The Grey Industrialization( of cookies)

My name is J.N, and I am a GCE student attending my final term for the freshmen year. In this final term, my class and I take a course known as Food for Thought, which studies food throughout history. We have done multiple assignments, as well as gone to multiple Field Experience. One of them being Uncommon Grounds, which is a coffee shop that grows most of there food.
What we had to do for our final assignment is to create a review between food we made at home or at school, as well as food we ate in a restaurant. This was a very enjoyable assignment since it was supposed to reach out to our opinion. I saw there was more of a learning experience rather than a challenge, which I believe there was none in my experience. My thesis is that my cookies will win over the industrail cookies known as Lofthouse do to taste, and I would suggest to you my cookies. Anyway, I hope you enjoy my review on my homemade cookies as well as Lofthouse branded cookies.

J.N "Flour" Own Work 6/4/17 

Firstly, I want to say that I love baking these cookies. Mainly because the cookie dough looked and tasted so good. Not only that, but I also tinkered with the recipe. Adding in different ingredient to make it taste good. To summarize the recipe, I first mixed in everything together but the eggs, until it was pale and fluffy. Then I added at least two eggs, then added a third one so the dough could be more liquidy. I then put it in the freezer for fifteen minutes. I shaped the cookies like walnut sized balls, sprinkled some sugar on to them, and baked for 10 minutes. I then let them cool for five minutes, and ate my most successful batch of cookies yet.
I wanted to make this as fair as possible for both types of cookies, and in order to do so, I thought it would be great to let the cookie rest for about more than an hour. This way the cookies that I buy at the store will match the exact same temperature, and would allow tasting to be down to the flavor, rather than the temperature. It also allows the feeling of eating to also be fair as well.
In this assignment, the both cookies have to go through at least 5 criteria that follows the senses. They are;
how does it look

how does it smell

how does it feel inside and outside of the mouth

J.N. Own Work "cookie" 6/4/2017

how does it sound inside and outside the mouth

how does it taste.

The homemade cookie looked promising, looking crumbly yet delicious. As if I touched it, it would necessarily fall into one million pieces, nor with it not leave a slight mess. It had a yellowish tint, with the bottom having a much darker it, as well as there were sparks of sugar around the cookie, magnifying the look and texture. The smell reminded me of a sweet cake batter, but still stayed in touch with the mix of a cookie aroma as well. For the texture before eating it, it felt like it was a small bit rough on my fingers, like a normal cookie would. The feeling of the dish in my mouth was amazing. The cookie itself felt soft, and would continually stay there for at least more than a few seconds, having also the perfect mix of crunch. The sprinkled sugar gave it an extra layer as well, allowing a noticeable crack in each bite, and making more enjoyable. The sound of the dish was a bith squishy, and small parts of crunch in it. The taste was good, and it was very cake-cookie like. It was sweet, but also had some bitter and pungent and that one could argue is evened out, which is usually a good thing. It didn’t necessarily leave a large punch, but rather left a continuous source of flavor for a well amount of time.

J.N "Lofthouse" Own Work 6/4/17

After being happy with the my homemade cookies, I then moved on to the store bought. Because of eating the homemade, it somewhat soured my look on the store bought. Nonetheless, I tried to keep neutral. The cookie I was eating was called Lofthouse Delicious Cookies: Cookies and Cream Sugar Cookies. When looking at it, it looked like the perfect cookie, but not the natural one. If you saw it, the you would know it was made in a sort of factory. It had the exact same color around it, as well some white frosting on top of it. This was unfortunate since it evened the playing field. Yet, I will still try to eat the cookie with the frosting since it came with it. When smelling the cookie, it had a promising aroma. It did smell like cookies and cream, as well as a brownie-sh smell. It has a smooth but also rough texture, and reminded me of a delicate sponge when I pushed on to it. When eating the cookie, it dissolved in less than a few seconds, which I didn’t enjoy. It reminded me of powdered sugar put in water, dissolving into nothingness. It didn’t have much of a sound because of how quickly it was gone. The taste was stronger when first biting it, which was good. But it only felt pungent and sweet, and that was pretty much it. It did do good advertising, since I did gain the taste of cookies and cream, as well as some brownie taste, but not to much.

After eating both dishes, I would mainly prefer my dish over Lofthouse. This is for several reasons, but the biggest reason was the feel in my mouth. When I ate the homemade cookie, each bite felt liked it cracked or popped. The taste lasted for a while compared to most cookies, as well the cookie was soft yet crunchy, in an perfect amount. The Lofthouse cookie was the opposite and what I despise in a cookie. It had a large impact, but for a very short amount of time, and then dissolve. A cookie from any store should stay and make the mouth feel good, with both an amount of crunch and softness.

