AF: Shared Inquiry Circle #1

Each Circle has three members, so read this list horizontally!  The first name on the list, bold and blue, is the leader for the first meeting.  That's tomorrow!!

Rachel	Cynthia	Omar
Juliet	Tori	Sebastian
Melanie	Damien	Brianna R.
Jimwell	Madison	Jada
Valerie	Antonio	Jacob
Kai	Kayla	Alana
Austin	Daniela	Hannah Ridge
Emily	Noel	Sophia
Jaelyn	Tiara	Eduardo
Hannah K	Bryan Thach	Katelynn
Maritza	Bria	Steven
Floater
Bryan Tovar

The Into the Wild are HERE at this LINK, and slides 15-21 on Shared Inquiry Circles should answer any questions you may have.

AF: Into the Wild - Vocab #1

Food Deserts in Minority Communities

My article from Jones Hopkins Research Magazine http://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2014/spring/racial-food-deserts/ called "Research Shows Food Deserts More Abundant in Minority Neighborhood", by Kelly Bower talking about how food deserts are more likely to be present in a minority community then a community like Beverly Hills for example. Kelly Bower is an assistant professor at a school of nursing and she compared the neighborhoods of a majority Caucasian to a minority neighborhood and she found that there are more food deserts in the minority community. A food desert is an area that lacks access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables. Bower found that it was easier to get access to fast food restaurants, liquor stores, and 7-elevens. Which is really unfortunate because with a lack of fresh fruits and vegetables come a lot of health issues. Like obesity, diabetes, hypertension in early ages of those peoples lives. Therefore people who live in those communities are stuck between a rock and a hard place on choosing to eat health and a little expensive or choice to eat cheap and unhealthy to ensure they can have a meal every single day. I personally think that it is really sad that people really have to make decisions like that. It turn eating and food in chore. I think the really question is when are things going to change? When will fresh fruits and vegetables be easier to get then a Mc.Donald's cheeseburger?

Important characteristics

3P Letter!

Sources

One relatable source that I found for this essay is from Ted Talks. Ted Talks as you all know can provide great resources especially for the topic of food politics. The video that I found was called "What's wrong with are food system" presented by Birke Baer. Although he is a child, Birke presents some decent knowledge about the dark side of food and how companies try to trick kids through advertisments. Not only that, Birke also includes alternative ways to eat better. Alternative ways including shoping at farmers markets. This way consumers can have the oppourtunity to ask the producer how they make their food.

Effects of Food Production on the Environment

Landroots.org.uk: Effects of Food Production on the Environment

We can get by without numerous things however we can't get by without food, the mass production of food is evolving into a large ecological concern.  The rampant growth of the human population has increased our overhaul production of food, and is deemed as the greatest ecological degradation this planet is now seeing. Due to the large production of animals and crops that grows larger and larger each day, our quality of air and water has diminished greatly. With this being said, biodiversity as well as wildlife species is being threaten due to the large demand/use of land for crop production and animal lots. The issue with feed lots is that they produce a concretion of issues for the nearby towns. They allow for a great risk of danger for contamination of water as well as the air. Climate Change in the past century as well as the current has been on the rampant rise due to human manipulation of the land. Carbon emissions have been skewed drastically due to humans mass production of said animal lots.  Sadly, our arable land is being used to produce animal feed as well as set aside for grazing. Which goes hand in hand to the lack of biodiversity and the reduction of species which are being threatened with extinction. Sadly it would be difficult to solve this issue without changing our good system. Consumers would have to choose/prefer healthy alternatives rather than cheap meat they can get for the fraction of the price. However, sadly capitalism and the lowest price seems to always prevail today in the modern world.

-Bryan Tovar