Bad Things Embedded in Good Food

Food is an essential part of our daily lives, and it’s what gives us the energy we need to survive. Of course there are good food for you, while there are bad as well. Many people in the U.S. are obese, but many people are fit too. The cause of obesity is due to the over-consumption of bad food and lack of exercise. But what’s considered bad food? There are obvious answers to this question such as cookies, doughnuts, chips, hamburgers, and French fries. What people aren’t aware of is that almost every food that exists has something slightly bad in them.

Something popular that is present in many foods is hydrogenated oil. Hydrogenated oil is found in almost all processed food like soups, crackers, pasta, rice mixes, some cereals, frozen pizzas, pot pies, fried foods, and even sliced bread. Forcing hydrogen gas into oil at high pressure makes hydrogenated oil. It’s oil in which the fundamental fatty acids have been transformed to a different chemical form. Hydrogenated oil won’t go rancid as fast as untreated oil so its shelf stable. It’s used for pastries and frying because it has a high melting point. Examples of hydrogenated oil are margarine and Crisco. Originally, these products were produced and advocated as being healthier than conventional oils. But ironically, scientists in the 1990s found that these products have deleterious health effects. The fatty acids in oils are unsaturated fats, which have been certain to reduce cholesterol. It actually increases the level of bad cholesterol, LDL, and decreases the level of good cholesterol, HDL. In the production of hydrogenated oil, the healthy fats are converted into a new type of fatty acid, known as trans fat. Medical professionals have determined that trans fat is definitely harmful to one’s health. The consumption of hydrogenated oil has been known to give rise to coronary disease, diabetes, and obesity. Knowing that hydrogenated oils cause heart and cholesterol problems, why does the food industry continue to use it in all of their food products? Another problematic thing is what are people supposed to eat? Although, the food administrators have provided nutrition facts and ingredients to help people know what they’re consuming. So the best suggestion for people is to read the back of products and find out what they’re actually consuming. Unfortunately, this doesn’t solve everything because another problem arises from bacteria-infected foods.

Typically, people adjust their diet to become healthy by consuming fruits, vegetables, and proteins. Surprisingly, these produces have caused disease outbreaks, according to the article “When Bad Things Come From ‘Good’ Food”. Since September, the bacteria found in spinach, lettuce, and tomatoes have made many people sick, and three were killed. Now how are people supposed to trust the supermarkets and buy food? People already have to be cautious about what healthy foods to consume, but now they have to worry about purchasing infected foods? Isn’t this too much to worry about when consuming food? Other bad things that are present in food are flavor enhancers, also known as glutamic acid or MSG (monosodium glutamate). If there’s a high level of glutamates in the bloodstream, glutamate could go into the brain and cause the neurons to go wrong. Physical and psychological problems may result, and there may even be permanent damage. This is found in tomatoes, aged cheese and mushrooms, seaweed sauce, and frozen or canned foods to conceal any foul tastes. The article, “Diseases Attributed to Food Additives” provides plentiful and useful information about the chemicals present in different types of food.

After doing additional research, it’s apparent that there are more bad chemicals in food than what is typically known. Many people are becoming obese due to excessive consumption of hydrogenated oil. Ironically, people are trying to eat healthy by consuming vegetables, but many produce sold at supermarkets are infected with bacteria. This is a paradoxical situation because people are attempting to improve their health, but there happens to be other external factors that interfere. Food is so important to the human body, but it could be harmful and cause tragic damage as well. Will the food industry do something else to eliminate the bad chemicals and bacteria present in food? Or will people continue on the road to obesity and get sick?

OMG...blogging?

After I signed up for UWP 101 in this section, the name Chris Schaberg appeared onto my “myucdavis” home page. My reaction was, “Yes! Sweet!” because I had him for English 3, and I enjoyed the way he taught. His way of teaching allows you to be confused and abstract where there’s not one particular answer. When I was notified that he wanted us to be confused I was relieved because I thought that there had to be one correct answer. I just remember English classes that I took in high school and how the teacher was always looking for a particular answer. Apparently, English doesn’t have one correct answer like science does.

