Oral History Project
Originally, the Oral History Project wahttp://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php#s going to be a separate project but since we were pressed for time, the interviews became an essential part of the research conducted for the Collaborative Research Project.
Interview with Stay-at-Home Mom,
Jackie
Our first interview participant was Linsey's sister-in-law Jackie. Being a mother, Jackie is very conscious of the food she purchases and provides for her children. Jackie was raised on a hobby farm and she is very knowledgeable about produce and traditional farming practices. We received valuable information about naturally grown and cultivated food products and how they differ from the practices of industrial sized farms.
In addition to her information about farming practices, Jackie provided useful, practical advice for people interested in making the switch to Organic products, more interesting information on the benefits of organic food can be found here.
In addition to her information about farming practices, Jackie provided useful, practical advice for people interested in making the switch to Organic products, more interesting information on the benefits of organic food can be found here.
Part One of Jackie's Interview
Because of YouTube limitations, we have broken down the interview with Jackie into two parts, here is the first part of the interview. Linsey recorded and transferred the interview from a cassette tape to a CD and eventually to YouTube!
Part 2 of Jackie's Interview
Here is the second part of Jackie's interview!
Partial interview Transcription
In addition to producing the audio files and publishing them to YouTube, Linsey created our required 500 word transcription for the interview. Here Linsey has identified important moments in the interview and this is a great resource for someone not wanting to listen to the entire interview.
Part of Egg Conversation (at about 1:30):
Linsey: I know your dad and your grandfather did the chicken raising so what was that like?
Jackie: Well I guess the difference, the biggest difference---Chicken eggs are not white when they come out. I don’t really know the reason why they feel the need to bleach them before we get them.
Linsey: Explain more about that. I’m not really familiar with that.
Jackie: I’m actually not sure why they do that. It kinda scares me a little bit to even have to wonder why. I really don’t even know what the purpose is, but I know they scrub them and they bleach them because they all come out brown---at least I’ve never seen a chicken lay a white egg (chuckles).
(Laughter)
J: I don’t know. I could be wrong. But eggs, when they are fresh, always form a perfect circle when you put them in the frying pan and the yellows are really high. And if you crack an egg in a frying pan from the store, the yellow automatically breaks, and like the freshness, and the white should never run, which it always runs. So the freshness is definitely not there.
L: I did not know about that.
J: Yea, and I don’t know if the bleaching or anything like that has any type of preservative. I mean, I don’t know. I doubt it, but that’s why they run.
Megan: So I’m assuming that when you go to the supermarkets today, since you’re no longer living on a farm, you might buy eggs closer to what you used to get or--
J: Um…generally if our budget allows it, I’ll buy organic eggs, but it really just depends on our budget. There’s five of us. So depending on what that month looks like, financially speaking. Though, we prefer it be all natural or organic.
L: Is there any particular company that you tend to buy egg wise? Or what makes you pick one brand over another?
J: Not in eggs. I don’t actually know any particular brands. Generally for organic, there is only ever one selection, or there will be an all natural eggs that are range fed…
Part of Non-Organic Conversation (at about 14 minutes):
Megan: So the things that you buy that aren’t organic…are there more prestigious companies that you're buying? Cause like Perdue to me is like the big chicken company--
Jackie: Yea, um. Perdue is probably the only that I know of that actually advertises no hormones and no steroids. I’ve never seen Tyson actually advertise anything like that, and your store stuff is just your store stuff. I don’t really know where they get that from…..I forgot what your question was (chuckles).
M: Like the brands for the products that aren’t organic. I’m just curious like what non-organic brands you buy.
J: Um, for bread we buy Arnold’s or Nature’s Pride---
Linsey: But even that has some natural advertising--
J: They are advertised for natural. They don’t have high-fructose corn syrup in their bread. And almost all bread companies have high-fructose corn syrup.
L: So you said that was Arn--
J: Arnolds’ and Nature’s Pride.
My Reflection after the Interview With Jackie
Since Jackie is Linsey's sister-in-law, I felt more comfortable participating in this interview. I was worried about interviewing a complete stranger the first time I interviewed anyone! I was very surprised how much valuable information we got from Jackie and I really enjoyed the experience. I was also concerned about the actual recording of the interview but Linsey's trusted tape-recorder captured all the action!
Interview with Manager at
Natural Health Food Store,
Kate
Unfortunately, our second interview did not end up being as successful as the first. During the interview, our participant was enthusiastic about the experience and was completely willing to share her insight and her experiences. However, after the interview, she felt very uncomfortable about her story being shared online. Linsey were able to extract this brief transcription from the interview which our participant allowed us to share.
Partial Interview Transcription
(Produced by Linsey)
Section 1:
Linsey: Um…what kinds of things did you eat growing up? Like what was…did you always kinda grow up in the organic side of things?
Kate: No, I grew up in the 50s and 60s, so honestly we just had standard food. There wasn’t—I mean Swanson TV dinners were the big excitement.
L: (chuckles) Right.
K: There really wasn’t organic—organic was actually not in households at that time. It really wasn’t. It was…there were stores like Martindale’s and some of the original health food stores in cities, but you weren’t really finding that in households. I grew up with regular food into the 60s where packaged products, like Poptarts probably just came out and convenience foods were just coming out. So I had a very clean diet until like later 60s when the junk food revolution kinda started. But then I found my way when I was in high school. I started eating a lot of fruits and vegetables on my own. And I would cook on a school night maybe some of my own food, because my whole family then had found convenience foods.
L: Right, exactly.