Then there is the ingredients. Even though mine isn’t fully organic or local, it does have certain qualities that make it have a better background. The better ingredients of the homemade would be:

J.N "Nutrtion" Own work 6/4/17

1. 365 Everyday Value Cream Cheese, which is cow friendly and does not put rBGH in them

2. Organic Eggs

3. Ceresota All Purpose Flour UnBleached, which is doesn’t contain GMOs

4. The cookies from Lofthouse on the other hand contain contain ingredients:

5. Enriched Bleached Flour

6. Natural & Artificial Flavoring

7. Margarine

Of course, both do contain ingredients such as baking soda, egg, salt, sugar, and etc, there is no denying that the homemade cookies contain ingredients that are more farm friendly compared to Lofthouse. So I would have to say that while my cookies are a mix between organic and industrial, Lofthouse cookies are fully industrial.

Finally, there is also the fact of the true personality of the cookie. Most of the time, the grand taste of the Lofthouse cookie mainly came from the frosting. I know this because I would try out the cookie itself on the edges, and it had no personality what so ever. It tasted like unsweetened cocoa powder that was somewhat bitter and not really sweet. To myself, this fact is really ironic since you bought cookies to eat the cookies, not the frosting. That companies like Lofthouse are are putting much more emphasis on the frosting rather than the cookie.

If you don’t know who Michael Pollan is, he is an investigator, author, and researcher in studying economical and political crises that relate to food. He has written books such as Botany of Desire, Cooked: A Natural History, and much more. In his book In Defense of Food, he talks about five problems that large food corporations have that is their fatal flaw which is create in order to gain profit. These are:           

J.N "Homemade" Own Work 6/4/17 

1. Quantity over quality

2. Complexity to simplicity

3. Leaves to seeds

4. Whole to refine

5. Culture to science.

In the Lofthouse cookies, I could see several of these guidelines. But the biggest one would be complexity to simplicity. What complexity over simplicity means is that each product is meant to look the same in every way in order shut less to cost. The reason I say this is because, when looking at the cookies through the box, every single one was meant to look the same. That each one didn’t have any individuality, and that each one looked like the last. In fact, each one tasted like the last. 

Even though mine tasted the same, there were some that were bigger while others that were smaller. They were not meant to be perfect, but were meant to be tasty. Which brings me to another guideline Lofthouse follows, which is science to culture, meaning that it would turn into artificial flavoring. Unlike my cookies, Lofthouse had so many chemicals in it, from bleached flour, to artificial flavoring, to many other chemicals. It was also made in a factory rather than normally, seeing how each one looks exactly the same.
So overall I believe that my homemade cookies are better since they have less artificial flavors as well as having more natural ingredients. It also has a better feel as well as a longer lasting taste.

J.N "Myself" Own Work 6/4/17 

Recipe:

1. Preheat the oven at about 350 before making the cookies

2. Mix in the 2 ¾ cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking soda and ½ teaspoon of salt

3. Then mix in the 2 cups sugar, ¾ cups of cream cheese, ¼ cups of whipped butter, as well 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, until the mix looks pale and fluffy

4. Then mix in 2 eggs until it looks like cookie dough(add an extra egg if it looks too dry)

5. Put the dough in the freezer for about 15 minutes

6. Take out the dough, and heavily butter up the pan

7. Try to make each portion walnut sized on the pan, and separate them each by 2 inches

8. Sprinkle in ¼ cup of sugar on newly placed cookie dough

9. Put the cookie dough into the oven, and let it bake for about 10 minutes

10. Take them out, and let it cool down for five minutes

Citations

Cindy Catudal "Chewy Sugar Cookies" allrecipes.com cookierecipe.com 6/4/17
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/22850/chewy-sugar-cookies/

Zimbabwe, and the on going drought

My name is J.N, and I take a class at GCE Lab school called Food for Thought. We learn about how food has affected history, and how it affect today. We had gone to multiple field experiences such as French Market Cafe, as well as Uncommon Ground Rooftop Garden. Right now, we are in our unit called Death, which faces the consequences of the results of food empires and monocultures. For an assignment, we had to research and try to create a script that involves a problem/solution in agriculture and the food world trade in general. So for my project, I decided to research Zimbabwe, since it has high drought rates that causes economical crises and political crises. There has been multiple problems/struggles in this assignment. The main two were to find research for a third solution, as well as trying to get better wording. There was also problems with the recording that was needed for the assignment, mainly trying to read off the script as well as trying to do less stuttering as possible. Overall, I believe it is a good project do to the effort in research. The original script is below the video, as well as all the citations. I hope you enjoy the video, as well as find the script to be informational.

