Speech Evaluation # 2

Last Wednesday, I gave a persuasive speech on animal rights vs. animal welfare, which can be seen by clicking here. After my introduction, I gave an explanation and an overview of my topic. I began with talking about animal rights, but then switched to animal welfare to leave the audience with the good side of animal agriculture. In regards to my physical presentation, I felt like my volume and clarity of my voice were satisfactory. At certain points, I showed more energy and enthusiasm, but at other times, I showed less and took a more serious approach. My eye contact could not have better and I did include some body language. After watching the video of myself, I did notice I leaned on the podium at certain times. My use of visual aids seemed to work out well. I used the pictures on my PowerPoint to be incorporated well in my speech, especially the first one which I used to throw off the audience before making my opposing point. The information I decided to put on my slide was relevant to my topic and concise when I felt like it needed to be. In my conclusion, I used the last slide, although stealing part of the idea from Mitch's speech to offer a comical, yet appropriate ending to my speech. At the same time, my last sentence gave a call to the audience to learn more about animal welfare. If I could do it over again, I would pick the same topic, because it is a topic that is very relevant to my life and one which needs to be talked about more. In regards to my speech and visual aid I would not change much. If I could do it over again, however, I would change how much I prepared the speaking portion of my speech. At times I was at a loss for words due to my lack of preparation and my speech would have gone smoother if I had prepared better. Besides my lack of prepartion, I felt the speech went well and I made some good points in favor of animal welfare.

Response to Carrie's Blog Post

Recently, Carrie posted a blog on "real" vs. "fake" food and concentrated on margarine vs. butter. In this blog, she talks about how she grew up using butter in her household, but now at college, she has switched over to margarine. In my home, we use butter and while i have been here, I continue to use butter. She argues that margarine is better for your health because it has less saturated fat and cholesterol.
According to this article, margarine usually healthier for your body. However, all margarines are not the same, some can be more solid and contain more trans fat than butter. This is especially common when in stick form instead of tubs. The higher fat content can increase heart disease and blood pressure. The "good" form of cholesterol can also be lowered when you have more trans fats. Alternatives between margarine and butter include consuming whipped butter or low or reduced calorie butter.
My personal choice to use butter has two main factors. The first is, the consumption of butter supports dairy farming, which in return benefits my family. The other reason is I feel butter has a far superior taste than margarine.

Say cheese! Real vs. Fake Food

One of my favorite foods in the planet, second only to mangos, is cheese. I will put it on my burgers, burritos, chips, and pretty much anything else. The majority of my milk produced on my farm goes into the production of cheese and I have had the privilege of touring many cheese factories. Pollan talks about "real" vs. "fake" food in his book, "In Defense of Food." In the case of cheese, the "fake" cheese is either American cheese or the Velveeta brand cheese. A cheese that may considered a "real" cheese would be a classic cheddar or Monterey cheese.
The process of how to make cheese, according to this link, starts with milk being curdled for 2 hours, more milk is being heated, then left over night. Rennet is added to form curds, which is later strained by cheese cloth to remove the curd from the whey. The remaining product is cheese and is then salted and pressed before being aged.
Processed cheese is often considered a fake food because it is like cheese, but has food coloring, preservatives, and emulsifiers. These add ons, give the cheese an extended life on the shelf in individual packaging or in a can. Since this cheese does not meet certain requirements to be cheese, it is considered a "cheese food."
The process cheese by some is considered less healthy due to the added chemicals as preservatives and emulsifiers. Some pediatricians recommend kids due not eat the foods due to the chemicals. Other scientists feel like the body will not react differently to the chemicals added in the cheese, then to certain chemicals found naturally in food.
Personally, I will continue to eat processed cheese, because I feel it has very little impact in my overall health. Given the choice between natural or processed food, I would take teh natural. Either way, my consumption of cheese will stay constant.

Response to Peter's Blog Post

Peter "Gurn" Gernetzke recently posted a blog, Celebrity Endorsement. In this blog post, he analyzed the effectiveness and validity of the endorsement of Geico by Little Richard, the singer. In the commercial, Little Richard is paired with a pastor to talk about the coverage given to his church. After the pastor says a phrase, Little Richard would respond with excitement and shout a phrase, but his phrase didn't quite seem to match up with what the pastor was saying. I did a little bit of research and found that the video that Peter had linked to his blog post was not a real commercial for Geico. Instead it was a "green screened" advertisement, the church had made to promote their moving. That the church picked little richard surprised me, but I found out he does have a very active faith, being a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. However, when Little Richard released his first big hit "Tutti Frutti," many pastors condemned the origin version of the song due to it's vulgar language. I did think the church made a fairly funny video, using the Geico commercial format.
In the actual commercial with Little Richard working for Geico, he is seen with a women, who is describing her thanksgiving accident. She had hit a deer and talked about the service on Thanksgiving she got from Geico. Little Richard did a great job of "jazzing" up the commercial and giving it some energy. I doubt Little Richard, even uses Geico, but he improved the commercial tremendously.
Peter in his blog did bring up a good point about the risk of using celebrity endorsements. Companies must watch to make sure their celebrity is setting a good example in their life. Negative decisions made by the celebrity, if exposed by the media, could have negative consequences for the company.