I think that the room for ambiguity and confusion permits us to critically think more and look at things from various perspectives, not just one. Although, sometimes Chris’ comments on certain posts and complicate things more, which makes it more confusing. I think part of it is because he’s an English major so his ability to analyze and critique writing is phenomenal. He brings up interesting things and raises very challenging questions. For instance, on one of my posts Chris commented, “is money really 'essential', or is it in fact extra, added on to the materials that actually *do* seem to make people 'happy'? In other words, can we imagine 'economies' without money, and might these economies get closer to the 'essence' of material?” This comment made me rethink about what I said and look at things from another perspective. The question about economies getting closer to the essence of material confused me then, and it still confuses me now.

On the first day of class when we found out that the class was revolved around blogging, I know I wasn’t the only one thinking “What?! No way! This is so cool!” The whole notion of blogging just reminded me of Myspace and Facebook. Before I took this class, I have only written one blog on Myspace in my entire life. The blog I wrote was about my hatred for a certain someone and was very informal. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what a blog was, but I went ahead and wrote one for the heck of it. I was a bit nervous for our first post because I didn’t know what was expected for a blog in general. I’m pretty sure almost everyone was feeling the same way as I was.

The idea of having our written assignments displayed to the public was very motivational for me because I was not only writing for the teacher to read, but also for my fellow classmates and random viewers. Reading other students’ blogs made me realize how many great writers there are. Seeing that my classmates wrote amazing posts influenced me write well and edit my writing until I felt good about it. A plus about blogging is that after publishing the post, we can still go back and edit the posts as many times as we’d like. Where as on paper, we wouldn’t be able to edit our writing after turning it in. Blogging kind of seems a bit informal, but it’s not when you write like you’re writing an essay. Since my blog was being read and graded, I knew I had to write intelligently. Hence, the format of blogging for this class wasn’t wholly informal. I think that blogging did allow us to incorporate our own thoughts, feelings, and personality more. I found myself writing humorously than I ever had in my previous English classes.

Personally, I very much so love the idea of blogging. It lets us explore the different ways in writing aside from the typical written essays on paper. The goal of not using paper succeeded, and I think that everyone attained a good experience from this class. Well, at least I did.

Money for Material

In my previous post, L.I.F.E., I stated, “The American culture has become a materialistic driven country.” What I meant by this was that many people are into materialistic things, and they buy name brand products, which are more expensive than generic products. For example: instead of buying cheap ten dollar sunglasses from Nordstroms, some people would buy two hundred dollar sunglasses that are name brand such as: Chanel, Gucci, Oakley, etc. According to Wikipedia, “materialistic describes a person who is markedly more concerned with material things than with spiritual, intellectual, or cultural values.” Material things are physical matter used for production and manufacturing. They get processed to become finished materials so they can be distributed to stores and consumed by people. So my point is that sunglasses are sunglasses and they all serve the same purpose. Why buy name brand sunglasses for two hundred dollars when you can get them for ten?

The next possible answer to that question could be because of the quality of the products. People may consume material things based on quality or price. It just depends on the person, how much money they have, and how much they’re willing to spend. Here again, money comes into play. Consuming material things require money. Why does everything come down to money? In my personal opinion, I believe that money is an essential part of life because without money, how are you supposed to pay for rent, cell phone bill, car payment, food, and clothes? Life would simply be easier if nothing involved money, but that is speaking in a non-realistic sense. Chris commented and asked, “Is money really essential, or is it in fact extra, added on to the materials that actually do seem to make people happy?” I think that people’s value for money depends on every individual. If a person were categorized as low class, then their value for money would probably be higher than that of people who are high class. In other words, poor people would see money as an essential part of life, while the rich may not since their money is abundant. Also, the rich may spend money like it’s just extra added onto materials to make them happy, but maybe not. The question “Does money buy happiness?” is debatable because for some people, money can get them things they want such as new cars, clothes, and jewelry. For others, it may not because some people who have money can’t take a vacation due to work.

