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/

The Awakening of Bread

my name is J.N, and I am a student at GCE. I take a science/mathematics class called Food, and what we do is learn the science and fundamentals of plants, cooking, and much more. We went multiple field experiences, including a cooking lesson with Mrs. Moody. What we had to do is that the class would separate and create and individual bread, then compare them to each other. There are only a few difference, mainly with the leavening agents. There were multiple struggles with the creation of bread, including working with other people, as well as time. But I am proud that I was able to finish my project. So I hope you all enjoy.
 

Guerrilla Gardening..... for one person

Gardening was the first evolutionary step as people went from living in the stone age as scavengers, to becoming people with civilization and buildings and such. Agriculture and gardening have affected the human race so much, yet, in this time, many people don’t even know what agriculture looks like. People just eat what they get as long as it looks good, taste good, and can be easy to find. This is why I am planning out a garden. Since I am trying to eat healthy, the best way to do it is to prepare a garden so that I can have food ready for myself and others if needed. We need to have food available to use, and not just the food that costs a dollar and uses artificial flavoring.

I decided to create a guerrilla garden, and placed it in my backyard as the perfect space. The reason I choose this is because it has a well made structure, as well as it can shine the right light onto the plants. It also has poles which could be used as poles for vines. But before I could use the space, I need to know how big the space is. Using several calculations, I have depicted the area of my porch to be about 184 feet squared.

(190 inches x 140 inches) /12= 184ft2

My plan was to get small plants, so I first had look at what small containers I had around me, and what I needed. In the end, I decided to use 4 pots, 4 buckets, 10 milk cartons (cut), two cereal containers, and two violin cases. I tried to find the volume of each container in order to find out how much soil I will need. Here are the calculations.

Violin case = 32 x Width;9 ½ x Height;3 ½ in= 1064 in 3

Bucket= pi x 52 x Height; 11 inch= 863.9 inch3

Pot= pi x 52 x Height; 7 inch= 549.7 inch 3

Cereal Container=Length;10 in x Height;6 ½ inch x Width; 6 inch = 390 inch3

Milk Carton= Length; 7 inch x Height;4 inch x Width; 6in = 1683

I then need to find the surface area in order to find out how many plants I would need to grow per foot. I got the final answer 119 feet squared as my total surface area.

(4)pots=(4) pi x 52 = (4) 78.5 inch2= 314.15 inch2
(4)buckets= (4)pi x 52 = (4) 78.5 inch2 = 314.15 inch2
(10) milk carton= (10) 7 inch x 6 inch= (10) 42 inch2 = 420 inch2
(2) violin cases=(2) 32 inch x 9.5 inch= (2) 304 inch2
(2) cereal container= (2) 7 inch x 6 inch = (2) 42 inch2= 84 inch2 +
628.3 + 420 +608+84 = 1740.3 inch2 / 122 = 12.08 ft2

There are three essential elements that are needed in the soil in order for the plant to survive and grow. These are known as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. In my soil, I was able to find that I had high amounts of both nitrogen and phosphorous. The only problem was that it needed more potassium, as its levels was about 109, which is very low. In order to increase my potassium level, I needed to find out how many pounds were needed for my surface area. Apparently, it takes about 1 pound per 200 square feet in order for the potassium levels to even out, thanks to my CEC (Cation exchange capacity) being at 6. After doing several calculations, I was able to find that in order to even out everything, I would need to add about 0.06 pounds worth of potassium. How I can do this is that I will try to spread the surface area with about 0.595 pounds of compost in order to even things out.

xpd 1pd = x X 1 pd 2oox = 12ft = x=0.06pds

12ft 200 ft 12 ft 200 = 1 pd 200x ft

The number of plants in this area are small, since we have very limited space. So far, I am planning to grow onions, garlic, strawberries, carrots, tomatoes, eggplant, chile peppers, beans, mustard seed, and cherry tomatoes. Of course, if any of the nitrogen were to fail, I would add peanuts in each container as a nitrogen fixer. I will also be using companion planting, mainly with onions and garlic. What I will do is that I will plant the onions/garlic with strawberries, and cherry tomatoes, and place them all on a pole so that the vines could be able to grow. This represents the symbiotic relationship of mutualism, since each plant works for each other. I have other companion planting, but my main criteria is with the onions and garlic, since a lot of my plants are companion plants with them. One of them is carrots and onions being commensalism since one is neutral while the other is gaining benefit.

In the book “One Straw Revolution”, there were four principles or guidelines meant for natural farming. The principles were no plowing, no chemical fertilizers, no weeding by tillage or herbicides, and no dependence on chemicals. If a farmer were to follow these guidelines, then they would be considered natural farmers. I believe that, in my case, I would be able to follow the no chemical fertilizers, no weeding by herbicides, and no dependence on chemicals. The main reason I don’t follow the no plowing is I am already changing my environment by putting soil and plants where it is not natural. But I am not really trying to create a complex farm to feed others. The garden will be about feeding my family certain type of vegetables. I don’t plan on making money from any of my vegetables, but rather focus on bringing food to my family.

This is just an idea of creating a garden. If I would actually do it, then it would be great. It could be possible, only during certain seasons. I really want to do this sort of full on project, but I would first have to put some dedication into working, and some time as well. Even if I had the dedication, I wouldn’t necessarily have the time. I could possibly do it during the summer, but I feel like it would take time out of my schedule to work on trying to stabilize this garden.

       Tomato from JN on Vimeo.