Cashing for Fashion

What do we really get when we buy from clothing and shoe name brand companies? We definitely know the price, but is the price we pay worth it? Although it's not only the price, it's the choice we are making when buying these clothes. I mean do we have a choice or are we pressured in to buying the expensive and "in style" clothes by everyday society and Hollywood? Of course we are, think about it. Why else would I have bought that eighty dollar bedazzled, bejeweled? Ed Hardy tattoo style shirt? Oh, now I know why. That shirt was the same one the Jersey Shore guys were wearing. Or I had to buy it because all the kids at school wear Ed Hardy and if I didn't have it they would think I'm pops ( pops meaning poor as they would actually say in my school, yeah i didn't get it either.) That is the mentality of our generation now a days, children think that if you don't have expensive and overpriced shoes or clothes then you are poor, but most people with money don't exactly go flashing it around. I truly don't get how owning a pair of so called cool Nikes can impress kids, there are things more important in the world, like how those shoes were probably made in sweat shops, or even how you got cheated in to paying $250 for the shoes just for the name of the brand. I also don't get how children get so worked up on criticizing other kids on how they dress. If someone showed me their shoes to try and intimidate or impress me they wouldn't be getting very far because, well in the end guess who would get the last laugh, the Nike company and I.

-Mikiko

Big Fat Liar

Nowadays most of the advertising we see and hear on television, the radio, and even on the streets are all about fast food restaurants like McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, KFC, and Popeye's. And a lot of the time in these commercials they like to say that they use "real" and "fresh" ingredients. Fast food restaurants like to compete with their oh so fattening burgers, saying that they are flame grilled or that they are not frozen when they are thrown on the grill (meaning they are "fresh"). They like to show athletes eating their products and having the narrator say "It's a fresh start to your day", but the truth is that people who eat their foods end up obese or lethargic. Most people can tell they are just big fat liars or exaggerating, but sometimes these commercials with their in shape beautiful people can get to you and change our minds; making us want to believe or even believe them.

These lies are not only being brainwashed into adults, but also to children. Actually it's being mostly directed towards children. These fast food restaurants have happy meals that come with toy characters from the most popular and latest TV shows and movies which make kids want the food more. They have commercials where children are having lots of fun at McDonald's and playing with Ronald McDonald. McDonald's often has playgrounds or TVs in their restaurants to make them seem kid friendly. Their commercials consist of anything from children, family, sports, and popular movies to lure in customers. These companies go far and wide, all over the world to spread the meaning of Super-Sized (a.k.a fat).

So when you eat these foods know when big chain companies are misleading you, but don't think only fast food companies are lying to you because even grocery store products lie to you as well. There was a quote once said by Ray Kroc the founder of the McDonald's corporation, he said "Look after the customer and business will take care of itself." The question is "Do these fast food companies really care for us or is it just propaganda that's sentencing us to an extra-large coffin?"
-Mikiko

A Sequal to The Uglier Truth

Yes, every time you look in to products concerning animals there is always going to be cruelty, but what about us human beings, how are we treated? We are supposed to have rights, but the right of free speech is being denied some because of unsophisticated laws such as the Food Disparagement Laws. In which these laws declare that food companies are not to be publicly criticized. These laws were said to be created to "protect" farmers and food companies, but they might as well be made to protect the money these companies and their owners are receiving.

As consumers we have a right to know about our food, where it comes from, and what's in it. Even if it takes a little criticism of the food to get there and have people listen. We need to speak of our minds otherwise the government, other consumers, and industries won't listen to us. Not that the government or industries are helping out much in the first place.

Sometimes we overlook the fact that some workers and producers (a.k.a farmers for big companies like Tyson Chicken) are being denied just like us, more or less blackmailed as well. They are put in to great debt by the large corporations demands for live stock grown a certain way the corporations chooses, which is definitely not the pretty way. They are not always treated with respect or allowed to show people how the livestock is treated or their contracts will be broken and they will immediately be fired. Producers should have a right to raise livestock the way they want (not cruelly), be treated with respect, and not blackmailed in to staying with the industries.

These companies have a lot of secrets and it just takes a couple of people to speak the truth and a bit more to spread it. Most of all we need to understand these truths and listen.
- Mikiko

Food Research Project: White Roasted Sesame Seeds

I have been doing a research project in my 8th grade humanities class on food products brought in by us students. We were searching for information about the products we have brought in, to be specific how much control companies have over what goes on the nutrition label and how advertising affects what consumers buy. This project has come up very interesting, frustrating, and disappointing.