It’s hard to define the importance of money because there are so many possibilities and it’s different with everyone. Some people value money more than others, and there are people who can care less about money.

Woo hoo! THUMBS UP!

After going through all of my pictures on my laptop, I decided that this is the one to write about because both humor and tragedy are captured in this image. This is a picture of my boyfriend, Jeff and his father, Paul. It was taken after Paul was done with his surgery on his esophagus.

Paul’s journey of fighting esophageal cancer began the morning of October 23, 2007. After a few months of having difficulty swallowing and avoiding the problem, Paul finally decided to go see the doctor. He went in for an endoscopy, and bad news resulted. The doctor said that there was a tumor where the stomach and esophagus met. Three days later, the doctor called to confirm that it was indeed cancer. He also said that the esophagus surgery has a higher risk than open-heart surgery. Besides knowing this scary fact, the Wimber family and friends prayed all day and night throughout Paul’s journey. During the surgery, the doctor couldn’t see where the cancer was with the naked eye. He basically just prayed and made an educated guess on where the cancer was. Afterwards, he came to find that he was less than one centimeter away from the cancer. This was good news because if he had cut directly into the cancer, it would have been extremely bad. They’re still praying until this day and thanking God for everything he has done.

*If you want to read more about this then look at Diana's blog (Paul's wife). She has been blogging since their journey fighting this cancer began.

Now knowing the history that this image has, what would you say after looking at this image? When I first saw this image, I was thinking: “Wow, why are you so excited for your dad hooked up to all these machines?” My boyfriend said he made this expression in the picture because it was after his dad was done with surgery. It shows that the surgery went well, and he’s very happy that it did. Of course, who wouldn’t? I had thought that this was taken before the surgery when he was going through all of his chemo treatments. Although, the excitement on Jeff’s face and his thumbs up may signify the positivist that he is. Staying positive in these situations is the way to go because it reduces any emotional stress that one may have. This image portrays tragedy because Paul had to fight the evil cancer, and his body is just physically miserable. Also, the setting of a hospital suggests tragedy because many sad things happen in there. There are good things that happen like giving birth, but there’s more bad than good. It also illustrates humor because his lovely son has an ecstatic look on his face and holding two thumbs up. The humor distracts the viewer from all the tragic objects in some sense. It takes the focus off the tragedy that’s obvious, and it sets the focus on excitement.

An image withholds a lot of things like history and messages. There are several ways that people can analyze and interpret this image. If you first saw this image, how would you read it?

Revisiting Diaspora

Back to my post about Diaspora, Katie's post about Diaspora provides additional information about Diaspora such as the Jews. Throughout history, Diaspora continues to grow and expand so it’s like a never-ending story.

I believed that Diaspora wasn’t a chosen act, and people didn’t disperse on their own free will. But Rachel brought up a good point about the Gold Rush miners and Oregon Trail travelers. She asked, “but what about the Gold Rush miners or Oregon Trail travelers? Were their choices made outside of free will?” This made me think about it more, and after contemplating I said, “Oh yeah, she's right about that. They chose to disperse to find gold and help the US expand.” I completely overlooked the other side of Diaspora and didn’t put it into consideration. The Oregon Trail travelers and Gold Rush miners did choose to disperse on their own free will. So that proves that Diaspora could be a condition of wanted or unwanted. I was unaware of the ambivalence that Diaspora held and disregarded anything aside from my beliefs. Diaspora could be a chosen or non-chosen act depending on the circumstances. Reasons for a chosen Diaspora may possibly be because of money or better living situations. The gold rush is a great example of dispersal due to money - large quantities of gold. Pioneers of the Oregon Trail dispersed to new parts of the United States of America to help the U.S. expand the nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This dispersal and settlement was a cultural goal of Manifest Destiny.

