Final Reflection Post

Throughout this class my ideas have developed from simple statements about my heritage and relationship with food into research projects and deep dives into topics I wanted to learn more about including food production, modern farming techniques, sound and taste, the development of infant’s palates, and more. The blog format, along with various challenging prompts, allowed me to venture beyond my simple ideas and delve into my relationship with food in different ways with each post. I made significant changes throughout the class to a few of my posts including my Recipe As a Narrative Artifact, PSA, and Critical Summaries Portfolio reflections. After receiving critiques in comments and grading to lengthen some of my reflections, I revised them and went more in depth.
I have learned a lot about the world’s relationship with food, which has helped me better understand my own. And, this class also helped me realize how genuinely interested I am in food studies and has encouraged me learn more about opportunities surrounding it. I now see agricultural journalism as a very viable career option for me.

Image from nimasensor.com

Articles in Conversation

I chose two articles about different topics related to food with similar layouts that I believe reinforce one another. The first article I read was “How to feed the world without destroying the planet” by Stephen Leahy from National Geographic (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/07/how-to-feed-the-world-without-destroying-the-planet/). This article discussed the drastic changes farmers are needing to make in order to keep up with the booming population while also improving people’s diets and preserving the land we live on. It follows a bulleted/listed format like the second article I read, “I am a US cattle rancher. What do you want to know?” by Amelia Kent for The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/15/cattle-ranch-job-daily-life). The second article I read discussed the everyday life, struggles, and experiences of ranching while referencing the circumstances of the food industry.

Photo from tompkinscortland.edu

Both of these articles brought awareness to how much consumers affect the food industry and, not only, the wage of farmers and ranchers, but also the well being of the earth and the people that tend it. While the first article focused on the environmental side of farming, ranching, and the overall food industry, the second provides the perspective of a hardworking rancher. I believe these balance each other very well and provide a wholistic perspective of food production and consumption. I saw this most in the first article when Leahy quoted Danielle Nierenberg saying, “Many of these [ concrete messages and useful ideas] are things we can do now to move to sustainable food production and things that will create more jobs and economic growth.” and in the second article when Kent writes, “[Ranchers] don’t have an annual salary given that our farm income is entirely derived from the commodity market.”

Food AD: Doritos

Above I have posted a Dorito ads from the Super Bowl. In this brief commercial a couple is at the doctor’s office receiving an ultrasound. This sentimental moment is turned humorous as the father begins eating Doritos. He notices that as he moves the chip in his hand, the fetus moves to follow it. He finds this funny and begins moving the chip more excessively until the baby hits the mother. The mother then gets angry and throws the Dorito across the room, causing the baby to be born earlier as it follows the Dorito out of the womb. Throughout the video the iconic Doritos bag is shown to the camera and the crunches are intensified. With every bite you are made to want the chips more. The husband is enjoying his Doritos and the unborn fetus wants them too, so they must be good. While this ad is ridiculous, it shows the humorous approach that Doritos takes in advertising to appeal to a certain audience.

Sharing My Graphic Novel Page!

I shared my graphic novel with my friend Harris who was in the World Urban Geography program at Syracuse, but left this past weekend. Sharing this with him gave me the opportunity to get another perspective while also staying in touch. He thought that my graphic novel page was really interesting because he has also heard similar stories from his mother. He elaborated saying that “[his] mom always craved fried calamari and it is still one of [his] favorite foods today.” He found this relationship funny because food traveled to him, through his mother, and yet his body still remembers it. He enjoyed my interpretation of it saying, “When you turn a biological process into a narrative, it adds life to it.” I really appreciate hearing someone else’s perspective, especially someone not in a writing class. He was honest with me while also providing feedback I had never heard, like the “adding life to a biological process”. I liked the final product of my graphic novel page and absorbing all of the feedback from my peers and friends was rewarding and interesting. I do not usually like sharing my writing or art with others, so the fact that I did both in my graphic novel page was a big step. The blog project as a whole along with all of the positive feedback I have been receiving is making me more confident and more eager to produce and share with the world around me.

“Aha” Moment

Photo from https://healthtransformer.co/the-aha-moment-5-entrepreneurs-share-origin-stories-of-their-moonshot-mission-work-12856b179ad9

For me, this week was extremely developmental. As I struggled to make new friends and adjust to an extremely new setting I learned a lot about myself. I came from Los Angeles knowing no one and was forced to mingle and go outside of my comfort zone in various situations, but my biggest “aha” moment actually stemmed from this class. In one of the first days I reflected on my heritage and pride. It was here I realized I was lacking confidence, not just in expressing my heritage, but in every aspect of my life. From then on I tried to be more open with people and confident in myself. That day I met at least five new people. As soon as I opened myself up to rejection and all of my social fears, they didn’t seem scary and I was able to connect and make deeper friendships. Reflecting on my time here, as well as my life as a whole, has helped me build perspective and better cope with my emotions while being away from home. This week there were three big earthquakes in Los Angeles that affected my friends and family. This made me very upset for a couple days and while my friends comforted me and my family assured me of their safety, I was very anxious. This week was a bit of a rollercoaster for me, but I worked through it and am really happy with where I am now.