APES- Reading Guide- Part #1 The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan Reading Guide Instructions: For each of the

statements listed below: DISCUSS the meaning of the statement, give your reaction and give an example from the book. Introduction: Our National Eating Disorder Pg. 1- What Should We Have For Dinner? How did we ever get to a point where we need investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from and nutritionists to determine the dinner menu? Now were not really sure where our food come from. And we dont even know if its real; natural. Pg. 5- Certainly the extraordinary abundance of food in America complicates the whole problem of choice Theres more food that we can eat, and more that we dont know. Americans have never had a single, strong, stable culinary tradition to guide us The menu; things we eat arent constant. Pg. 10- By replacing solar energy with fossil fuel, by raising millions of food animals in close confinement, by feeding ourselves those animals foods they never evolved to eat, and by feeding ourselves foods far more novel than we even realize, we are taking risks with our health and the health of the natural world that are unprecedented. We affect the things we eat. We replace they diet,
we can make a change in the food wed/chain..

Pg. 10- Our eating also constitutes a relationship with dozens of other species- plants, animals and fungi- with which we have co-evolved to the point where our fates are deeply entwined.
We depend on them in a high rate.

Industrial Corn- One: The Plant- Corns Conquest Pg. 17- Except for the salt and a handful of synthetic food additives, every edible item in the supermarket is a link in a food chain that beings with a particular plant growing in a specific patch of soil (or, more seldom, stretch of sea) somewhere on earth.
The plants are from different part of the world that we dont even know where they come from.

Pg. 18-19- There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and more than a quarter of them now contain corn. Make a collage- showing the items that are made of corn in the average American supermarket. Pg. 19- Why are Mexicans (descendents of the Mayans) referred to as the corn people?
to acknowledge their abiding, it was their miraculous grass.

Pg. 21- What is the C-4 trick by plants?

important econo, for plants. When temperature high. Recruits extra atoms of Carbon.

Pg. 22- What does the higher ratio of Carbon 13 (isotope) to Carbon 12 in a persons body tell Amount of carbon we eat. Person esh. 114 us? Pg. 22- How much wheat flour do we eat compared to corn flour? (Americans)
114 wheat our, 11 corn.

The Rise of Zea Mays Pg. 23- Explain why some people regard agriculture as a brilliant evolutionary strategy on the part of plants and animals? Because we get us to advance their interest. Pg. 24- What was the biotic army that the white man brought to the new world?
Associate Species: cattle, apple, wheat, pig, weeds.

Pg. 25- Explain how corn won over the wheat people because of its versatility.
Fast Rate of reproduce.

Married to Man Pg. 26- Why is corn considered to be married to man?

They depend on corn.

Corn Sex Pg. 30- For to prosper in the industrial food chain to the extent it has, corn has to acquire several improbable new tricks- What did corn have to do?
Acquire new tricks. Adapt to humans and machines. Do multitask.