In Thanks to Diaspora, I also stated that Diaspora is a positive thing because after dispersal, people are able to reconstruct their lives and make it better. Arisa commented, “However, there is a negative aspect of Diaspora. Some people would have to leave behind their cultural values where they originally came from because they have trouble building their cultural values in other countries.” This is another good point because although people can make their lives better, it takes a lot of work and important values are left behind. However, my family was able to keep and bring some of their cultural values with them when they dispersed to America. We still celebrate Chinese New Years and do the traditional giving of red envelopes with money embedded in them. There’s a small Asian community in South Sacramento where Asians can purchase their cultural foods and enjoy traditional Chinese chess at a local Cafe.

Diaspora could be an unwanted or wanted act, and there are many possibilities that could result from it. Whether lives are better or not, it just depends on every individual’s strength on what he or she does after dispersal. Diaspora could be a positive or negative thing depending on the situation.

FedEx & UPS Just Don't Care

The other day my boyfriend and I went to FedEx to deliver something to his brother in Washington. The package consisted of a big piece of glass. So the person that packaged our delivery wrapped the piece of glass about five times with cardboard boxes. He wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t break during the delivery because deliverymen toss boxes around like it’s nothing. He recommended us to look up FedEx or UPS delivery on Youtube.com to see how careless the deliverymen are.



The video above shows how the UPS deliveryman is kicking every single package in the truck. It definitely demonstrates how deliverymen work poorly and recklessly. They deliver hundreds or even thousands of boxes per day. Nobody knows what are in the boxes, and they treat it like garbage. It doesn’t matter even if the word “fragile” is written on it. Since they deliver packages by themselves and there’s no one monitoring their actions, they can handle the boxes any way they desire. Do they get paid enough to actually handle every package with care? Probably not.

Here’s another video of a Fed Ex driver delivering a hard drive.



Did he just toss that hard drive on the ground like it’s a core of an apple? It’s unbelievable how many people in this world don’t perform their job efficiently. Deliverymen may think that they’re not being watched; therefore, they work however they’d like. But there are surveillance cameras everywhere, so their actions are candid.

Although, if deliverymen kick, toss, and drop packages and cause damage to the miscellaneous object, the company may be negatively impacted. Then they may lose their job due to multiple customer complaints, and the company has to pay for the damages.

Besides the fact that deliverymen are inconsiderate of other people’s packages, Fed Ex does deliver packages in a timely manner. They can deliver packages overnight, and it’ll arrive promptly the next day. It’s amazing how deliveries are shipped so quickly if it’s necessary.

*Remember: When shipping important things, make sure it’s packaged very well so those careless deliverymen don’t damage it.

Thankfully, the package my boyfriend and I delivered to Washington made it safely without any damages.

Old Woman Riding Hard

On my search for “mobility” images on Google, I came across this interesting and clever image. Are there really jet skis that have a built in handicap wheelchair? I’ve never seen one before, and I didn’t know they exist. Does this image look like it has been edited through Photoshop?

It’s quite funny to see an old woman riding a jet ski that’s equipped with a wheelchair seat. The old woman is looking back, and the look on her face expresses some sort of hesitation and anticipation or it may be just a simple smile. She may be afraid that she might get tipped over by the wakes of waves. It looks like she’s dressed in a dress and a long jacket. Also, she’s wearing walking shoes while she’s riding a jet ski. Who does that? It’s a bit interesting that she has a basket hanging on the front and back end of the jet ski. This is very typical of a wheelchair. As I observed this image more, I noticed that if the front end were taken off, it would definitely look like a regular wheelchair. From afar, there’s a man sitting on his boat looking at this old woman with a ridiculous jet ski. If I saw this type of mobile object on the lake or river, I would definitely be staring with fascination too.

