Shiva, V. (2016). Who really feeds the world? : The failures of agribusiness and the promise of agroecology. Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books.
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