Every Lunch Left Behind

I don't know if it's just me, but when I see a huge group of people, I get curious. I wonder, "Huh, what are they all waiting in line for?"
Here's just a little background information of myself: Although I have been a Mayfair Monsoon for six years now, I rarely ever paid attention to the MPB during snack or lunch break. I didn't even know the MPB was our cafeteria (hence, multipurpose building lol). To this day, I still have only stepped foot in the cafeteria roughly about five times.
However, I came to the realization that the long line of students were waiting to get their snack or lunch. Before we even started this food politics unit, I knew school lunches weren't healthy. My only knowledge was that they were all preserved meals that were just microwaved or something then served to the students. That always disgusted me. (The sad truth is that I actually used to enjoy school lunches in elementary school.) But now I know that school lunches are totally malnutrutious, made from high fatty meats and cheeses and comparable to fast food meals. It just leads me to question: WHY THE HECK DO PEOPLE STILL EAT THIS CRAP?
I have the answer to my own question. They eat it because it's all that is available and maybe all that they can eat. The only semi-healthy option is like... a salad that comes with soggy vegetables (I assume) and a truckload of cheese with a cup of ranch.
The solution isn't easy, though. We can't expect the whole nation to provide truly healthful, organic meals to the billions of students. Even if the government hypothetically provided enough money, the new and improved meals wouldn't guarantee a more healthy student population. Kids are super picky and sometimes prefer to eat fatty foods. Maybe serving nutritious meals would lead students to starving themselves. Also, it could lead to more of the "black market" smuggling among students that sell contaband (the good stuff) and so the children wouldn't even need the organic meals then the government would've wasted billions of dollars on the efforts. It's a tough problem to solve.

Research topic too hard?

Some the other day when we were asked to share our research topic I wasn’t prepared.  I actually didn’t pick a topic until that moment when Ms. Fletcher called on me to share.  I chose a topic I thought I would want to write about but when I started doing my research I found it somewhat difficult to find articles that made enough sense to make a favorably argument.  I was getting frustrated and I finally decide maybe the best thing to do was to pick another topic, so I began my search.  I started asking my brother because I recalled he had to do something like this.  He told me the best thing to do was to keep my original idea but change it up a bit.  So my advice to those who are having difficulty would be the same my brother gave to me, change it up a bit.  Keep your concept but change your wording.  If you still are facing difficulty then maybe it will be best to find other less difficult topic.  Ask your siblings or another people for some suggestions.  Some of them might have the one you’re truly interested in.

Insects as food?

So i ate a grasshopper this past week. Check out my Instagram profile ( @thomas_nish ) if you want to see me do it. Surprisingly, it tasted fine. I would actually prefer to eat a bag of grasshoppers than a bag of chips. It was crispy, flavorful and downright edible. And yet, there still lingers within pretty much all of us a mental block. We just can't bring ourselves to think of eating these creatures. We've been conditioned (however unintentional) into thinking that bugs are repulsive on the dinner table. But if we are to believe our readings, human population and affluency cannot continue to both grow if we continue in our present dietary habits. To get a sufficient amount of protein in the future from animals, we need to start looking beyond the 4 main sources of protein in the US: beef, poultry, pork and fish.
I know it probably won't become mainstream for a while, but we as a society need to start branching out if we are to maintain a stable earth system. And this may include eating good ole Jiminy Cricket.

Here's an Idea: Thoughts for food

      How far must we fear to become elucidated? With our growing knowledge of these issues on food happening in our own local home, we are becoming afraid of our surroundings. What i mean is that we are everyday learning more and more of what is wrong with our food and what we intake, it literally scares us and worries us. We learn what is wrong with the processed, fast food and what is even wrong with the fresh local foods. When i realized i was feed up with this fear and our decreasing heath as a nation i thought maybe Ron Finley is right. Finley inspired me that if we build it will rise. (ha ha) I mean that if we create a better eating environment, then our health will get better. His thought was to make all empty, abandon parking lots or open land into farming land. Small gardens all over California. And why not? He is right. If we have kids volunteer they will eat what they have created. and if we have enough effort we will change everything.All i think of this idea is positive things. Sure it will take work and effort, qualities our nation lacks as a whole but with our focus we can truly benefit. Starting now we can begin to grow enough to support our growing population which is said to be in the near 10 billion by 2050. If we are having issues feeding our people now, it will not get easier as the days continue. So here's a though world: lets grow everything, ourselves and our food.

Issues on School Lunches

    (3/18/ 14 quick write)
        It saddens me to know that when a child is given lunch money to have a well balanced meal to help get through the day, and that money is is either used for a unhealthy "healthy" warmed up mush at school or is used for unhealthy snacks that don't really fill one up. It seems that the only way a child receives a healthy fresh meal is to bring from home and this option is not always at hand. Most families don't have enough time or money to make meals like this daily. So with theses limited options, children are being forced to eat unhealthy or starve. We need to change one way or another or unhealthy rates will not fall.

       Due to the fact that get free lunch, I am required by my parents to eat at school or starve. The meals on campus are never in my favor but i have learned to look past taste. Will in the past years i have not had much issue with the food once i stopped thinking about it but if in order for a student to have to ignore the heath issues in school lunches to have full stomach, then there is something wrong and i needs to be changed. Recently i have had a hard time eating at school. Due to my sacrifice of meat because of lent, I given up meat. But what must i eat if all meals are meat based? I have many vegetarian friends and i wonder what do they do? most do bring food from home but many have just fruits and juice. But this isn't enough to fulfill me all day. I have had salad for the last few weeks and i feel terrible. My health is not where it should be.
I used to be proud of having been on the list of students with free lunch. To have a meal before home unlike many other kids. But once looking into what is in these free "meals", I feel more of a guinea pig to "If it doesn't kill them then its okay". So what must we do to end this whole issue?

Thought? Opinion?

Cornstalks Everywhere (but nothing else. Not even a bee)

Check out this review of the book A World in One Cubic Foot by Robert Krulwich of Radiolab!  This is cool because it communicates so well, but it's awful, tragic, devastating information.  It worries me.

The Politics of Food

This is a wide open topic with multiple fascinating avenues to explore.  Don't get stuck.  Find a research question you are genuinely interested in, and follow your research in a direction that matters.  It makes the work fly by; it's interesting and real when the writer really wants to know something.

Here are some websites you can explore:

Michael Pollan has his own web page
Here's the Atkins Center for Weight and Health at UC Berkeley
The Food Inc. documentary has a website
The Edible Schoolyard -- wouldn't it be cool to plant a garden here at Mayfair?  What would it take?
Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity

The fourth talk here (all about ecosystems) is about our dwindling bee populations.  Galvanizing.
Ron Finley inspires me:  a TEDTalk about guerrilla gardening
Jamie Oliver's TEDTalk called "Teach Every Child About Food"
Another TEDTalk:  "My (subversive) garden plot"

I planted last year in hay bales that I purchased up the street at Bellflower Feed.  You could put one of these bales almost anywhere, even beside a driveway.  I'm going to try this again this year -- it was easy, cheap and fun -- my idea of a good time.  Last year, I planted four; this year, I'm gonna double that.  (Twice the fun.)

Early:

Later: