BLOG #7 - due by MIDNIGHT 10/27/08!

1) Post your favorite lyrics, poem, or quote for this week.

2) Develop two reflection questions that you would ask your students at this point in the course if you were a UN100 Professor.

3) What are you passionate about? Why?

4) How are you going to finance your three years of the Radiology program? If you will be in debt from student loans at the end, calculate roughly how much you will owe upon graduation.

5) Have you changed your mind or do you have any new concerns about your program of study after our guest speakers today (Dr. Foley & Joanne)? Are you thinking of a different major or are you dead set on Radiology? What behavior(s) will you maybe have to change in order to keep up with and make the cut?

6) FAST FOOD NATION (You should be reading through Chapter 7 at this point)

Reflect upon the opening lines of Chapter 7:

"You can smell Greeley, Colorado, long before you can see it. The smell is hard to forget but not easy to describe, a combination of live animals, manure, and dead animals being rendered into dog food."

-Have you ever read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair? If so, how does it relate to FFN?
-How high is the employee turnover rate in the meat industry and why don't the packing plants see this as a problem?

We discussed captive supplies of cattle versus regular farming. Reflect upon this quote from page 150:

"To supply the beef slaughterhouse, ConAgra operates a pair of enormous feedlots. Each of them can hold up to one hundred thousand head of cattle..During the three months before slaughter, they eat grain..The grain fattens the cattle quickly, aided by the anabolic steroids implanted in their ear."

-Do you think that these animals' emotions (fears, stress, anger) affect the meat we eat derived from them? How?

-How do you feel about eating steroids via consumption of "USDA Inspected" beef?

I probably grossed you out - sorry guys, but knowledge is power! If you still don't see the connection between this course and Fast Food Nation -- let me know. Most of you are going into health professions and will be dealing with epidemics of cancer, diabetes, heart disease etc.. mostly based on the American sedentary and processed-food lifestyle. I am hoping you are thinking more critically about everything at this point.