Stronger than steel, the book of spiders...

The book, Stronger Than Steel, is about how spider silk can be beneficial to our society by replacing certain tools and objects we use with spider silk, which, hence the name, is stronger than steel. The book is also about a reporter's (the narrator) journey around the country to find out more about spider silk. Along the way, he finds spider goats, transgenic silk worms, and lots and lots of spiders. He also helps the reader (me) realize the importance of spider silk, which can replace ligaments, fishing lines, bullet proof vests, and even sutures and stitches. So don't kill spiders, they could probably save your life one day!

 This is the golden orb spider(above), and it's silk is five times stronger than steel. It is also roughly 8 times less heavy than it. This arachnid is female, only females spin silk. What this book shows you is how spiders live their lives. It shows that spiders have silk to help them. It also gives ideas as to harness spider silk to improve a variety of tools like bullet proof vests, fishing rods, and arrest lines that help airplanes land easier. These reprised tools are especially important because the silk could be much more helpful and useful than any of the current materials used to this effect. Yet the book also portrays to the reader(again me), that it is extremely difficult to attain this high amount of the golden orb spider silk. In the Natural History Museum, There is a woven piece of golden orb spider silk. It is only 3 feet by 3 feet, but it still took the tremendous amount of time to collect it all by more than 50 searchers. It took 8 years to find enough silk to supply that piece.This shows that there is not enough of it to really use it, but scientists are always finding new ways to extract them. All in all, the book Stronger Than Steel explains how spiders can be beneficial to the society and help us, and how useful spiders really are. That put a close to the book, Stronger Than Steel.

The Omnivore's Dilemma - What is it and how can you Solve it?

THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA: THE SECRETS BEHIND WHAT YOU EAT

How did our food get here? Where did it come from? Well, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan tells you all about the food that is on your plate, and its journey through the food chain. When you eat your breakfast lunch and dinner do you know exactly how it got onto your plate? Michael Pollan does a great job on telling us what the omnivore's dilemma is, and how we can solve it. The omnivore's dilemma is wondering what you should eat since we have a wide range of food from all over the world. The book is split into four parts: From fast food and big organic to small farms and old-fashioned hunting and gathering. 

The Omnivore's Dilemma
The Secrets Behind What You Eat

He contrasts between a factory farm with non organic non grass fed animals, and a real grass organic family farm that doesn't even ship their food because they believe it's not moral or healthy. In the beginning of the book, he begins by talking about corn. He states that cows, who are natural grass eating animals, are forced to eat corn and other parts of slaughtered cows bodies (beef tallow). He tells us that there is so much corn in our food that you don't even realize. "Of the thirty-eight ingredients it takes to make a McNugget, I counted thirteen that can be derived from corn." He goes to the Naylor farm which is an industrial farm that grows only corn. It shows how when the amount corn grown goes up, the price for it goes down. So for farmers like George Naylor, it is hard to make money. The Naylor farm finds it hard to get by, so they need jobs outside of the farm so they can actually have food on there plate. They are a monoculture (they only grow one crop) so they don't grow food that they can make into meals.


For industrial chickens, they have terrible living conditions. They keep at least 20,000 broiler chickens in huge sheds like in the picture below. For "free-range" chickens, they must be able to go outside right? "The door remains firmly shut until the birds are at least five weeks old. By that time they are so used to the shed that none of them go outside. And then all of them are slaughtered two weeks later."
Factory-Farmed Chickens

These are the chickens' living conditions

This book has definitely changed my perspective with food - it has made me curious as to what the food around me is made of, and all the other components that gets it onto my plate. Before I read this book, I thought that some animals had terrible conditions and lived a cruel life. But not until I read this book did I realize how bad they really were. It is a unique book that is like no other I have ever read. Michael Pollan is truely amazing at writing books that affect me and the food industry. I recommend this book to anyone and everyone who cares about what they eat, and where it came from. 

 Other Books by Michael Pollan