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Some people have scheduled meal time, while some people do not have scheduled meal time. Almost the people who do not have scheduled meal time are likely to play computer games. However, most of the people who have scheduled meal time have class before 10:00 am.
Ying Zhang always have an apple in the morning, and eat healthy food in lunch and unhealthy food in dinner. She’s meal is like mine. I always have orange juice, in breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Food journal

10^th May, Thursday.

I got up at 8:30 am and have breakfast at 9:00 am. I went to Nelson dining hall to have some fired potatoes and 2 over-mediums (eggs). I drink some orange juice.

At 12:00 am, I had some Navy Bean Soup and turkey burger, and then I had some Entrée--- Greek Gyro. Also I drink some orange juice. After that, I ate some Angel Cookies.

At 6:00 pm, I had some Onion Soup and BBQ Burger with Crispy Onions. I love corn, so I eat some steamed corn. For sure, I drink some orange juice, too. After finished my meal, I eat some almond cookies.

11^th May, Friday.

In the morning, I have breakfast at 9:00 am. As usual, I went to dining hall and have some fired potatoes and 2 over-mediums and some orange juice.

At 11:30 am, I had some Chicken Corn Chowder, and ate some Tuna Melt in Nelson dining hall. French fries are my favorite food and I ate some. Dessert time, I ate some Berry Blue Jell-O Parfait. Orange juice for sure.

At 5:00 pm, I had some Cheese Pizza and orange juice, because I was not hungry.

12^th May, Saturday.

At 10:00 am, I ate the same breakfast everyday--- fired potatoes and 2 over-mediums. Orange juice is the necessity of my daily life.

Because on the weekends, the dining hall only offers the brunch beginning at 10:00 am, I do not have lunch on weekends.

At 6:00 pm, I ate some chicken taco and Pepsi in my dorm. I brought that food from Nagel dining hall.

Always, I have my meal at school dining hall. This is my three days food journal.

An Amazing Aquaculture Product

Yuan Zhou

WRIT-1133

Dr. Eric Leake

May 9, 2012

An Amazing Aquaculture Product

            I was amazed at one extremely delicious seafood dish, Sauteed Shrimp in Szechuan Style, last week in Star Kitchen. Sauteed Shrimp in Szechuan Style is only made of shrimps and red peppers. Ingredients of this dish are so simple that I cannot believe the facts, because the shrimps in that dish not only are fresh and soft but also are peppery and biting. Because of the taste of the shrimps, the dish is very delicious and becomes my favorite food.

            Seafood Health Facts, a project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, said that “Shrimp is the most popular seafood eaten in the United States. It represents over 25 percent of the nation’s annual per capita seafood consumption. This calculation indicates that the average consumer eats 4 pounds of shrimp per year.” We can see that shrimp is important to Americans. Shrimp is a normal food in our daily life.

In this paper, I am going to talk about the production of this amazing food. As we all know, shrimp is an aquaculture product. There are so many kinds of shrimp in the world. Like the classification of fish, the classification of shrimp can be divided into two classes, freshwater shrimp and saltwater shrimp. According to PlanetInverts, a non-profit website, there are more than 300 kinds of shrimp in the world, which means shrimp is a huge class of living creature. Here are some kinds of shrimp we used to eat.

In Seafood Health Facts websites, I have learned that there are significant number species of shrimp but they can be sold only in one word--- shrimp. Sometimes people sold shrimps and call them prawns, because in certain international markets people are more likely call some types shrimp as prawns. Moreover, in Spanish, people call shrimp or prawns as camarones. Here is an interesting thing. In China, lobster and shrimp have the same appellation, because Chinese call everything looks like shrimp as shrimp, for the convenience.

However, there are only five types of shrimp we usually eat. They are Cold water shrimp, Warm water shrimp, Wild shrimp, Farmed shrimp and Imported shrimp. Farmed shrimp is consists of cold water shrimp and warm water shrimp, which are both farmed by people. According to Seafood Health Facts, “Over 90 percent of the shrimp eaten in the United States come from farmed sources grown in other countries around the world”, which means farmed shrimp is significant to the United States.  Moreover, the imported shrimp refers to the farmed shrimp imported from China, Thailand and many other Asian countries, and the imported shrimp is a major component of American shrimp market.