I need to ask you all this simple question. Do you know why we give/donate to places such as Africa or Asia, or any other country. Why they can’t solve their own problems.
Well, the reason being is that in continents such as Africa, has had multiple droughts that had lead to the deaths of millions, mainly because decrease of crops and food storage. One of the greatest examples of this devastation would be the country of Zimbabwe, who had about 5 million people face food shortages, as well as people facing poverty due to those droughts. Which is why I believe climate change is a serious problem, and has create both poverty, and hunger. So today, I will be talking about suggestion that could be able to help Zimbabwe.

Nearly five million people in Zimbabwe - half of the country's rural population - will need assistance by next year as a result of the ongoing drought in southern Africa,”- United Nations

There are multiple reasons on why this saying is true. One being is that climate change can tire out and even harm workers with extreme heat. In outsideonline.com, the average human being works best in a temperature of 70-77 degrees fahrenheit. Droughts, on the other hand, release high temperatures that are extremely dangerous to people. At best, workers in Zimbabwe are experiencing heat that is about 90 degrees fahrenheit. This could lead to illnesses, stress disorders, to even heat distortion. Then there is the main problem that climate change also affect on plants with no rainfall. In safaribookings.com, there is little to no water in Zimbabwe, probably do to droughts. For crops such as corn, there needs to be about .10 inches of water per day(maturity). But with lack of water, it will simply dry out and die(aganytime.com). Without crops, Zimbabwe faces debt, as well as poverty. In aljazeera.com states “The government(Zimbabwe) says it is trying to buy grain from neighbouring countries” as well as "requires a total of [$1.57bn] with effect from February to December 2016". Since the government is now owing debt, it doesn't have a high success rate to solve the problem, Zimbabwe citizens are threatening to overrun the government, believing that government official aren’t best suited for this problem.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that there has been drought. Zimbabwe has had multiple in the past. The problem is that with the assistance of CO2 and fossil fuel emissions, drought are more frequent and dangerous.

If you take upon the fact that a lot of times climate change cause a large amount harm to most civilizations, it isn’t surprising that Zimbabwe is being ruined because of ongoing drought. The book, Empires of Food, states “Droughts have always been an existential problem for agricultural societies since they first appeared”pg104. One example would be the Romans, which the book also states“The seventeenth Century, on the other hand, was a entirely less comfortable, with a little Ice Age stunning diets across the world and driving irritable masses of war”pg8 .  Another example would be the Mayans, which was one of the strongest civilizations (until the Spanish came), had to “filtered into the wetter highlands, where the remained”pg 104, as well as “abandoning their stone cities”pg104 due to droughts.

Most of the time, these civilizations didn’t necessarily faced the problem head on, but rather tried to find solutions that wouldn’t prevent it if it happened again. These solutions also at certain times made things much worse for the civilization. As I previously stated, what the Romans did was that they created wars in order to gain land and resources, while the Mayans migrated from their original area, and left behind their cities. The results were was that multiple wars caused multiple deaths, and leaving behind cites also meant rebuilding everything and forced more labor onto people. What we can learn from these two civilizations is that it is better to face the problem rather than try to dodge it. To be fair, these civilizations didn’t have much of a choice because they weren’t technologically ready to grow their crops anywhere, nor they didn’t have access to gain crops that worked with droughts rather than against them. Zimbabwe on the other hand does have a chance in order to gain crops that are farther away, as well as create buildings that could be used to grow crops. Yet, according to aljazeera.com, the government is only investing on “trying to buy grain from neighbouring countries” which is still not facing the problem in general.

There are at least three things Zimbabwe can do in order to solve their crises on droughts ruining crops.

Green houses- What the government can do is that it could be able to invest in greenhouses for small communities rather than focusing on the country in whole. This would allow the average crops to grow for minile people, that couldn’t be heavily affected by the drought. Of course, there are some problems with greenhouse, which is mainly the expense. Homeadvisor.com states that the average greenhouse is about 13,000 dollars, and is way too small for multiple people. Luckily, some college students were able to create a greenhouse that was twice the size and half as much. De Reus said the Penn State greenhouse uses a standard hoop-house configuration that. The greenhouse “consists of polypropylene random copolymer pipes, plastic glazing and lumber”(psu.edu). Also, the money that was given to Zimbabwe to help with human needs were 1.5 billion, and with the help of multiple charities, I believe that a possible solution would be to take greenhouse for local communities.

