Food is life. Nonetheless, 25% of global food production is traded internationally like any other commodity. This huge movement of food comes with consequences. Trade liberalization can disrupt the economy of a developing country in many ways, but especially by disadvantaging domestic farming by importing cheap food from more developed nations where agriculture is more industrialized. Consider peasant farmers… Read more »
In conducting research for my Food Solutions Essay, A Globalized Western Diet, and the Subtle Brilliance of Japan’s School Lunch Program, I found myself amazed by the uniqueness of the Japanese school lunch program and deeply inspired by its success in affecting diet-related health outcomes. I want to share a brief excerpt from my paper, which outlines the program in… Read more »
With all the factors that influence climate change and the perception that individual choices have marginal effect in the grand scheme of things, it’s understandable why the issue of climate change seems to be constantly swept under the rug. In northern regions where contributions to global warming have been significant, the impacts felt thus far have been minimal enabling us… Read more »
As a global issue with complex causality, hunger is a challenge that shapes our collective experience. From hunger we see a ripple of social, political, economic, and environmental implications for the world and our place in it. Systemic global hunger is indicative of broken systems, human and ecological – inequality, political instability, the social cost of international trade, climate change,… Read more »
In Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, Peter Menzel captures the effects of our changing world in ways that words cannot. Significant cultural and economic patterns emerge throughout the collection of photographs. Industrialization, globalization, and international trade continue to influence culture, food practices, health, and consumption behavior at the local level. The effects of globalization among families in affluent countries… Read more »
Taking a look at Peter Menzel’s online Hungry Planet gallery , a photographic essay on the dietary habits of families all around the world… Making a side-by-side comparison of the food cultures of the two contrasting countries, Germany (an affluent one) & Chad (a developing one), stirs up a plethora of heavy economic, political, and social subject matter and disparities simply… Read more »
Peter Menzel’s Hungry Planet depicts the various dietary and health lifestyles choices from various families around the globe. The Western diet, generally consisting of red meats, refined grains, processed foods, high fat and sugar content, as well as large food chains such as McDonalds have become popular making its way to countries like Japan, but not so much in countries… Read more »
Many people care about keeping their house clean. We always think of ways to improve our quality of our home. People care about what is happening in their house. Most of us would be offended if someone came into our homes and made a mess. In the film, Anthropocene, watching the Earth from outer space allowed us to stop, take… Read more »
The interconnectedness of the topics discussed in the course thus far offer a thought provoking global view on the future of the human species on Earth. The issues of populations growth, the recognition of the impact that we have on our ecosystem, the global food system, and the water and ecological footprint we are leaving on our planet, are huge… Read more »
The unsustainable course of human evolution over the past century and a half has been driven on by an overarching, undeniable domination of market mentality that pervades all areas of life, including the stuff of our very sustenance: food. The expectation, or even faith, that a market can regulate itself, correct itself, and provide its own checks and balances is… Read more »