Section 2:
L: Um…So would you say your food lifestyle and choices have drastically changed since working at the store—Did you see--
K: Yes, yes.
L: Okay. How so?
K: Well, I got an education. I was coming into this just eating a lot of fruit and wheat germ and whatnot, and not really understanding nutrition. I knew I wanted to eat clean, but working for all these years in the industry has been an education. So, I’ve actually eaten all kinds of diets. I was strict vegetarian, then I ate raw foods for a while. So it was really learning about stuff and trying it out.
L: How was the raw foods? Because that’s something I wanna know more about, but I never—
K: Ya’ know it was great. When I did the raw foods, it was in the 80s and there were no prepared meals. If you look out in our deli case right now there’s raw foods and stuff. I used to just make my own stuff, and it’s a lot of time chewing (chuckles). I did it for a while. I probably did it for about a year. I started over a winter time, and I was very cold that winter.
L: Right
K: Because I was just eating raw fruits and veggies. I wasn’t getting all the nutrition I needed, but I felt great. My energy level was high, but I was cold. But it’s good. If you can keep up with it, it’s good. If you’re someone that’s on the go, it’s not always practical.
L: Cause it’s a lot of preparation.
K: It makes ya’ feel good. Definitely.
Section 3:
L: Um…what’s one of your favorite companies here? I know you guys have a lot, obviously, but what’s a good one that you have worked with a lot over the years?
K: A lot of the companies have gone conglomerate. Some of my favorites were smaller companies and I understand because times get tough and they're bought by other companies. Some of the companies that I believe are still individually owned, Amy’s--
L: Okay. I think I’ve heard of them.
K: —is still a family run business. I believe the Lundberg company and Eden foods. I think they’re still just original companies—
L: Themselves…
Section 4:
L: Honestly, when the store was smaller, the owner and I were very selective about what we were bringing in. And we were trying to keep things more geared just for health food or our industry, but it seems that it’s dictated more by the customer these days.
Um…we have so many customers that are gluten free that we personally are not necessarily picking the product we want to carry—it’s what we need to have in. So it’s changed a lot. We used to just choose what we wanted maybe for quality, purity, price, but we don’t have that option anymore.
L: Right. That’s interesting.
Linsey: Um…what kinds of things did you eat growing up? Like what was…did you always kinda grow up in the organic side of things?
Kate: No, I grew up in the 50s and 60s, so honestly we just had standard food. There wasn’t—I mean Swanson TV dinners were the big excitement.
L: (chuckles) Right.
K: There really wasn’t organic—organic was actually not in households at that time. It really wasn’t. It was…there were stores like Martindale’s and some of the original health food stores in cities, but you weren’t really finding that in households. I grew up with regular food into the 60s where packaged products, like Poptarts probably just came out and convenience foods were just coming out. So I had a very clean diet until like later 60s when the junk food revolution kinda started. But then I found my way when I was in high school. I started eating a lot of fruits and vegetables on my own. And I would cook on a school night maybe some of my own food, because my whole family then had found convenience foods.
L: Right, exactly.
Section 2:
L: Um…So would you say your food lifestyle and choices have drastically changed since working at the store—Did you see--
K: Yes, yes.
L: Okay. How so?
K: Well, I got an education. I was coming into this just eating a lot of fruit and wheat germ and whatnot, and not really understanding nutrition. I knew I wanted to eat clean, but working for all these years in the industry has been an education. So, I’ve actually eaten all kinds of diets. I was strict vegetarian, then I ate raw foods for a while. So it was really learning about stuff and trying it out.
L: How was the raw foods? Because that’s something I wanna know more about, but I never—
K: Ya’ know it was great. When I did the raw foods, it was in the 80s and there were no prepared meals. If you look out in our deli case right now there’s raw foods and stuff. I used to just make my own stuff, and it’s a lot of time chewing (chuckles). I did it for a while. I probably did it for about a year. I started over a winter time, and I was very cold that winter.
L: Right
K: Because I was just eating raw fruits and veggies. I wasn’t getting all the nutrition I needed, but I felt great. My energy level was high, but I was cold. But it’s good. If you can keep up with it, it’s good. If you’re someone that’s on the go, it’s not always practical.
L: Cause it’s a lot of preparation.
K: It makes ya’ feel good. Definitely.
Section 3:
L: Um…what’s one of your favorite companies here? I know you guys have a lot, obviously, but what’s a good one that you have worked with a lot over the years?
K: A lot of the companies have gone conglomerate. Some of my favorites were smaller companies and I understand because times get tough and they're bought by other companies. Some of the companies that I believe are still individually owned, Amy’s--
L: Okay. I think I’ve heard of them.
K: —is still a family run business. I believe the Lundberg company and Eden foods. I think they’re still just original companies—
L: Themselves…
Section 4:
L: Honestly, when the store was smaller, the owner and I were very selective about what we were bringing in. And we were trying to keep things more geared just for health food or our industry, but it seems that it’s dictated more by the customer these days.
Um…we have so many customers that are gluten free that we personally are not necessarily picking the product we want to carry—it’s what we need to have in. So it’s changed a lot. We used to just choose what we wanted maybe for quality, purity, price, but we don’t have that option anymore.
L: Right. That’s interesting.
Reflection after Second Interview
Honestly, this interview turned out to be really disappointing overall. The original interview contained much more information than presented here but because of Kate's concerns about it being published on our website, we were limited to reproducing only a small portion of the interview. After the positive experience interviewing Jackie, I had high expectations for the second one as well.