If this image is a true photo then I give kudos to the inventors of this object. This type of mobile form allows the elderly to enjoy life and do the things that young people do. Jet skiing is an exciting activity, and this great invention reduces the limitations of the elderly. A wheelchair is a source of mobility for the handicap, and inventing something that allows further and greater velocity of mobility is quite a treat for the disabled. This object adds some thrill into their lives, and I would definitely want one of these. When I’m old, I would like to still be able to do physical activities and enjoy life as if I were young.

Thanks to Diaspora...

According to New Keywords, the word Diaspora has a literal meaning: “the scattering of seeds”. It also refers to the dispersal of a population that share a common ethnic background, and they reside away from their origins. There are many types of Diaspora such as British, Asian, African, and European Diasporas.

The Asian Diaspora is one that I can talk about because my family was involved in it. The first Chinese Diaspora took place thousands of years ago, but it also occurred in the 19th century to about 1949. It was caused by starvation, political corruption, and wars. Most of the immigrants were poor, and they dispersed to Southeast Asia, America, Australia, South Africa, and many other places. My grandparents lived in mainland China, and they immigrated to Vietnam due to a war that broke out. My parents were both born in Vietnam and around the age of twenty, they dispersed to America because of the Communists and Vietnam War. Their family members also immigrated, but some were left behind because money was scarce. Gradually, everyone from all over the world began dispersing to different countries. The reason why America is so diverse is attributable to Diaspora.

Another reason why Diaspora occurs is due to natural disasters. For example, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Many people evacuated and some never returned. The evacuees dispersed to somewhere away from the horrible disaster. Who would want to return to a place that got destroyed? I know I wouldn’t. I would gather my family together and disperse to some place safer.

It seems as if Diaspora isn’t a chosen act because people don’t choose to disperse on their own free will. Bad things happen and that’s when people decide to disperse because they have to in order to get away from the troubles and problems. Diaspora isn’t necessarily a bad thing because by dispersing to new areas, people are able to reconstruct their lives. Maybe the place they originated from wasn’t pleasant, and thanks to Diaspora they’re able to make their lives better.

Unexamined or Examined

The New Yorker cartoon presented in class illustrated a couple sitting on the couch with a remote control changing channels on their television. The television has “the unexamined life on demand” written on the screen. This phrase relates to Socrates saying "The unexamined life is not worth living". Also, there’s a cat lying on the rug in the living room with a frowned face.

The cartoon depicts the typical life of what most families live today. Many people these days spend more time watching television than they do cleaning, learning, reading, and so forth. The term “couch potato” fits this cartoon, but it’s missing a bag of potato chips. Entertainment on television captivates attention from countless numbers of people. Demand is a popular cable company for television, and it’s what most households have these days. The phrase “the unexamined life on demand” may portray how the couple on the couch is spending their time watching shows on demand rather than examining their own life and doing other important things. What does it mean to examine? According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, examine means to inspect closely, to test the condition of, and to inquire into carefully.

Examining life isn’t a common thing that everyone does daily in his or her life. People don’t take the time to carefully examine their life, but they watch television instead. Maybe it’s because they find watching television more entertaining than examining life. It seems as if sitting on the couch and watching television has become a natural tendency to people. They are accustomed to watching television, and it may or may not occur that they’re examining life that’s broadcasted on television. That is, they’re inspecting what’s happening on television. Now it would make sense if the phrase was “the examined life on demand” rather than “unexamined”. As for the cat with a frowned face, he or she looks frightened or scared in the cartoon. Why might the cat look so terrified? It may be that the cat is worried for his or her owner that they’re wasting so much time watching television. Or maybe the cat isn’t getting much attention from the owners since they’re so sucked into the entertainment on demand.

It’s amazing how much television people actually watch these days. Since people spend so much time watching television, does it mean that their lives are boring? Rather than “examining” their life, they leave their life “unexamined” by watching demand. So how much examining should people do, and how much time should they spend watching television to counterbalance between the two?

