Part 2: Review of the lectures

Hello. everyone~!

I'll review the rest of the lectures that I couldn't cover yesterday.

Part 4---"The Omnivore's Choices and the Corporation's Responsibilities" by Michael Pollan, Bob Langert

The first speaker, Micheal Pollan, talked about the complexities of our food choices. As he has traveled throughout the country's farms, slaughter houses and so on, he came to realize that it is actually hard for us to make right decisions about foods even though it looks like very simple. We have a lot more foods to choose from when it's compared to other creatures whose dietary patterns are plant or meat eating, and so on. He argued that what we eat should be not only good to eat but also good to think. His mention that we should go beyond "organic" let the audience rethink about the problems as a whole, and he also challenged the illusion that the term "organic" is the ultimate solution by noting the things about the energy we consume to buy organic and the people who are involved with the organic industry. The second speaker, Bob Langert, was actually a representative of McDonald's. I was glad that he attended the conference like this because these kinds of public meetings are likely to end up accusing the big companies like his, and never get responded from them. According to his presentation, the company has tried as much as it can to improve the condition of its animals and workers. However, it seemed to me that there's more they can do and I think they should be a leader to try to do so because the influences they have will be enormous. If the company can't change, then the industry itself won't change. I understand their struggle to make a profit to satisfy the shareholders, and to concern about the ethical and environmental issues while customers expect them to serve as cheaply as possible. But I think they need to realize the improvements they have to make as the most influential company in the US to let the others follow. After listening to his presentation, I pay a visit to his blog which he talks about the company's corporate social responsibility, and I surprisingly found there was a podcast to let people know how it contributes to the society!

Part 5---"Eating More Ethically at Princeton" by John Turenne, Stu Orefice, Bill Andersen, Katy Andersen, Anim Steel, Nathan Gregory

This lecture focused on the food choices that the students of Princeton have at the university. Moreover, it also mentioned how they made the whole operations at the dining hall profitable. It brought me to think about the dining hall at my university, AGU. I rarely thought about the foods it has because I don't go there very often, and I don't think the tastes are good.(Oops! I'm just saying my opinion!) Moreover, I was interested in what the other univesities in Japan serve at their dining halls. So I googled about it. What I've got from the quick research was that we didn't even care about that, which made me very sad. Though Japanese as a whole care about what K-12(especially, children at elementary schools) eat a lot, that doesn't lead us to consider rethining about what university students eat at their university. I understand the situation in Japan is somehow different from the one in the US, but it's a shame that we don't hear our own voices to act on the issue. I'm pretty sure that some of the Japanese do care about it, but the number of the people is not large enough to make an influence on what the dining halls of the universities in Japan serve. That's why quantity still matters a lot when it comes to the universities' dining halls here. Hmmm.... there seems to be something I can do about it though it probably won't have much impact. It's sad to see some of my friends who really care about the hunger, and the poverty in the world have no interest in making smart and ethical choices for their own meals, isn't it? It's as important as that, I think.

Alright! I finally finished reviewing the lectures, which leads me to think about what I'm going to post about next....

Anyway, goodbye for now!
See you soon~.