Global Warming: Fact or Fiction?

One of the most controversial and important topics in the world today is the idea of global warming. Climate Change is playing a huge role in politics, foreign relations, and arguments among the scientific communities. Although a majority of scientist believe there is proof of global warming, there are also those who oppose global warming and think it is false.
The internet is filled with articles on global warming, and I have founded two of them, one in support of global warming and one believing it is false. The article in support I found was "Global Warming" by Holli Riebeek in Earth Observatory. By clicking here, the article can be found and you can see the basis of why Global Warming exists. According to the article, Global Warming is happening now, and the evidence can be seen in a .54 degree rise in the world temperature in the past 100 years, the rising of sea levels, and the shrinking of the polar ice caps. The cause for global warming, according to this article was due to CO2 carbon emissions from human use of fossil fuels in cars and natural resources for power plants and factories. Side-effects of global warming will include frequent heat waves and drought, low-lying countries experiencing flooding, and the melting of ice caps and glaciers, which some believe can already be seen.
The opposing article, entitled "Global Warming Proved False" examines the truth about the claims some of the scientist have about global warming and can be found by clicking here. One opinion it looks at involves the Earth's change in temperature being altered by the solar activity of the sun, and a little ice age is soon to come. It also analyzes that the polar ice caps are actually growing, especially, the one in the south, which has grown one million square kilometers in the past three years. Motives of why politicians, scientists, and the media might be in favor of spreading the fear of global warming can be seen in the article and also this video.
My belief is that global warming is false and the Earth goes through natural temperature cycles. My opinion did not change much after reading these articles, but the article in support of global warming did make me rethink that CO2 emissions might be real and could potential be a cause of global warming. Either way, politicians are making decisions on a belief, which may be false.

Response to Carrie Jo's Blog

My response to Carrie Jo's Blog can be found if you click here

Response to Brenna's Blog

My response to Brenna's post can be found if you click here

Self Evaluation

Andrew Zwald

For the Demonstration speech for Life Science Communications 101, I presented a speech on “How to Throw a Frisbee.” Starting off my introduction, I began with listing three things that are very unique to Ultimate Frisbee. I felt like this was a good attention getter than just starting my speech with ‘My name is…’ During my introduction, I seemed very nervous and did stumble over a couple words.

I felt like this topic was relevant to anyone who wanted to get active and have some fun while on this campus. The organization of my speech overall, I think was satisfactory. I began with basic throwing, catching, and defensive skills, along with the some basic rules. After my speech was done, I brought the class outside and demonstrated the throws. If I could improve on something, it would be that I should have done my whole speech outside, so I could explain the motions while I was making a throw. In regards to energy and enthusiasm, I felt like I did well, since this is a topic I enjoy very much. Although I felt like my volume was loud enough, I could have pronounced some words a little clearer. During my body and conclusion of my speech, eye contact was not a problem, but could have started off a little stronger. One of my strongest points of my speech was the actual demonstration, when I broke down and showed the mechanics of each of the throws, inside and outside.

Another strong point of my speech was the effective use of a partner to assist in visual aid. This improved the effectiveness of when I was demonstrating how to play defense. I also brought some other disc, just to add something else to look at while I was talking. While doing the throws outside, I felt like it helped the audience see how the Frisbee was suppose to fly.

If I had the chance to do the demonstration speech again, I would keep the same subject. I felt like this topic was a good fit for me and the audience could get something out of it. I would change the location and try to memorize the introduction a little bit better. Another small change I would make was to maybe talk about different Frisbee games, such as Disc Golf. Overall, I felt like I communicated my message very well and showed the audience some of the basics of Ultimate Frisbee.

A link to the videos can be found at http://sharing.theflip.com/session/c20c85c6bb9c7c81861d444b28e4161d/video/11765907

Celebrity Endorsement

The Got Milk campaign has been one of the most active campaigns in getting celebrities to give endorsements. Celebrities that have given endorsements include Reggie Bush from the Super Bowl winning New Orleans Saints, Christina Aguilera, Jordan Sparks, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and even Dennis Rodman, along with many others. The campaign began in 1993 by the California Milk Processor Board when an ad was ran with Emma Hawkins and Zoheir Ebrahim eating cookies and peanut butter and not being able to have anything to wash it down. At the end of the commercial the screen displayed “Got Milk?”