L.I.F.E

In class on Wednesday, the group “therapy”, as Chris called it, was an interesting discussion. Someone sharing their own personal life and beliefs with the class about their future led to further ideas about life. Life itself seems to be boring and dull at times because as college students, all we’re doing is going to school and work throughout the week. It’s just a repetitive routine until graduation day. After graduation, what comes next…?

Deciding what to do with life after graduation is a difficult decision for many people. Not knowing what to do is one of the scariest things. With all of the 16+ years spent on school, it’s frustrating being lost on what to do with life. Everyone has a different view on life, so they’ll adjust their lifestyle to pursue happiness. Sometimes people try, but they can’t attain happiness. The American culture has become a materialistic driven country. So everything always comes down to money. All they want is money, money, money. In order to make money they have to work ridiculous hours within a week. People are making huge amounts of money, but they don’t have any time to spend it or take a lovely vacation to Hawaii. Whether it’s being a doctor, a dentist, or a CEO and making lots of money, they aren’t able to take one week vacations to relax at the beach, mountains, or whatever the desired place might be. So money is just racking up, and by the time retirement comes they’re too old to do all the fun and exciting activities that require physical strength.

On the other hand, there are some people who are able to pursue happiness. They work jobs that are enjoyable, but at the same time they have time to relax and get pleasure from life. The pleasures may result from skydiving, parasailing, bungee jumping, hiking, or traveling. These people probably think, “Why work fifty or sixty hours a week where you can’t take a nice little vacation?”. It’s hard to explore all the wonderful things in life and be happy when the entire week is taken up by work. Many people are so focused on money that they forget about happiness. What’s more important? Money or happiness?

Confusing Wants With Needs

In life, we seem to “need” and “want” many things in order to satisfy ourselves. Therefore, we consume products to meet our satisfaction. But how do we distinguish between the things we need and want?

It seems like people sometimes use the words as if they mean the same thing. Need is to have need of or require. It could be defined as a psychological or objective need. A psychological need would be the need for food, and an objective need would be the need to pay rent. If something is an absolute necessity then you definitely need it. For instance, humans need water and food in order to survive. Without food and water they would die. Want is to feel a need or a desire for something. The act of wanting involves satisfying our needs. Here is where need and want correlate with each other, and it creates a little confusion about what each word means. The word “need” could withstand by itself without the word “want”, but “want” entails a need for something.

People sometimes seem to have trouble distinguishing their wants and needs. For example: the other day at the mall, I was shopping for a shirt to wear to a concert. As I walked around the store I saw a marvelous rack of purses. I looked to my boyfriend and said, “I need a new purse”. He replied, “No you don’t because you’re carrying one right now”. I thought to myself, “Oh yeah, I don’t need one. I just want a new one”. There I was confusing my wants with my needs.

Not only mixing wants with needs, people have made their wants become needs. For instance: in morning classes, people say “I need coffee”, but do they really need coffee or they want coffee? Coffee contains caffeine, which is a central nervous system stimulant. It temporarily eliminates drowsiness and enhances attentiveness. People feel a need to consume coffee in the morning to wake up or stay awake. Some people have made coffee an essential part of their life, and they can’t function without it. In this sense, coffee was a want, but now it’s a need. It’s interesting to see how people have made their wants into their needs. Also, people have replaced general words with business corporation names. As Chris mentioned in class on Monday, people have been saying “I need a Starbucks” in replacement of “I need a coffee”. It’s fascinating to see and hear consumers of Starbucks replace the word “coffee” with “Starbucks”.

The consumption of coffee has become a popular expense in people’s daily lives. Not only making wants become needs, people are starting to replace words with business company names. For us human beings, it’s sometimes hard to differentiate our wants and needs. We "need" something to satisfy our wants, but also "want" something to satisfy our needs.