Persuasive Speech Self-eval

I feel this speech went very well for me. I was more prepared with this speech compared to my demonstration speech. My tone and volume seemed very strong. The speech itself seemed very understandable. It may not have been the most interesting speech, but it seemed like it was well understood.

One major thing that I could have changed was my eye contact. I could have studied my speech a little more so I could have taken my eyes off of my note cards more. My speech was typed out on my note cards and if I had just put notes, that may have helped also. I also started to talk a little faster towards the end because I usually talk fast when I do speeches and stopped reminding myself to slow down.

Response to fake mashed potatoes

This blog post describes why fake mashed potatoes just don't cut it. They don't compare to the real ones. Real potatoes are a very healthy vegetable. Surprisingly, they haven't really started adding nutrients to the fake mashed potatoes. Actually, that is really surprising because companies have done that to everything else.

My mom always makes real mashed potatoes. Our family probably goes through five pounds of potatoes every week. Every once in a while, my mom will get me some food from the store that I can bring to college. It surprised me that a couple weeks back she bought me some fake powdered mashed potatoes that I can add water to and heat up in the microwave. I can tell you that if you were raised on real potatoes all your life, fake mashed potatoes taste like crap unless you get the ones that are sour cream or butter flavored. Those taste okay.

I totally agree with this blog post. Real mashed potatoes are so much better.

Post 5: Raw milk debate

Selling raw milk has been a top story in the news lately. People in the legislature want to pass the legalization of selling raw milk. There are both ups and downs to this bill and it is a hot debate.

The article I found that was against the selling of raw milk was based on the health issues that come along with it. Raw milk is unpasteurized, which means that all of the bacteria are sill alive in it. Before pasteurizing milk was widely adopted, 25% of all foodbourne illnesses were from milk. The article states that drinking raw milk "is like playing Russian roulette with your health."

The debate also goes the opposite way is saying that raw milk is healthy for ones body. The article for raw milk says that many vitamins are lost in the heating process of pasteurization. Milk allergies are also less common in raw milk.

I feel that the article against selling raw milk is more convincing. It uses multiple sources in its argument and many scientific proofs. After reading the two articles, my opinion on raw milk still hasn't change. Even though we used to drink our own raw milk, we stopped because my brother got salmonella. Now my mom buys milk from the store so nobody else gets sick. Raw milk is so dangerous and one can easily get sick from it. I am still against the legalization of raw milk. I am also afraid that if it is legalized and more people start drinking it, if people start getting sick, they are going to start going after the dairy farmer. We have made advancements in keeping people healthy. Why not keep it that way?

Response to Ryan's butter blog

I strongly agree with Ryan's blog. Butter is better. I am also from a dairy farm and dairy farmers know butter the best. I have even made butter myself. It just tastes so much more natural.

Ryan really explained the differences between butter and margarine well. I would be afraid to eat margarine because of all the fake stuff that is in it. Since I was raised on butter and I am from a dairy farm, I feel it would be a crime to think about even using margarine for anything. Sure, they say that it is supposed to be healthier for you because of the less fats and more healthy fats that are in it, but butter is just the fat that is from milk, and milk is good for you.

I have to admit that I have had margarine before, but that is only because that is what my high school had served at lunch. They didn't have butter. Margarine just didn't appeal to me. It seemed so greasy in my mouth and tastes so much different than butter. I was raised on homemade foods made with butter. Call me old-fashioned, which I feel I kind of am, but I love home cooked, real food.

"Real" food vs. "fake" food

The Western diet consists of many foods that may be considered "fake." These foods are processed and are not in their true form from nature. One "fake" food that I used to eat in the "real" form is bread.

Bread in its fake form doesn't look like real homemade bread. It looks to perfect and the slices are all cut evenly. Fake bread has a totally different taste than real bread. Real bread tastes so much richer and has more texture than the fake form. Even the smell is so much different. I love the smell of homemade bread. It makes me have a warm and relaxed feeling. Fake bread just doesn't do it for me.

Companies are now adding nutrients to their bread to say it is more healthy, such as calcium and iron. These nutrients just aren't the same that one could get from homemade bread. The nutrients one get from homemade bread are the ones found in nature. In fake, store bought, bread, nutrients are made and processed in a lab. It claims to be more healthy, but, as Pollan is trying to get passed in his book, is that processed food with added nutrients may be more harmful to your health.

I switched to eating the fake form of bread when my mom got very busy with the farm and she was unable to make homemade bread. I miss those days. It got a little easier for her when she bought a bread maker, but then that broke down and she hasn't bought a new one. Every once and a while she will buy bread from the bakery in the grocery store, but it just isn't the same. Bread right out of the oven is the best. Lately, I have been wanting to make some bread at home but I need yeast first. I keep forgetting to get some.

