Ethan’s Food Ethic This was the last project of the food unit, in which we learned all about what food is, how our body digests it, what factors are important in making my food decisions and what you should and shouldn’t eat. I learned in depth about what food is, what our body needs, and what foods provide these things. We also learned about the factory farming industry and the food culture in america. The interdisciplinary aspect of this project was one of my favorite parts of it, knowing that your subjects are both being connected to one bigger picture makes transitioning between subjects easier. Gaining a deep understanding of one topic through the lens of both science and humanities was a factor of this project that resonated with me, it just makes sense to learn this way. My thinking about food hasn’t changed much, but I have been provided with an array of intellectual tools that I can use to make my decisions in an intelligent manner. I now have the education to make the right decisions about what I eat, while sticking to my personal food ethic.
Project:
Ethan’s Food Ethic
Food is essential, a bare minimum to survive, how you eat and what you eat says a lot about you. I don’t have a strong desire to micro adjust my meals and habits for perfect health, so a moderate amount of assorted vegetables in my meals, as well as finding better ingredients in the store is how I stay healthy. Instead of working out I just find things around the house that need to be done, and healthiness isn’t a problem for me.
A large part of my food ethic is that I just want to eat something enjoyable. I eat and drink a whole array of terrible things purely because they taste good, and I don’t feel a massive effect on me, I take a fairly passive role in my health. I am fully aware of the ingredients in the things I consume, sometimes I just prefer something tasty, quick, and cheap. I have always been willing to try anything, when I was very young my mom fed me a piece of escargot, I took the empty tray to the waiter and said “more meat please”. You will never know if you like something if you aren’t willing to take a bite, so I am always open to try something new. I think this is part of my food ethic as well, taste is subjective, anything can taste good to any person, so you have to find out what things you like. I also like to eat over a longer period of time, instead of three meals a day I like to eat two moderate sized meals and a balance of nutritional and non nutritional snacks throughout the day. I value efficiency, I can go get a prepackaged granola bar and eat it while focusing on something else all within a minute or two, but even a simple arranged fruit bowl snack takes much more time and effort than this. When you’re living with financial discomfort you sometimes can’t afford things that actually fuel your body, cheap materials and production yield an affordable product, and you gotta eat. While I am actively against the corporations, their ideals and production ethics, I do support them with my money, I simply can’t resist a Coca-cola or a bag of Doritos, these options are just too tasty, inexpensive, and easy. Although we are omnivore’s, all of the amino acids we need to survive are found in your common meats, there isn’t a plant in existence that can give you all of the things you need to be healthy, I could never be a vegetarian, because it takes too much effort to coordinate a good meal. Being raised in an environment where I have had my own livestock and learned how to process an animal was another factor that had a large influence over my rejection of vegetarian principles, as well as my love for the taste of meat. The increased popularity of vegetarianism without the popularity of education on how to properly calculate a diet using only vegetables troubles me. People are paying a lot more to be vegetarians when the effect of an uncoordinated vegetarian diet on their body can be just as bad as consuming what the financially troubled are pressured into eating. My mother has a strict food ethic, almost nothing that is artificial, or naturally not healthy is to be consumed. She has always told me what to look out for in an ingredients list, this has helped me make some healthier decisions, but the corporations have the market and my taste buds under their control. My mother is the biggest influence for me to be healthy besides the want to function properly, anytime she sees me with a Coke I get hounded. While this alone won’t make me stop slurping the Coke in hand, she has helped me to understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle and ingredients in my food. In conclusion, I value efficiency, taste, and moderate healthiness. I like to have comfort and physical invigoration, but sometimes a cool, refreshing Pepsi hits the spot. While I take a passive role in my nutrition I do try to keep a balanced diet, and I am aware of what I eat.
Ethan’s Personal Philosophy Project The personal philosophy project was a unit in which we studied different philosophies, and then developed and wrote our own personal philosophy. The inspiration for my personal philosophy is every event that has occurred in my life thus far. I decided to do 2 public art pieces that were connected to my ideas of individualism. Looking at many different philosophies and perspectives of the world had a profound role in developing my personal philosophy. Looking at different people’s completely different beliefs helped me develop an understanding of which things hold value to me. While it didn’t coerce any epiphanies or massive new insights, it helped me look at what matters to me closely and examine its meaning. I am still and will always be left with the questions I started with, questions with no concrete answer, millions of them, however, it is the way I am looking at them and thinking about them and what lessons I am internalizing from them that is much different. Finding beauty in chaos is the job of anyone looking to find happiness, find your own beauty.
Personal Philosophy Statement
My personal philosophy is very unconventional, I believe in natural law in an almost John Locke sense. I believe we are connected to our natural habitats and to regain our connection with it through a different lifestyle would be beautiful. Although that’s not to say we can’t have societies, society is not inherently bad, and neither is power or authority, any social group of animals working together is a society, all but humans follow the natural law. With our current world there is no going back to these idealistic primitive ways, if only people knew how to live with technology, in harmony with it, the pursuit of knowledge is a very meaningful and virtuous pursuit, a world without science is one we can’t grasp, if only we could find a way for authorities not to stifle sciences potential with restrictions and misuse, knowledge is to be shared, and we could live in harmony with both our natural environment and our technological wonders. Written laws and religions distract from laws internally available to you, what is wrong and right and what you should do in the moment into the infinite. With a purely experience based lifestyle we would accept this having never known, we would each find our own truths. if we could live in a more natural way, we could find and follow our intuitions, in fact that’s all we would have. Governments lie and demonstrate cruelty constantly yet we follow what they say to the word. We should only follow the laws we agree with.
I see no way for society as we think of the word to function for human happiness, unless one has gone through enough turmoil, and has gotten free of this, can he say, “This is far better than it was.” and feel okay, or unless one has gone into the natural world and reflected upon his intuitions can he say “This is the way it is.”