Drinking to Save The Planet
“After A Long Day of Fighting Climate Change, This Grain Is Ready For A Beer,” by Alastair Bland, is an article about a grain called Kernza. Perennial crops like Kernza are better for the environment because they grow year-round, so farmers don’t have to plow up their land and replant it every year. “Plowing causes soil erosion and also lets carbon in the ground escape into the atmosphere — a major source of global warming. Kernza's long roots, which may plunge 10 to 20 feet underground, holds the soil together and at the same time allows the plant to find its own water rather than depend entirely on irrigation.” (Bland) Kernza can be used pretty much anywhere wheat or barley is used: beer, bread, whiskey etc. Despite the pitfalls associated with Kernza, for example, it’s lower yields and smaller kernel size that makes it impossible to mill with normal equipment, Christian Ettinger thinks it is worth the challenge. He says “it will be a huge victory to replace some of the annual grains in the beer industry with perennials.” While he might be right, perennials might be significantly superior, but replacing “some,” of the annual crops might not be good enough.
Mark Hertsgaard might have you feeling foolish for being hopeful that perennial crops can save us after reading his article “How to Feed the World After Climate Change.” Hertsgaard worries that his 7-year-old daughter may someday be unable to bake a birthday cake for her daughter the way he did for her. He says that “scientists are already warning that chocolate and wheat (the raw material for flower) will become harder to grow as temperature and rainfall patterns are disrupted.” As pessimistic as it sounds, we might be too late to save ourselves from the consequences of life as we know it today. “Over the next 50 years, climate change will transform the world in ways we gave only begun to imagine.” (Hertsgaard, p.1)
Barbara Kingsolver sends a similar message in “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” telling us that “our jet-age dependence on petroleum to feed our faces is a limited-time-only proposition.” (Kingsolver, p.21) She pivots the emphasis toward fossil-fuel used in growing, making, and especially transporting the food we eat. Kingsolver advocates that a bigger change is necessary (and plausible) for humans to redeem themselves and get on better terms with the planet they rely on. Her book is about the benefits of a food culture that “is an affinity between people and the land that feeds them.” (Kingsolver, p.21) This includes growing crops like Kernza that are better for the environment, but also means patterning our diets around the seasons and the resources in our local habitat.
It is easy to be discouraged when looking at agriculture and climate change, but awareness and concern are growing, and people are shifting toward changing their ways. If general environmental concern and stewardship continue to be “hip,” like in the case of the “locavore” movement, who knows what we can accomplish? Replacing wheat with Kernza won’t save us from climate change but it is a step in the right direction.
Mark Hertsgaard might have you feeling foolish for being hopeful that perennial crops can save us after reading his article “How to Feed the World After Climate Change.” Hertsgaard worries that his 7-year-old daughter may someday be unable to bake a birthday cake for her daughter the way he did for her. He says that “scientists are already warning that chocolate and wheat (the raw material for flower) will become harder to grow as temperature and rainfall patterns are disrupted.” As pessimistic as it sounds, we might be too late to save ourselves from the consequences of life as we know it today. “Over the next 50 years, climate change will transform the world in ways we gave only begun to imagine.” (Hertsgaard, p.1)
Barbara Kingsolver sends a similar message in “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” telling us that “our jet-age dependence on petroleum to feed our faces is a limited-time-only proposition.” (Kingsolver, p.21) She pivots the emphasis toward fossil-fuel used in growing, making, and especially transporting the food we eat. Kingsolver advocates that a bigger change is necessary (and plausible) for humans to redeem themselves and get on better terms with the planet they rely on. Her book is about the benefits of a food culture that “is an affinity between people and the land that feeds them.” (Kingsolver, p.21) This includes growing crops like Kernza that are better for the environment, but also means patterning our diets around the seasons and the resources in our local habitat.
It is easy to be discouraged when looking at agriculture and climate change, but awareness and concern are growing, and people are shifting toward changing their ways. If general environmental concern and stewardship continue to be “hip,” like in the case of the “locavore” movement, who knows what we can accomplish? Replacing wheat with Kernza won’t save us from climate change but it is a step in the right direction.
McStyle
"From Slow Food to Slow Fashion," is an article on the "slow fashion," movement, and specifically Maria Rodale's story about how buying clothes that are better for the environment can make you feel good inside and out. She talks about Patagonia, a company that combats the McDonaldization of fashion by putting an emphasis on quality over quantity. McDonaldized fashion would have it the other way. Two of the four principles of McDonaldization as stated in George Ritzer's, "The McDonaldization of Society," are efficiency and calculability (the other two being predictability and control). Coupled with calculability, efficiency in this model pushes companies toward valuing quantity over quality. Maria wants us to strive for the opposite, not only when we eat, as is the case with "slow food," but when we dress. McDonaldization or the optimization of a company or industry to be more efficient, calculable, predictable, and controlled, has taken over almost every aspect of our lives. It harms not only our individuality, but the environment, among so many other things.
McDonaldization of farms is one of the worst cases of its impact on the environment. This move to hyper-efficient mega-farms is a result of what Ritzer calls "vertical McDonaldization," where "the demands of the fast-food industry," have forced the farms to upscale and increase production in a process mimicking that of fast food in order to provide it. This Farm-McDonaldization is terrible not only for the environment but for the migrant farmers who work on them. Migrant farmers, as described in Traci McMillan's "American Way of Eating," work under tough conditions for incredibly low wages. In the name of efficiency and calculability, large McDonaldized farms employ undocumented or migrant workers because they can pay them very little.