Since then many of the endorsements given by celebrities have came from music stars. In my high school, there was a poster endorsing “Got Milk” from one of my favorite singers, Taylor Swift. Recently, a new poster with Miley Cyrus, also known as Hannah Montana, has been added as one of the artists for the poster collection. The poster shows her in a backstage dressing room with the classic milk mustache with a brief description of her and about milk. It also has the head line “Body by Milk” at the bottom of the poster.

This comercial shows Miley talking about milk and the healthy benefits of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66kpdFhoDOU

Although Miley Cyrus does not know probably why milk is healthy for her, she does claim it is part of her daily work out routine in this commercial. The reason she was chosen as an endorser, was probably due to the fact of not only her popularity with children, but also her country background. This does not mean, however, she knows much about how milk is produced and knowledge about farming. I do feel the endorsement will help the Dairy industry due to the popularity of Miley Cyrus.

A Gourmet Meal by Andrew

Micheal Pollan in the book, In Defense of Food compares today's meals to those of one your grandma might have cooked. Nutritionism has changed what a meal looks like for a normal supper or dinner might look like. The main change is how the meal is prepared and how it is processed before it is sold. In your grandma's day, she would have probably prepared a meal for your family from scratch in her own kitchen. In contrast, today, many meals, especially fast food industry, are being prepared from processed meats and other products. I decided to prepare a meal, which I felt was more of a "grandma" meal.
The meal I choose to cook was a combination of biscuits and mashed potatoes. The ingrediants I purchased were from Carson's Carryout and Copps grocery store. To make the potatoes, I purchased two pounds of potatoes, one cup of half and half, 3 tablespoons of butter, salt and pepper. Using a recipe, I found on the internet, I cut and peeled the potatoes up and then cooked them. After adding salt, I cooked them until they were soft and then drained the water. I then set the stove on low heat while mashing them and adding the butter and the half and half.
To make the biscuits, I got two cups of sifted flour, two teaspoon of baking powder, four table spoons of butter, 1/2 of teaspoon of salt, and 3/4 of cup of milk. The first step of making the biscuits was to sift through the flour then add the baking powder and salt and sifted again. Add butter by mixing it in the flour and then add milk to soften the flour. I kneaded the dough into round shapes and cooked them for 12 minutes at 400 degrees. In the end, the potatoes turned out good, but the biscuits were very crumbly.
I believe that processed foods are not as bad as Pollan would make you believe, but do have a negative side. Preservatives can be hard on the digestive track. The meal I created made me feel like we may not need foods from preservatives, which could be unhealthier. However, I can see why people enjoy processed foods because it took a long time to make the meal from scratch, when I could have just popped something into the microwave. The article of "U.S.A.=Fast Food Nation," which can be found at http://www.puristat.com/standardamericandiet/processedfoods.aspx, agrees with me that preservatives in processed foods can be damaging by causing asthma, nausau, and vomiting. Overall, homecooked meals are probably more healthy for you, due to the lack of preservatives.

Why Defend Food?

"That food and eating stand in need of a defense might seem counterintuitive at a time when "overnutrition" is emerging as a more serious threat to public helth than undernutrition." (In Defense of Food, page 7)

"We are becoming a nation of orthorexics: people with an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating." (In Defense of Food, page 9)

In Defense of Food by Micheal Pollan was not only a best seller, but was also chosen as the book to be used at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Big Read program. This book is a follow up to An Omnivore's Dilemma and takes a look at Pollan's suggestion to fix America's eating problems.

Pollan starts off the book by asking the question why is food in need of defense? He describes America's eating problem is a lack of eating "food." He says supermarkets are selling "food" but also many other edible things in packages. Pollan attacks any food that has been packaged or processed. He also accuses any label that says anything is healthy or anything recommended by nutritionists.

The bases of Pollan's arguments revolve around the consumption of fats, especially Omega-3s. It was assumed by scientists that a low-fat diet would help protect against cancer, but may actually lead to heart disease. Heart disease is also said to be prevented by the consumption of Omega-3s and now scientist are trying to synthesis the fats as much as possible.

Pollan feels that food is in need of defense because scientists have broken down food to it's smallest particles and trying to make nutrition of the individual components of the food. To prove that "nutritionalism" is the problem, Pollan links all diet to disease and then says it is the scientist to blame.

The first four chapters are setting up Pollan's view of the diet in America today. He is positioning himself against scientists and mainstream advertising to prove his point of why food needs to be defended.