Post #1

I found Chapter 6 from The Omnivore's Dilemma to be particularly interesting out of the reading. Pollan starts off by commenting on how American obesity can be traced back to the 1970's with the rise of fast food restaurants. Aiding human obesity in this day in age can be attributed to the human body's ability at eating more than it needs to build fat restores for a future famine, which never comes in our society in which access to calories rich food in generally far too easy. He also says how our diets consist of too much corn and how people are getting the majority of their high fructose corn syrup through soft drinks and the like. In this day in age, it is more efficient for someone to consume soft drinks than juice from concentrate from a calorie/dollar perspective. I found this quote to back his statement up, "Since 1985, Americans annual consumption of HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) has gone from 45 pounds to 66 pounds" per year. Pollan then states that farmers in Iowa, for example, are producing far more calories than we need. However, the fault doesn't totally lie on the farmers. It is more calorie efficient for them to produce corn in Iowa than anything else, so that's what they produce. Pollan puts part of the blame on the government for aiding corn's dominance in our diet through subsidiaries and other means.