Cold water shrimp, known as Pandalid shrimp, are small varieties farmed and harvested in ocean waters comparing to other sources of shrimp. We often remove the shrimp shell and previously cook Coldwater shrimp, and commonly used them in salads, soups, or chowders.

Warm water shrimp are farmed in tropical area. Based on the color of the shell, we can recognize the warm water shrimp (white, brown, and pink shrimp). Tiger, banana and hopper shrimp are the species of shrimp. People buy the warm water shrimp depending on the taste, texture, size and costs. Of course, different species of shrimp have different prices.

            Wild shrimp is either cold water or warm water species, and people harvested them from the coastal ocean waters by using traditional vessels. Because there is an annual production limits set by management programs, wild shrimp consists less than 10 percent of the shrimp people consume. Thus, the wild shrimp always used to make traditional flavors and recipes, which are very delicious, because of the precious raw material--- wild shrimp.

            By looking up the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, I found that the word shrimp originally comes from the Middle English shrimpe, akin to the Middle Low German schrempen, which means “pygmy”, or to contract or wrinkle. It is very interesting that the people in ancient time are likely named things using their appearance. The book also mentioned that harvesting of shrimp is starting at 17^th century. People in where Louisiana bayou used seines in circumference to catch shrimps. Moreover, people start to use machine to harvest shrimps after 1917.

            After the research on shrimp, I have found that the shrimps are more complicated than I was thought, because before my research, I did not know there were so many kinds of shrimp. The most astonishing thing is that most of shrimps we have eaten are farmed instead of the wild shrimps. Additionally, before I do the research on shrimp, I am afraid to eat shrimp, because I think the shrimp are wild and might become extinct. Therefore I am in a “to eat or not to eat” dilemma, because shrimp is a kind of very delicious food. However, after I knew most the shrimps are farmed by human beings, I am not afraid to eat shrimp anymore.

Work Cited

Merriam-Webster.Int. “Shrimp”. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. October 13, 2008.

Planet Inverts. “Shrimp Species”. http://www.planetinverts.com/shrimp_species.html.
            2010.

Seafood Health Facts. “Shrimp Market”.
             http://seafoodhealthfacts.org/seafood_choices/shrimp.php. 2010.

In the infographic, “FOWL TROUBLE”, Cook talked about the differences between nowadays chicken and the chicken in the past time, and those between nowadays chicken production and the chicken production in the past time. The chicken is bigger than the chicken in the past time. He mentioned that “And as demand has increased, so have line speeds in processing plants: in 1979 the USDA limit was 70 birds per minute; today it stands at 91 birds per minute, a figure based not on how quickly workers can safelydo their jobs but on how quickly USDA meat inspectors can examine the carcasses”, which means that the limit of number of chicken killed is larger than before. (Cook, first part) The demand of eating chicken is increasing. Cook mentioned the chicken plants too. Because of the worse of the working condition, there is fewer and fewer Americans want to work in the chicken plants.

            In the introduction part of the book, “Tomatoland”, talked about the taste and the look of the tomatoes. The author argued that different tomatoes, which were grown in different area, would have different taste and look. Because of the reason of this, she claimed that we should compare the taste and look of different tomatoes, which were grown in different area, to find out the history and production of different kind of tomato.

            In the Michael Pollan’s article, “An Animal’s Place”, she talked about her experiencing “Animal Liberation”. In order to illustrate and do research on Animal, she went to observed different animals’ living condition in different farms. She found out that whether people chose to eat animal or not, animal would die. Thus we should respect what animal deserve, and make their death more meaningful. She concluded that it was not right enough to talk about whether people should eat animal or not.

            The most interesting part I think is that whether people eat animal or not, animal death rate would still increase, and the best way to solve this dilemma is that people should go with the flow and respect what animal deserve. 

