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March- Eat, Pray, Love

4/4

Eat, Pray, Love is a novel written by Elizabeth Gilbert about her path to rediscovering herself on her own terms. After realizing that she was living an unfulfilling life by her standards, she experienced a painful divorce from her husband and the process left her feeling lost. Gilbert set off on a year-long adventure in pursuit of pleasure, devotion, and balance by immersing herself into a foreign culture and experience for four months each in Italy, India, and Indonesia. 

Gilbert pursued pleasure in Italy through food. She had lost weight during the divorce process due to depression and during her time in Italy, was able to experience food in a healthy way again. Gilbert then pursued devotion in India by staying in an Ashram, where she attempted to learn how to pray and meditate properly. This proved to be especially hard for the American, mind moving in a million different directions, type of person. Finally, she pursued balance in Bali, Indonesia, where she visited and learned from a medicine man daily. Gilbert learned about Balinese culture and ended up meeting her future second husband, Felipe, in this location. She worked to combine her Indian meditation with the Balinese prayers to find balance within. After the year was over, Gilbert had rediscovered pleasure, devotion, and balance along with finding the new love of her life in the process.

Things learned from this book:

Countless Latin derived languages morphed into a few in Europe, when the dialect of the most prominent city became the accepted language of the region. However, in Italy, the 16th century intellectuals combined dialects to create modern Italian inspired by Florentine poet Dante. This is why Italian is thought to be such a romantic and whimsical language.

Yoga is sanskrit for union and when one practice yoga, they are finding union between the body and the mind. Ancients developed this practice to loosen muscles and prepare for meditation.

Prayer is speaking to God. Meditation is the act of listening.

Balinese culture is centered around traditions and cultures. Balinese people have one of four names (translated to 1-4th child) and believe that four invisible brothers protect you throughout life. Balinese babies are regarded as gods sent straight from heaven until the ceremony at 6 months that welcomes them to the human race.

[readingthroughtime2022]

February- Eating Animals

5/5

Eating Animals is a thought-provoking narrative on the modern meat farming industry. This is not an argument for vegetarianism, but rather presents the information in favor of family farming and the catastrophic issues with factory farming. Humans are animals that eat animals and over time, the industry has evolved into one with fatal and unsustainable flaws. 

Arguments against factory farming include both obvious and more complicated consequences of the practice. The obvious argument includes animal cruelty. As we all know, majority of animals in America are not raised or slaughtered using human methods. The more indirect arguments include world hunger, drug resistance, decreased biodiversity, economic monopolies, and unsustainable genetics. This industry wastes water and grain resources that could be utilized to help address world hunger. Antibiotics are used to keep the animals alive, which has led to resistance and new diseases being introduced to humans through consumption. Bycatch waste in the ocean (unintended animals accidentally caught and killed during the process) decreases biodiversity and affects the ecosystem. Factory farms eliminate family farmers and jobs, which creates monopolies and hurts the overall economy. Finally, animals have been genetically modified to grow quickly and large for more profit. This has created unsustainable genetics and a dependence on the process as these animals cannot survive independently anymore.

Arguments for family farming address the issues stemmed from factory farming. Less animal cruelty is seen as families have better relationships with their animals and treat them more humanely. Crops and grass can fuel the animals and animal waste becomes fertilizers for the land, making it a sustainable process that does not waste resources like factory farming does. Family farms provide more space and less antibiotics, which prevents diseases from spreading as easily to humans. Family farming creates more jobs to spread the wealth and prevent monopolies from controlling the market. Finally, this industry produces animals that can reproduce and perform basic functions due to less genetic modifications and breeding, which promotes a more sustainable industry that can be used to feed America for years to come.

Food for thought:

Factory farming externalizes “cost” to consumers and disconnects us from our food.

Taste seems to be the only sense that exempts us from ethical rules.

The average cost of animal protein has barely increased over time compared to the cost of other industry products.

When converted, it requires 6-26 calories fed to the animal to produce 1 calorie of meat for human consumption.

There is a difference between animal rights and animal welfare.

[readingthroughtime2022]

January- The Return

3/5

Trevor returns to his hometown of New Bern, North Carolina after his grandfather passes away in a hospital located hours away from his home. With plans to fix up his grandfather's house and put it on the market, Trevor begins renovating the place and tending to the apiary. Among many new acquaintances made while in town, Natalie and Callie are the two most notable. Natalie becomes Trevor's love interest and Callie is a young girl with a mysterious connection to Trevor's grandfather. However, Natalie's seemingly never-ending tie to her husband and Callie's reluctance to share important information with Trevor get in the way. In the end, Trevor discovers that his grandfather had grown to care for Callie and was making the trip to her hometown to find her family that she had run away from years earlier, explaining his death in a far away hospital. Trevor helps to reason with Callie, who makes amends with her family in the end. Years later, Trevor returns to New Bern for a wedding and reconnects with Natalie, whose husband has since passed away due his chronic health condition. The story ends with the reader assuming that these two are able to pick up right where they left off.

Things learned from this book:

New Bern, NC is the home of Pepsi Cola.

An apiary is a collection of beehives.

Bees live a very short, yet organized life. Normal bees live a few months, whereas the queen bee lives for a few years. Bees all have a specific task, such as collecting nectar, serving as guards, etc. Most bees are female whereas few are males, which are known as drones. The queen bee mates with drones before coming back to the hive to lay eggs for life.

Honey is made by bees passing nectar from mouth to mouth to lower moisture content.

Honey tastes different depending on location because the bees collet nectar from different plants. Clover honey is most popular.