Drought plants-. Another suggestion I have is to use plants that support conditions of heat more rather than deny it. There is an organization known as CGIAR that is working on the climate crises, and has even successfully been able to create crops that are resistant to drought. They claim in an article “One way in which they(CGIAR) have responded successfully to the challenge is by developing varieties of major food crops that are drought tolerant or escape drought through early maturity”.  The only problem is that in the website, circleofblue.0rg, states “Zimbabwe’s restriction on the importation of genetically modified crops, limiting the amount of corn and other grains it can procure from South Africa, another regional exporter.” With that in mind, the government can either give up on the restriction for genetically modified plants for now, or try finding other ways to grow crops.


Stop Droughts- The final option have is that since there are some complex problems with GMOs, what the government can do is that with the UN(United Nations) help, I believe what they can do is they could be able to create a restriction or minimize the amount of smog that creates climate change. Of course, there are multiple problems, including that jobs would be loss and that it would take a large amount of time before the high end droughts are finished. So I believe this solution is an unrealistic one, while the first two are realistic.


The problem is more complex than I stated it to be. The drought create so many problems that the people of Zimbabwe are even questioning, and are at the verge of overthrowing the government. But still, I personally believe that if the government could focus on more micro ideas such as investing in greenhouse or buying drought surviving crops for farmers. If they do, then they might have a chance of surviving future droughts. These solutions would not only solve for hunger, but poverty, economic growth and decent work, and even sustainable cities and communities. But if the government can’t be able to either afford greenhouse, or still create a ban on GMO plants, then it might be much harder for them to support their citizens, as well as themselves.



Citations

Curtis Chan "Penn State students' affordable greenhouse effort helping African farmers" The Pennsylvania State University  psu.edu  5/23/17

Haru Mutasa "Zimbabwe drought: Five million face food shortage" Al Jazeera Media Network

aljazeera.com/ 5/23/17

Brian Sparks "Drought Update: It’s Spreading, But Greenhouse Growers Continue To Adapt" Greenhouse Grower  greenhousegrower.com 5/23/17

"Sustainable Development Goals" UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME 

undp.org  5/23/17

"TEMPERATURE EXTREMES AND THE WORKPLACE" Communications Workers of America

cwa-union.org  5/23/17

Erin Beresini "What’s The Best Temperature for Productivity?" 40 Outside outsideonline.com
5/23/17

"Zimbabwe- Weather & Climate" SafariBookings   safaribookings.com  5/23/17

"10 Facts About Hunger In Zimbabwe" World Food Programme wfp.org  5/23/7

"Corn Water Use and Irrigation Timing"  AGANYTIME   aganytime.com  5/23/17

Codi Kozacek "Drought-Hit Zimbabwe Unravels Amid Humanitarian, Economic, and Political Crises" Circle of Blue  circleofblue.org/  5/23/17

"How Much Does it Cost to Build a Greenhouse" HomeAdvisor homeadvisor.com  5/23/17

"Drought-Tolerant Crops for Drylands"  CGIAR cgiar.org  5/23/17

Evan Fraser &Andrew Rimas "Empires of Food" Counterpoint  4/29/17

Chocolate, and the story, you never knew.

On my spring term in GCE Lab school, I started at studying the history of how food travels throughout the world, and how much manpower it takes for a 99 cent burger to get to your home. We have gone though multiple projects and assignments, as well as multiple field experience. For this class , my class and I had to create a presentation that needed to talk about the history of a specific substance or food. Our course, I had decided to go a bit further, and animate my project in order to relate to myself more.

I had multiple challenges with this project, mainly with the time. When trying to do animation, it would take a large amount of time in order to do so. Sadly, I didn't gain high animation quality. I did however tried to animate the project, and that is what is my succession. While most of my classmates tried to do their project on a slideshow or prezi, I decide to go a step beyond, which I am proud of.

I just a talk about my family, and how they relate to this project. In order to create this project, I had to interview my family in order to gan a better understanding of the food. My family was a bit more related to my food, chocolate, do to their hispanic origins of Colombia, as well as my father being digesting more natural substance of chocolate, the cocoa bean. I just want to say that I am happy about my family's origins, since they had such an interesting history, and is great to explore.

AP Food for Thought 2 from JN on Vimeo. 

 Pucciarelli, Deanna "The History of Chocolate"  ed.ted.com , TED,  March .16. 2017. Web., April 26, 2017

http://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-history-of-chocolate-deanna-pucciarelli

Klein, Christopher "The Sweet History of Chocolate."