Final Food Project by Will Amari

Wile E. Willie's ol' Southern Boi Carolina Corn Bread 

Ingredients:

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-2 tablespoons baking powder

-1 teaspoon salt

-2 cups yellow cornmeal

-1/2 cup sugar

-1 1/2 teaspoon cayenne 

-1 cup milk

-1 cup no fat plain yogurt

-2 large eggs

-2 sticks unsalted butter, softened 

Preparation:

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit 

-Butter up a large cast iron skillet

-Throw ingredients all into a large bowl 

-Stir the crap out of it with a electric beater until batter is thin

-Pour batter into iron skillet

-Place in oven (after it has preheated) on the middle rack 

-Let it sit in oven for about 50 minutes (it should look golden brown at the end)

-Take out of oven

-Wait ten minutes to let it cool down

-Sit down for a spell 

My cornbread is not that healthy, but still it would be fine eating it in small portions. 

Analysis: 

Most of the ingredients are conventional and/or non-organic. This means that the food used to make this dish has either been made with GMOs, chemicals like pesticides, or both. 

For example, instead of using good-old-fashioned organic valley butter, I used Land-O-Lakes salted butter. This contains a lengthy list of ingredients ranging from partially hydrogenated soybean oil and hydrogenated cottonseed oil to artificial flavor and cream, which warns us about its’ trivial amount of cholesterol. I used two sticks of this, but hey, at least it’s USDA double A—not the worst thing for you, but not the best thing either. Along with this, I also used Indian Head Old Fashioned Stone Ground Yellow Corn Meal, which contains some organic compounds like Niacin and enriched thiamine mononitrate. I wished I used real corn, but oh well. It seems like I used the next best thing. Corn meal also contains a healthy dose of riboflavin (vitamin B2), and iron.

The ingredients aren't what I would call, locally grown. In fact, the corn meal came from Maryland, that’s for sure the most local I ever got. While the butter came from Minneapolis and the milk came from as far as Idaho. At least all the food came from America, right? The positive side to having a lack of organic food in a recipe is that it means it is very cheap to make. Cornbread in general is cheap to make, only costing five to six dollars in price. I’ll take it. 

The coolest thing about some of the brands I used is that some of them care a little about the world. Dominos sugar for a hundred years been organic. It comes from the pure sugar cane and is harvested and milled on the same day. It is a US company owned by American Sugar Refining Industry. Land-O-Lakes is a little more controversial (PETA released an undercover video of animal abuse of dairy cows), but their eggs are supposedly cage-free. That’s good enough for me. 

I would say that overall my cornbread is fine as along as it doesn’t act as a replacement for real vegetables like broccoli, carrots, and of course... corn. 

Self Reflection:

After doing some personal reflection I have concluded that I have a very small, yet essential role in the larger food system. My food decisions, whether or not to go organic or conventional, has an effect on myself (my health and well being), on my family (I could influence my family to go organic), and of course on the business I am supporting (Whole Foods versus Monsanto). As long as you want to eat, you have to support some business that will be making some capital, so you minus well research and find out the best business to support. Some conventional farms use chemicals and pesticides to grow vegetables and drug chickens and cows to make them grow fatter, faster. Is this really the business you want to support? On the other hand organic foods can be a rip off and your bananas will only last you a couple days—you would have to go shopping more often. I think that’s the biggest problem with our food system. There doesn’t seem like an obvious right and an obvious wrong. Unhealthy foods are cheap and convenient, which will easily feed a starving family of four, but most foods are highly processed foods that are killing Americans more than any other cause of death. Organic sounds nice until you look at the price and then you realize being healthy is for rich people. What a shame. 

I generally buy organic, but that doesn’t mean I’m living a healthy life style. They say to eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a jack, and dinner like a surf. I don’t eat anything for breakfast, I eat a apple and some bread for lunch, and for dinner I pig out with second helpings. Probably not healthy. I have already started to make changes. For breakfast I had fruit salad and a danish. If that’s not eating like a king, then I don’t know what is. It is important to remain healthy and eat right. I want to out live my parents.