Food: Why do we choose what we choose?
 

One of the goals of Roanoke College is to prepare students to confront complex contemporary issues in a thoughtful and ethically responsible manner.  The Orientation group (O-Group) meetings will be your first opportunity at RC to engage with such an issue, and the summer assignment below will prepare you to participate. The topic for this year is “Food: Why do we choose what we choose?” In the resource list below you will find a variety items to read, view, listen, and ponder. Students are expected to digest all these works (the total is about 150 pages) and to produce an assignment in response to the prompt below. 

Resource List
 

ECONOMICS:

• Food, Inc. (90 min film; see also the associated website ) Streaming version of the film is available through your MyRoanoke account.
•  “Debate over Food Movie Missed Most Farmers”  (5 min audio; National Public Radio; 7/4/2009)
• Walter L. Goldfrank, “Fresh Demand: The Consumption of Chilean Produce in the United States” (12 pages; from James L. Watson and Melissa L. Caldwell, The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating: A Reader [Oxford: Blackwell, 2005] 42-53)
• William Roseberry, “The Rise of Yuppie Coffees and the Reimagination of Class in the United States” (15 pages; American Anthropologist n.s. 98/4 [1996] 762-775)
   

CONVENIENCE:

• Explore the slow food movement
• S. B. Eaton, M. Konner , and M. Shostak, “Stone Agers in the Fast Lane” (11 pages;  The American Journal of Medicine 84 [1988] 739-49)
   

CULTURE:

• William Mellor, “McDonald’s No Match for KFC in China as Colonel Rules fast Food” (7 pages; Bloomberg Markets Magazine, 1/26/11)
• Photo gallery from Hungry Planet: What the World Eats (Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio [Material World, 2007])
   

ETHICS:

• Tom Horton, “42-Day Wonder” (19 pages; Washingtonian (Sept. 2006) 66-79; republished with rebuttal by United Poultry Concerns, 9/23/06
• Michael Pollan “Big Organic” (51 pages; chap. 9 of Omnivore’s Dilemma, Penguin, 2006)
   

You’ve just finished reading the resources above and now are seriously hungry. You have $5 in your pocket and have access to a wide range of grocery and restaurant options. But you’ve also been inspired by these readings to think about the implications of your food choices. What will you buy to eat and why? In your answer, you should think beyond simply the issue of nutrition and consider the global and local economic, environmental, ethical, social, and cultural influences on and consequences of your food choice.   You should also be honest about the negative as well as positive aspects of your choices.  In your answer make sure you refer to works from at least two of the categories in the resource list above.

Your response can take either of the following formats:

•  A 3 page essay.
• An artistic/creative project with a 2 page written explanation of how your work answers the question above. Possible artistic/creative formats include but are not limited to creative writing, video, audio, music, collage, and painting.
   

You will be handing in your assignment at the first O-Group session on Saturday, August 27th, and you should also be prepared to discuss your main insights during the three O-Group meetings that weekend.  Your projects will be delivered to the professor of your INQ 110 seminar this fall. Other questions and issues that may be discussed during these meetings include:

1.      Connections between two or three major issues from the readings and the role food has played in the communities/neighborhoods in which you grew up. What can we learn about our culture(s) given the food choices we make?

2.      Possible solutions to the problems raised by the readings. Are these problems best addressed by individuals or by society as a whole?

3.      Consider two specific meals you have eaten in a recent week.  Where did these meals come from?  What were the economic, social, and cultural factors that led to this food being on your table? Does your analysis of these meals make you think differently about food? How?

4.      What factors determine the prices of food? How does price influence the way people choose their food? What other things influence choice of food?