My point of view of "Our National Eating Disorder"

    In the article, “Our National Eating Disorder”, Pollan talked about why the national eating disorder and how the national eating disorder using the causes and symptoms to illustrate his point of view.
     First, in the third paragraph, the author pointed out that the medical degree can make the national eating disordered. As long as the author pointed out the medical degree cause the disorder, he give us few examples that “But the basic pattern was fixed decades earlier: new scientific research comes along to challenge the prevailing nutritional orthodoxy; some nutrient that Americans have been happily chomping for years is suddenly found to be lethal; another nutrient is elevated to the status of health food; the industry throws its marketing weight behind it; and the American way of dietary life undergoes yet another revolution.” (1)
    Second, in the ninth paragraph, the author argued that “As a relatively new nation drawn from many different immigrant populations, each with its own culture of food, we Americans find ourselves without a strong, stable culinary tradition to guide us.” (3) As we all know, the United States is a immigration country. Because the immigrators have different kinds of food cultures, and different culture has different structure of taboos, rituals, manners and culinary traditions, etc, which can make us eating in order, America’s national eating becomes disordered.
    One part of the examples, which explain why medical degree can make the national eating disordered, is most interesting to me. I, like most people do, considered the nutrition of the food first, because having healthy food can keep me healthy. Nevertheless, because of doing like me, some people have had the food they thought healthy, which actually are lethal to themselves. It is ridiculous to some extent. As me, I am very strict to my diet habit. Because of the food traditions of China, I eat everything good (based on my mother’s words). The traditions are last for thousands of years, so they cannot be wrong!

EE1 about American food culture

Yuan Zhou

WRIT-1133

Dr. Eric Leake

April 26th, 2012

Research on how convenience affect Americans. 

In this essay, I am going to incorporate and expand upon my short essay 2 and short essay 3. In my short essay 2, according to my research of coffee advertisement, I found that the American culture is about convenient. Based on different classes, there are different kinds of advertisement. I used two different brands of coffee, Nestle Instant coffee and Blue Mountain coffee, to do my research. In this research, Nestle Instant coffee is not an expensive coffee and can afford by working class people. Blue Mountain coffee is aristocrat of coffee and expensive, which means the Blue Mountain is offered for the minority. 

Because of lacking time to brew coffee, the working class people would prefer to buy instant coffee instead of buying coffee beans brewing by themselves, which would take lots of time. Time is the thing they very needed. In order to earn more money, they have to spent more time on their work but when they spent more time on their work, they have to be awake. Fortunately, the instant coffee solve this problem for them. Therefore, the advertisement of Nestle Instant coffee is very concise, and powerful. 

Why the advertisement of Nestle Instant coffee is very simple?

In the article, “Authenticity in American, Class Distinctions in Potato Chip Advertising”, Freedman and Jurafsky argues that the education is strongly associated with differences social class. As them said, “In addition to having fewer and shorter words, the inexpensive chips use more common words. Using a standard measure of word commonality based on how frequently the words occur in standard reference texts, we assigned each word on all the packages a frequency score.” (48) Because the Nestle Instant coffee is primarily face to working class people, its advertisement would be short and easy to be remember. 

The advertisement of Nestle Instant coffee shows that Americans are pay attention to convenience. For example, there are two slogans, “On the Go” and “Push and Open”, which are very concise and powerful in the advertisement of Nestle Instant coffee. These slogan would give people the first impression that the coffee is very convenient to drink during the busy day, which are also reflect the “fast and convenient” idea of the working class people. This kind of coffee has 7 packets in one package. It is save time for the working class people, because people can buy one package and have it for a week long. Every time they want to have some coffee, they just need to open the packet, put the instant coffee into hot water, and wait for a while. Moreover, people can take the coffee wherever they want, such as office and home. By contrast, if the working class people buy coffee beans to brew coffee, they would not have enough time, which is very important to them. People just need to put the instant coffee in water and wait for a while, then people would have a cup of coffee. Although this kind of coffee does not have the original taste and the smell of coffee, the instant coffee still have caffeine which can keep people awake. Because usually working class people have busy schedule and have stressful work, the instant coffee is very suitable for them. It is reflect the American culture, convenient and productive. 

