My toddler son loves raisins. They’re in the local, organic, gluten-free granola he eats every morning. He often picks out every one with his index finger and thumb, savoring (inhaling) them with a huge smile on his face before begrudgingly eating the reminder of his oats once he’s exhausted the daily raisin supply. I keep a jar of organic California… 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 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 »
The virtual water footprint of agriculture products is outstanding. What is virtual water? It is the total amount of water used to produce that product. Agricultural uses about 70% of the global water consumption and it takes 125 liters of water to produce just one apple. But did you know that water on crop farms is not just used for… Read more »
In The Real Cost of Cheap Food, Michael Carolan argues that “free trade is rarely fair” for smallholder farmers competing in the globalized food marketplace. The Fair Trade movement has risen in the last decade as a means of leveling the playing field for the developing world in trade relations. Seattle’s Theo Chocolate is a Fair Trade, bean-to-bar chocolate maker… Read more »
Despite receiving some criticism on his book “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto”, Michael Pollan is quite passionate about the stance he has taken about food, nutrition, and the Western diet. Pollan points directly to unhealthy behaviors that many of us, to include myself, are guilty of, yet provides a straightforward solution. He says to, “Eat food. Not too… Read more »
The root of our consumption of processed foods leads us back to our historic drive to consume sugar, salt, and fats, in order to sustain ourselves in an environment that was characterized by scarcity. Although globally we still have a staggering problem with hunger and malnutrition, in developed and food stable developing nations we no longer have the same scarcity… Read more »