My research project was white roasted sesame seeds from a company called JFC. I approached this project with an open-ended research that got me no where. Yet with this open-ended research I did have some questions when I started. But before all this began I first started with an examination of the product casing. What caught my eye was the logo, not to mention the Japanese writing on the front. The Japanese writing only said goma which means sesame seeds or at least the part I could read. On average these sesame seeds seemed pretty healthy from the looks of the nutrition label, I mean what is there to hide about plain old seeds?

Being plain old seeds there must be no dirty little secrets on them, but I was going to go deeper in to this investigation. I was going to ask questions; being it's my nature to be stubborn and non accepting. Thinking that by my nature I just might get somewhere. The questions I had were "is there any fertilizers, pesticides, or chemical of any kind used on the sesame seeds?", "who picks them?", and "where are they grown and who grows them?"

I called the JFC head office and their New York Branch, but I didn't catch them on their business hours. I also went on their web site, http://www.jfc.com/, which was no use because it was set up to show other products they distribute, recipes, and contact numbers. But I'm not stopping there, I'm determined to catch them off guard (during their business hours) and answer my questions. So when I get the time to call them, I will add on the answers to this post.

-Mikiko

Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity makes for an early grave. (States ABC News and Health)

Child Obesity is a very scary thing. Why is it so easy to gain weight and so hard to lose it? Many kids are suffering a hard life of being overweight. Usually if a child is overweight someone in their family is facing the same problem. Most children don't understand moderation in food. They don't know when to say stop, I've had enough. This is excessive eating, or more likely know as over eating. People over eat for many reason, stressed, habitual overeating, comfort overeating and even boredom. Excessive eating can lead to many problems like diabetes or becoming overweight.

Its not only over eating that's causing children to be overweight it lack of exercise. Children aren't as active as they used to be. With this new modernize America most kids are always home playing video games or on the computer. Kids are supposed to be getting fresh air and running around with friends.

So do what you can to help prevent your child from being obese? Make sure they have a healthy balanced diet and that they get enough exercise everyday.

-Kaitlyn Rivera

Kentucky Fried Cruelty!

Sadly animal cruelty happens all over the world, but today, its happening in our food system. Many adults, teens and even young kids know and love the fast food restaurant KFC ( Kentucky Fried Chicken). Yet as much as we love them they don't love their chicken. Kentucky Fried Chicken abuses their chickens from the time their in the sheds to the time their ready to be cooked and put on your plate. Food industries should not be allowed to be abusing their animals. If KFC or any other food industry were doing this to cats or dogs they would have been arrested. So whats the difference with chickens or cows? People get arrested everyday for abusing cats and dogs. So why isn't Kentucky Fried Chicken getting shut down for abusing chickens?

Where are our heath inspectors? Aren't they supposed to be the ones shutting places down for the unsanitary conditions? Kentucky Fried Chicken's chicken have no room to walk, cramped up in sheds of thousands, and breathing air filled of fumes. PETA has asked KFC to make simple changes to the way they treat their chickens yet KFC refuses to do the minimum to spare the chickens suffering. It's scary to think that animal abuse is not only going on in our slaughterhouses but also in our fast food companies.

*For more information concerning PETA's work against Kentucky Fried Cruelty Click Here.

-Kaitlyn Rivera

Food Research Project

The whole class was told to bring in a food product that you would like to do some research on. So I brought in Lance Captain Wafers Cream Cheese and Chives.

Before we started:

1. Project=Fun
2. Product=Interesting
3. Style of Finding Information= Wow

Over All Score: Awesome

Once We Finished:

1. Project= Could have been better
2. Product=Terrible
3. Style of Finding Information= Didn't work for me
   

Over All Score: Disappointing


My product like almost every other product has a website. My website was very disappointing. The thing that really made it disappointing was the Contact Us section. I went to the website hoping to find a number to contact the company to see if they would like the answer some of my questions. Sadly once I reached the website the only option of contacting Lance was to send them an email. I did so twice and received nothing back.
(http://www.lance.com/)

As I continued to research answers to my questions every link I clicked on lead me back to the same website. This made it extremely difficult almost impossible to find valid answers. I find its very strange that when you look up Lance almost all links lead you back to the same site. Even when I thought I was getting lucky when I found an telephone number to lance bakery, not exactly what I was looking for but close enough, once I called it was all just a bunch of press this and dial that extension and I never even got to speak to a real person it was just machine after machine.

Although Captain Wafers is extremely tasty I never got to know if their hiding something about their product that we should know about.

-Kaitlyn Rivera

The Uglier Truth

Food Inc. shows one of the real horrors of the world. Sure it's a minor one, or at least some would think, but it all adds up in the end. The message this documentary tells is the truth. The ugly truth.

