Where's the Fruit??

Fruit snack companies are claiming that their produce contains real fruit and consists of a full serving of fruit. The little purple squishy grapes and the tiny oranges are consisted to be healthy versions of the actual fruit they are imitating. Researcher’s methods of selling these products to kids use cartoons to sell their product. The parents also fall into the trap of buying fruit snacks because it claims to have real fruit in it. The similarities between the actual fruit and the imitation are so small that the only thing that they have in common is that the imitation look like the fruit. The imitation has so much sugar in it and other chemicals that it tastes nothing like the actual fruit and is nowhere close to the nutritional values of the real fruit.

The fake food provides essentially none of the vitamins or nutrients of the real food. The first ingredients of fruit snacks are sugar, modified corn starch and gelatin. It has less than 2% of actually healthy ingredients like ascorbic acid (vitamin C) but this is a chemical component and does not actually come from the actual fruit.

At home and at college when I want a snack it is easier to grab a pack of fruit snacks because they can sit on the shelf for a long time and doesn’t expire. Even though I eat fruit snacks I know they have basically no nutritional values so I also try to eat real fruit at the cafeterias. Once I get out of college and get my own apartment where I have a refrigerator and have an income to buy my own food I will buy fruit so I can have it for a snack instead of fruit snacks.

Peer Response #4

Marijuana, a psychotropic drug, is the most illegally used drug in the United States. Great debates have ensued over its legality. Proponents of legalizing marijuana argue that it is a right to be able to choose to use marijuana or not. Opponents state that the use of marijuana can lead to stronger, more powerful drugs and can cause many psychological difficulties. Mike Sorenson’s blog compares the opposing sides to this debate.

The first article Mike uses lists different reasons why marijuana should be legal. The main point this article brings forth is that alcohol and tobacco are legal and so should marijuana. It argues that marijuana is much less dangerous than tobacco and alcohol and because those two substances are legal then so should marijuana. If marijuana became legal the government would have saved millions of dollars that has been used to arrest people with marijuana.

The second article Mike writes about opposes legalizing marijuana. This article says that marijuana is addictive and can lead to other drugs and therefore should be illegal. Marijuana has many psychological effects on the human body and can be very detrimental. Proponents to marijuana argue that it has many medical uses to relieve pain for patients. However, many other drugs can achieve the same effect.

The second article made many more points to support their side. Each of the points had factual information supporting reasons why marijuana should be illegal. I agree with Mike in that marijuana should remain illegal. The first article was not very persuasive because it didn’t have any data supporting its side.

Cranberry Walnut Salad

My friend and I made dinner a few nights ago. We wanted to make our own dinner instead of getting a typical meal at Frank’s. So we walked over to the Fresh Madison Market to get our food. We decided to make a cranberry walnut salad. We weren't that hungry and we figured a salad would be a lot cheaper than anything else. For our salad we got a bag of mixed greens, cranberries, walnuts, and lite blue cheese. The total came out to be around 16 dollars.

We made the salad in the dorm’s kitchen. There was no preparation to make the salads. We poured in however much of the ingredients we wanted into our own salads. Clean up was also very easy. Threw away the plastic bowl and fork and we’re done.

I support Pollan’s claim that scientific advancement in foods has changed the way we eating from savoring the food to only eating what scientists say is good. The food we ate supports this because we decided what we wanted to eat based on what looked good not on if it was healthy.The lite blue cheese did not support his claim though. The dressing was chemically engineered to have few fat calories in it. Additives were added to replace the lost taste from the fat calories, I think low fat products are healthy with fewer calories from fat. The pros outweigh the cons when it comes to low fat products. This article shows that low fat foods can reduce heart disease. It refutes Pollan’s argument that we should not be eating scientifically altered food. I think that it is important to watch exactly what you are eating. It is healthier to have a low fat diet but safer to eat natural food that hasn't been altered.

Peer Response #3

The subject of abortion is extremely difficult to argue because these choices are based on moral and ethical ideals. In Amy Reynolds’ blog, she compares two online articles one that is pro-life and the other, pro-choice. Amy’s response to the articles was unbiased and summarized the main points of each article.

The first article was on pro-abortion or pro-choice. This article is gave the history of the pro-choice movement. It discusses the legal history of abortions. The Supreme Court case, Roe vs. Wade, was the first law to ever legalize abortions. This was a huge victory towards the pro-choice side. This article more brings up the debate of abortion and lets the reader decide rather than persuade the reader one way or another.

The second article Amy used came from an anti-abortion organization siding with pro-life. Within the website of this organization, there were many different articles that were very persuasive towards pro-life. It uses many different facts and data to show that an abortion can be dangerous and harmful to the woman. This organization uses this data to persuade the reader that abortions are dangerous and considered murder.

I happen to be pro-choice but I think the pro-life article was more persuasive. It had more scientific data to support what it was saying. At times this article was very persuasive in an aggressive way. However, it had strong points that supported the pro-life movement. The pro-abortion article was more on what pro-abortion is and its history. It did not make a good persuasive article. Rather, it brought up the issue of abortion and let the reader decide which is better, pro-life or pro-choice.