Cream Cheese Cookies

When viewing the video of myself doing my demonstration, I realized I could have used more explanation as to why Cream Cheese Cookies pertained to the class. In my demonstration, I had only said that the cookies were easy to make and it was a good homemade treat. However, I have to say the my demonstration was well organized. It is easy to organize a demonstration dealing with a recipe.

While presenting, I felt in the beginning that I was enthusiastic about the cookies, but towards the end, my voice became a little bland. However, throughout the demo, I did have good volume and kept lots of eye contact with my audience. I also used my hands and used the visual aids I had throughout.

I feel that my visual aids were very effective. I brought all of the ingredients and utensils needed. The audience seemed to like that I had the visual aids.

I would choose a recipe again for a demonstration. They are very easy to prepare fore. However, I would have like to have more of an intro and conclusion to my speech and would have liked to actually make my product. Overall, I just think that I needed to prepare more for my speech. I didn't put a lot of time into it, besides making the cookies, and I needed to figure out how to make the speech more interesting.

Peer Response 1

Athavi's Space summarizes Pollan's argument about "food" being made up of nutrients and his warning about even though processed foods are supposed to be better for one's health, they really come with many health risks. She also brings up obesity, which is shown on one of her links that the U.S. is the most obese country. Many other countries still cook many of their traditional foods, which are made from fresh, natural foods, not processed. Our country is relying more on foods that are easy to prepare and we are a country, in my opinion, is lazy. Thus, that is why we make easy food and are obese. She also brings up that we listen so much to society and nutritionist. Commercials on TV show buff, hot individuals who got that way because they basically ate nutrients rather than actual meals. People are becoming so obsessed with their image. Maybe people become obese because they are so stressed by society that food makes them feel better.

I agree with Athavi's article for the most part. I myself enjoy my mom's home cooking. Coming from German decent, she has learned many of the recipes from her mom, which are mostly German traditions. However, Athavi states in her article that margarine is healthier than butter and links to an article that shows that. I feel that this statement defeats the purpose of her argument about going back to the way our ancestors cooked. Margarine is a processed food, while butter, even though some butter has additives, is natural.

Post 2: Prepare a meal

Many college students, especially freshman, eat meals that are already prepared for them or can be microwaved. For me, I prefer to make my own meals because once I'm in my dorm, I really don't want to walk over to Gordon Commons to get food. I go home every weekend and, when my mom goes grocery shopping, she usually picks me up some microwave meals and snacks to munch on. The microwave meals are usually ones that are close to my mom's home-cooked meals. All I have to do is throw them in the microwave for a couple minutes and enjoy the food. Tonight I had a Cafe' Steamers meal. I ate it with a plastic fork, so all I had to do was throw everything away when I was done. I must say that it was very good. Meals need to have flavor. Even though Cafe' Steamers are low calorie, they are very delicious.

I have to agree with Pollan when he states in his book that America has accepted "a flood of damaging innovations...such as low-fat processed food." Food that was eaten in the 19th century was recipes that came from Europe with the immigrants. Families cooked meals that had their cultural background, which didn't include processed foods. Most of the food they age would be considered unhealthy by today's standards. However, those families sat down and ate their meals, enjoying each others' company and the food. The healthiest foods on the planet are all basic foods that can be bought at the grocery store. They are not processed and very tasty. Using them in recipes can create great meals and by themselves, some would be delicious snacks. I guess I could say that I do try to choose healthier foods myself, but they have to taste good because food should be enjoyed.

In Defense of Food

In Section 1 of Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food, he talks about how the outlook on food has changed over the past hundred or so years. In the late 1800's, Justus von Liebid proposed the theory of metabolism, which in turn described nutrients' effect on the body. In the early 1900's, a new view on food started, "The Age of Nutritionism," as stated by Pollan. People were becoming more wary of what they were eating and so was the government. Companies started to add nutrients to natural foods to increase the nutritional value. Supermarkets' fresh foods were being replaced with decoratively packaged processed foods. Even fresh foods were becoming somewhat processed.

Pollan stated in his book, "You would not think that common food animals could themselves be rejiggered to fit nutritionist fashion...animal scientist figured out how to breed leaner pigs and select for leaner beef." Livestock producers had to keep up with the way society was changing. With all the health claims against meat, if they would have kept raising their animals the same way, there would not have been a market for livestock. Meat is one of the least altered foods on the market. Even today some consumers prefer white meat over red meat because of a concern about cholesterol and saturated fats. There are not any great studies out there that prove this fact. Today it seems like any food can cause some sort of health risk. Producers now are actually starting to put more fat back on animals because meat has lost flavor. Flavor comes from fat. People should not have the weight of what they should and shouldn't eat on their shoulders. They also need to enjoy their food.