Back To The Book

Prologue
     Mary starts off the book talking about her own beginnings discovering the digestive track. She recalls the experience of her curiosity at her first exposure to the system in fifth grade through a plastic model. She goes on to describe the track in much detail and through the use of many metaphors, comparing the "farthest reaches of the digestive track" to a "waste management facility" (17 Roach). She ends the prologue by directly telling the readers what she wants them to get from the book- a voluntary education and a sparked interest.

NOSE JOB
     In this chapter Mary outlines the importance of smell to taste. I personally experience with this idea previously through experiment at a children's museum (to be fallowed up by some of my own) where we were to eat something without smell and then repeating with it. It did in fact change the intensity of flavor. Mary also introduces the industry of refined smell and tasting in olive oil and alcohol world. A fact that I find very interesting is that more expensive wines may taste worse than less expensive ones, but are still thought to be better because of their price. This fact shows how our opinions may be based on ego instead of genuine quality.

I'LL HAVE THE PUTRESCINE
     The second chapter is about pet food and focuses on the conflict between what owners want and what pets want. This is mostly due to the owner's assumption that the pets are like them, when they really aren't. One example is cat's food. Owners may believe that cats like a variety of food just like humans, but in actuality, they like to only stick to one taste or  food. One way to solve this though is palatants. They are the flavored compounds that let the animal willingly eat anything. Again, smell is brought into the picture, especially for the dogs.