Hunger is in effect a systemic issue. Our media over simplifies it to a lack of food or resources when we must in-fact look at a broader system that changes how and why there is hunger in a world where we have enough food to feed everyone. There are an assortment of complex variables at play. First we see… Read more »
The two photos I chose from Peter Menzel’s Hungry Planet are significantly different from one another. Photo one shows the Revis family, mom, dad, and two teenage boys, in North Carolina, USA . They spend $342 on food for one week. We can see from the photo that their food consists of a lot of processed food and take out…. Read more »
The wide range of families and diets portrayed by Menzel and D’Alusio’s illustrate both the diversity in cultural foods, while also highlighting the wide spread disparities. When looking at the dietary contents of the various cultures, a striking number of cultures were consuming a lot of processed and pre-packaged foods, this was more prevalent in areas that would typically be… Read more »
Between the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO we begin the journey into acronym ladened globalization lead by the neoliberal policies of Bretton Woods. Although the intentions appeared to be in the best interest of the average person, with trade incentivizing countries to create ties rather than going to war. We began an era of subsidized and industrialized… Read more »
What is the real cost of cheap food? In Michael Carolan’s book, The Real Cost of Cheap Food, he tries to answer this question by explaining chapter by chapter what we lose when we consume “cheap” food (anything mass produced and sold as affordable to the working class.) Whether a country that produces cheap food or a human who consumes… Read more »
The average American citizen is overworked. Many people work full time (sometimes with more than one job), have family obligations, go to school, and attempt to have hobbies. All of this activity leaves little time to wonder about the food we are eating and the system we are contributing to when we make food choices. Many people leading this busy… Read more »
My breakfast this morning was made possible by globalization. Banana chocolate chip pancakes are a standard at my local diner, so it can be hard to imagine a time when they were considered exotic, with their Ecuadorian bananas and chocolate chips made from ingredients sourced in the Ivory Coast. But transcending the limits of local climes and growing seasons, global… Read more »
The Real Cost of Cheap Food has got me thinking about the hidden costs of “cheap food.” What may seem cheap in terms of the grocery bill total is truly quite the opposite. Thinking about this issue in terms of systems theory brings a sense of organization to such complex ideas. On a local scale, “cheap food” effects the healthcare… Read more »
The ecologic impact of land use regarding various parts of our lives is an important aspect of how we live on this planet. How the food we eat requires grazing land, and our usage of built up, energy, and forest land to provide ourselves housing makes a complex footprint that we create by living here. The supply chains and associated… Read more »
Small farming communities in developing nations struggle to survive in a global system built around cheap food. Farmers are competing against large “corporate” farms who have the ability to spend more, can sell production at a lower cost, and have access to technological resources. Systems, such as the government, influence the production, marketing, and success of small farms. For instance,… Read more »