View source for Oct14

==12: OCT 14==

===Assigned Reading===

:*Montgomery, David. Chapter 1: "Good Old Dirt" ''Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations''(pp. 1-9); (9)
:*Montgomery, David. Chapter 2: "Skin of the Earth" ''Dirt''(pp. 9-25); (16)
:*Diamond, Jarred. "Agriculture's Mixed Blessings" (180-191)  (11)

:*Some claims that we have challenged in the course:
::*Your gut is only full of waste.
::*Food is only nutrients.
::*Your diet is part of a culinary cosmos, whether traditional or modern. 
::*Plants aren't aware. (Previous version of the course.)
::*Animals don't have lives. (Coming up.)
::*And now, there are ecosystems in the soil. (today)

===Culinary Cosmos Photos===

:*Let's make some observations together of some of the culinary cosmos pantry and fridge photos:
::*I appreciate better how constrained the space for food is for some of you.
::*Some evidence of plant proteins, but not alot.  Exceptions: Hen, Tarsier, Tree.
::*Columbia wins biggest pantry award.
::*Lots of industrial fridge stable sauces.  Many of these are not eaten in quantities that cause a health concern, but they might not be good for your pallette.
::*Consider a trade up on some industrial versions of basic foods.  Prego has added sugar.  Better tomatoes (Cento, for example) might increase satisfaction of a home cooked marinara sauce. 

===Assignment Rubric Discussion===

===Practical Eating Series, "Dietary Design and Practicality".===

====Dietary Design====

:*It might be helpful to use "design" and "optimizing" approaches to review or improving your diet and food practices.  By design, I mean that things have to fit a certain way to meet all of your requirements.  You can think of it like a puzzle, but you can also think about it like an engineer might.  Choose your own metaphor here.

:*"Optimizing" can involve individual foods, dishes, meals, etc.  Of each of your current meals you can ask the N S P questions.  "Trade-ups" are another way of thinking about optimizing.

:*Appeal of design metaphor: More consistent with an aesthetic approach, beginning with the space and mood of the kitchen.    

:*Appeal of engineering metaphor: diets have parameters and requirements.  They are "systems" with supply chains, production and storage process, and quality (satisfaction) requirements.  

====Notes on Practicality====

Practicality can be thought of at several levels from food waste in the kitchen, to the logistics of supplying your diet, to sustainability, etc.  

:*You have a practical diet when:
::*you always know what you need at the store, (easy methods here)
::*you rarely waste food, (favors batch process)
::*you don't spend more time preparing food than you can afford, (But how much is that?)
::*your food is portable when you need it to be, (gear, favors something boxable)
::*your meals are flexible when they need to be, (can be delayed if you change you mind about eating at home, can be quick)
::*you have plenty of opportunities to prepare food when you aren't busy, (time shifting meal prep time)
::*but you never have to do it when you are too busy, (measure reserve or quick dinner options)
::*you always have something great to eat and many choices about dinner, (assess need for variety)
::*And, it's all completely affordable. (cost assessment)

Some measurement and goal setting challenges:

:*How much time should you "afford" for food preparation and enjoying.  How often?  Slow Food thinking supplies some answers to this.
:*How much time do you (should you have) have for making meals?  When is that time available to you during the week?
:*What are the main strategies for "time shifting" your meal preparation? for batch preparation?
:*How many different dinners do you need?  
:*On any given night, how many different dinners could you choose to make quickly?  
:*When you make food from scratch, how often do you make multiple dinners?

===Montgomery Chapter 1, "Good Old Dirt"===

:*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly-_WeqhSWA David Montgomery's on what's new in soil science.]

:*At the start of agriculture 98% of food producers supported a small ruling elite that controlled food distribution.  Now only 1% of the population work in agricultural food production.

:*Wants to tell a history soil and of human use of soil.  Historical failures, but also interested in sustainability.

===Chapter 2, "Skin of the Earth"===

::*Darwin's studies of worms.  Worms are moving a heck of a lot of dirt. 10-20 tons per acre per year. digestive juices. 
::*Note the recentness of our lack of knowledge of this.  Also why antiquities sink.
::*Darwin's calculations were off: underestimated the time scale for effects.  Didn't know about '''isostasy''' - a process which lifts rock as well.  But did understand soil formation as breakdown of minerals.  
::*15: overview of soil ecology relationships.  read.  even theories that soil formation was involved in first forms of organismic life.  
::*guanine and cytosine in clay-rich solutions.  
::*15-16: overview of plant colonization of cooling earth (350 mya).  earth plant life accelerated soil formation.  lots of other physical and chemical processes (17).  
::*nitrogen fixation (18): note mechanism.  "nitrogen fixing plant" a misnomer.  

::*effects of agriculture:
:::*tilling releases nutrients, but also disrupts soil life, short-totation farming reduces soil diversity, increases vulnerability to parasites, 

:::*p. 20:  Connection bt farming methods and soil erosion and soil health.  

:*Note how starting your account of food from soil gives you deeper sense of your trophic relationships.  

::*you are what you eat. you are what you eat eats.

===Diamond, Ch. 10, "Agriculture's Mixed Blessings" ===

:*Old "progressivist" view
:*Ants practice agriculture and something like animal husbandry
:*Details about the spread of agriculture - not like other great ideas (hand ax designs).  Spread slowly, failed alot. 
:*Advantages of hunter gatherer lifestyle
::*short work week, more leisure - as long as you have enough Mongongo nuts!
::*better nutrition (in some comparisons)
::*no impact from crop failures
::*(new research, not Diamond): very violent and competitive.  

:*185: paleopathology and medical anthropology: what you tell from old bones and cookware  Am. Indians who changed to ag. 
::*health evidence from early adoption of agriculture
::*height, nutrition, cavities, anemia, tb, syphillis, mortality
::*mono-crop dependency a risk in early ag.
::*low carb, varied nutrients
::*class structures emerge after agriculture: diff outcomes dep. on class
::*sexual inequality

:*other differences that sustained agriculture
::*increased population density made hunt/gather politically vulnerable 
::*hunt/gather requires lots of room
::*agriculture created society that could produce sophisticated art (churches).
::*grants that agriculture led to lots of great things, but also to large populations, which affects the equation about quality of life.