Fast food is what people eat when they are in the mood for obesity, heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes. And we all know how often that is, right? These big chain companies aim to take your children at a young age in order to get them hooked. These companies use modern day human weaknesses for example money, time ,and taste as an accessory to their little money gain spree.This is where our "great" government comes in. The government gives subsides to these fast food companies to make their products cheap. From there the companies do a lot of advertising which helps lure children in to come eat their food. They manipulate economic weaknesses and other setbacks so people would think they have no other choice then to buy fast food. What you are about to hear in this review will get you thinking "isn't the government supposed to be protecting us?"

Then again it's not only the fast food companies that have a part in this little horror flick. No they are not alone and do take note of this, these "farm fresh" meat companies are just as horrible. Okay, okay so they are not exactly lying about farm fresh, they are just manipulating people's idea of a certain farm fresh. You see, we, as humans automatically imagine or at least I do that farm fresh is a countryside daisy filled green pasture dotted with black and white cows, pretty little clean chicken coops resting under an Oak tree and a kind Mr. Farmer Bill, I'll pop in a little theme song while I'm at it like Old McDonald. Sure it doesn't hurt having that nice old picture on the meat package. Boy, was I wrong about their so called "farm fresh". No, big companies love livestock fresh from farms more like this... huge, gloomy, bare "pastures" suffocating with over crowded cows that are up to their ankles in their own feces eating corn that can cause E. coli, unhealthy chickens that are over crowded in dirty coops where they can't even support their own weight because they are always injected with growth hormones.

What about the slaughtering of the live stock one would ask. Well, yes there is a difference in that too, in specific I would say organic small scale farms are more humane than those huge money racking companies. Who knows small scale farms may even be more sanitary (which I'm pretty sure they are). On small scale farms, livestock is slaughtered quick and clean, but big companies have people doing only one job to cut one cow or pig in record time. So the animal has to go through many steps to be packed. These processes are unsanitary and unsafe for the workers, but because it's unsanitary there may be a chance of bacteria in the meat which means it's unsafe for us.

These companies like to hire workers who are in debt, illegal immigrants, or anyone who won't talk because they are terrified of the chance to be fired or deported. Meat industries blackmail their farmers into staying in the business by making them go into more debt then they already are. Also the companies scare their farmers in to being quiet and not showing anybody the chicken coops when people like the Food Inc. producers come along to spread the truth about how the livestock is treated and where we get our food from. These big food companies like to hire illegal immigrants because they think they have no rights, privileges, or power of any kind, which stops them from talking. Although not everyone agrees with what is going on with these companies so once in a while someone speaks up, and guess what happens to them? They end up getting fired.

Vote with your forks as the movie would say. Thanks to people who speak up we are starting to be more aware and curious about our food, which is a good thing. Next time your shopping at a grocery store or eating out, think about what you buy and start asking questions about what you consume, but most of all get answers. To learn more about these topics watch Food Inc., Super Size Me, or other documentaries and resources concerned with this crisis.

-Mikiko

I Didn't Know That!

For the past week my class has been watching a documentary call Food Inc. This documentary has really gotten me to think, what am I really eating? I see all these food products with pictures of happy cows and happy chickens, or logos like "Farm Fresh" and "Best Meat on Earth." But is it really "Farm Fresh"!? Whenever I thought of where my meat came from I always thought of the farms you see in movies. Acres and acres of land, with lots of grass and cows, you know, "happy cows." But then all those thoughts flew away so fast I wouldn't even dare to try and catch them. This documentary showed me that's almost ALL companies keep their cows in small, overcrowded, unsanitary conditions! It was not only disturbing to watch, it was sad.

This documentary tells you the truth, it shows you behind the scenes of everything that goes on with your meat. Another thing this documentary showed me was that companies have started to feed their cows corn instead of grass. Why corn? Corn is cheaper for the companies to buy and it makes cows fatter quicker. Even though this isn't healthy for the cows companies choose to do it anyway. Well then, what is healthy for the cows? Because you asked, a cow's normal diet consist of grass, grains, fiber and water. A cow's diet must also be a balanced diet. Yet, companies are feeding them corn, and only corn. Feeding the cows corn is one of the ways to increase the likelihood for cows to become infected with E-coli. E-coli is a type of bacteria that can be found in your food. Those infected with E-coli can be treated although that's very unlikely. Most types of E-coli are harmless but some can lead to kidney failure and some even death.

After watching this I was in shock. I would have never known this could be happening in our food system. I would have thought it would be illegal for industries to send out meat with E-coli. E-coli can kill us. And what if it was a small little farm and not a big industry? Would they have shut down the farm because their meat lead to someone's death? What's the difference between the two? What can WE do about it? Where are the heath regulations? What's going on, because I surely didn't know that!

-Kaitlyn Rivera