In my short essay 3, according to my observation of customers behavior in Subway. I mentioned that convenience becomes the primary concern of Americans, because most of the customers are white-collar and blue-collar people, which means they are busy and on the go. Therefore, they prefer to go to Subway rather than other non fast food restaurant, because they can just wait for a minute and then take the food out of the Subway. Comparing with the food need long time to cook, the sandwich in Subway is very suitable for the working class people, because they are lacking time to wait for the food, which need long time to cook. In order to serve quickly, Subway had already cooked the food--- the meat ball, the beef and the chicken, and save them in a iron container heating them. 

Moreover, I observed that most costumer of Subway are likely to order a foot-long sandwich and then take out. I am very surprising at Americans can have a foot-long sandwich, because I and my friends usually only eat a 6-inch-long sandwich and would be full. Thus I asked 5 customers who order a foot-long sandwich and take the sandwich out of Subway. All of them said that they usually eat 6-inch-long sandwich, and the other 6-inch-long sandwich would be saved until next meal so that they can save time to work. They thought that when they got out of the office to buy food, they were wasting time. At this point, we can see Americans are weigh the convenience a lot, and they are hard-working people too. 

In addition, the costumers who prefer to take the sandwich out of Subway usually order the Lay’s potato chips, which are already be packaged. By contrast, the costumers who would like to stay in Subway did not like to order the Lay’s potato chips, maybe because the Lay’s potato chips are not fresh fried and are having higher price than other stores have. In other non fast food restaurants, such as Claim Jumper and Cheesecake Factory, the chips in there is fresh fried instead of already packaged. Because almost the customers in Subway were likely to take the food out of the restaurant, Subway offered the packaged chips instead of fresh fried chips, which would take a long time to make. In order to make customers feel convenient, Subway had a special way to attract customers. In Subway, when you order a sandwich, you should order the food from left to right, because the staff of Subway would make the sandwich while the customers are ordering the food. This kind of method cut down the prepare time of making sandwich. Most the customers like this method, because they can spent less time on food. 

Eating at the edge~

In “Eating at the edge”, Horwitz talked about the changes in the places, the time, the ways modern people have their meal. More and more modern people do not have meal with family and friends. Instead, they would like to eat on their own. Many people have their meal on their own space and on their own time, which is not the normal mealtime. In order to prove his point of view, he used a simple example, which is about the soup. The volume of the soup many years ago is much more than today’s soup and is hold by a bowl or pot. At that time, people are get together to have the soup. In her article, "Consider soup. What was once an archetype of the com- mensal is now widely available in a variety of single-serving packages"(42). "By contrast, people are more likely to have the soup when they playing computers or doing other thing, and the size of the soup have changed to single-serving package (42).
Nowadays, People’s attitude to the food changed a lot. In the past time, the food is a bridge connecting people to people. It is kind of social communicative tool. People mostly get together have meal in the past, because they can communicate with each other and share their own experiences. However, the situation has been changed from people-to-people to people-to-computer. People are free to have meal--- they do not have regular mealtime and eat whenever they want. People are isolated. For me, I do not like the changes in people’s attitude to food, because the society would become less warm and being cold-blooded, which is not good for people to live. 

            I think that most Chinese would get together to have meal. In my short essay 3, I observed that the Chinese restaurants are having waiters or waitresses, because the customers most likely stayed and talked and ate. I would like to eat with my friends. Not only eat in the dining hall in school, but also eat outside of the campus. Because of having meal together, I would feel that I am not alone and be happy. As my example in my short essay 1, I made shrimp dumpling with my friends in Chinese Spring Festival, and we were very happy, because of the process of making shrimp dumpling. We talked, we laughed, we sang songs! The best time I spent in Denver, is the time I spent with my friends.