Rodale urges us to "slow down for a bit," and "think about what [we] wear and where [we] buy," keeping the "migrant workers" of the fashion world in mind. McDonaldized clothes are made "around the world, [by] low-paid laborers (often working in horrific conditions)." While an Alternative Apparel organic-cotton shirt, might cost more than a "fast fashion" one from H&M, we can feel better wearing it knowing that when it was made "pesticides weren't sprayed, people weren't overworked and underpaid, water wasn't wasted, and toxic dyes weren't leaked into nature. Bottom line: Slow fashion feels good. Inside and out."
McDonaldization of farms is one of the worst cases of its impact on the environment. This move to hyper-efficient mega-farms is a result of what Ritzer calls "vertical McDonaldization," where "the demands of the fast-food industry," have forced the farms to upscale and increase production in a process mimicking that of fast food in order to provide it. This Farm-McDonaldization is terrible not only for the environment but for the migrant farmers who work on them. Migrant farmers, as described in Traci McMillan's "American Way of Eating," work under tough conditions for incredibly low wages. In the name of efficiency and calculability, large McDonaldized farms employ undocumented or migrant workers because they can pay them very little.
Rodale urges us to "slow down for a bit," and "think about what [we] wear and where [we] buy," keeping the "migrant workers" of the fashion world in mind. McDonaldized clothes are made "around the world, [by] low-paid laborers (often working in horrific conditions)." While an Alternative Apparel organic-cotton shirt, might cost more than a "fast fashion" one from H&M, we can feel better wearing it knowing that when it was made "pesticides weren't sprayed, people weren't overworked and underpaid, water wasn't wasted, and toxic dyes weren't leaked into nature. Bottom line: Slow fashion feels good. Inside and out."
Teen Hunger
Skipping Meals, Joining Gangs: How Teens Cope Without Enough Food At Home
For this installment of "News in Food" I read an article about "How Teens Cope Without Enough Food At Home." In this article Natalie Jacewicz cites examples of case studies where teenagers avoided getting food from official programs by staying with friends who have plenty of food at home, dating older better off people, and even trading sex for meals. Jacewicz explains how teens represent a gap in state programs and aren't as easy to help as younger kids. She documents the general results of 20 focus groups from all over the country made up of teens from low-income families. They discovered two main challenges to helping at-risk teens. A lot of the programs that help younger kids aren't available to teens; and Teens often aren't even taking advantage of these programs where they are available because they are more aware of the stigma associated with accepting assistance from these types of programs. Much like the families documented in Joan Gross and Nancy Rosenberger's essay on "The Double Binds of Getting Food among the Poor in Rural Oregon," the teens in these 20 focus groups put value on the cultural capital that comes from being able to provide for yourself.
Gross and Rosenberger's essay also writes about how "children and investment in children represent [an] important form of cultural capital." (p.61) The importance placed on children having enough to eat is also a contributing factor to high rates of hunger among teens. Most government food programs, especially the ones provided at or during school, target younger kids. The attention of the aid programs aimed at children, but the focus of the families may also be on younger family members. The study documented in the article found that teens themselves may be giving up their meals from aid programs to their little brothers or sisters. Both by stigmatizing food programs, and prioritizing children's food needs, cultural restraints play a big role in teen hunger.
Culture can also have other more far reaching implications on the issue of food security. The teens surveyed in this study often live in areas commonly referred to as food deserts. While more food programs at school for teenaged kids can help solve the problem "better and more accessible grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods would also help," says Lanarion Norwood. (How Teens Cope Without Enough Food At Home) Solving the problem of food deserts is one that has been heavily debated and also relates hugely to the issue of teen hunger in this case. As described in "Bringing Good Good to Others: Investigating the Subjects of Alternative Food Practice," by Julie Guthman, programs that work to help feed healthy meals to people living in food deserts are not typically, well received. Guthman describes how her students would report back feeling disappointed and discouraged after spending time helping in operations dedicated to getting 'good' food to people with little access to fresh or healthy foods. Culturally these programs can be seen as "white spaces," or places where white's try to bring in or dictate the types of foods they think the people in these neighborhoods should be eating. (431) Increasing the number of discounted farmers markets or other farm-to-table programs in these neighborhoods is viewed as one culture or social class influencing what types of foods should be favored by another, and is thusly not well received.
Both teen hunger and food deserts are problems that are influenced by broader cultural contexts. Solving these problems might be less about access and more about stigma, race, and cultural capital.
For this installment of "News in Food" I read an article about "How Teens Cope Without Enough Food At Home." In this article Natalie Jacewicz cites examples of case studies where teenagers avoided getting food from official programs by staying with friends who have plenty of food at home, dating older better off people, and even trading sex for meals. Jacewicz explains how teens represent a gap in state programs and aren't as easy to help as younger kids. She documents the general results of 20 focus groups from all over the country made up of teens from low-income families. They discovered two main challenges to helping at-risk teens. A lot of the programs that help younger kids aren't available to teens; and Teens often aren't even taking advantage of these programs where they are available because they are more aware of the stigma associated with accepting assistance from these types of programs. Much like the families documented in Joan Gross and Nancy Rosenberger's essay on "The Double Binds of Getting Food among the Poor in Rural Oregon," the teens in these 20 focus groups put value on the cultural capital that comes from being able to provide for yourself.
Gross and Rosenberger's essay also writes about how "children and investment in children represent [an] important form of cultural capital." (p.61) The importance placed on children having enough to eat is also a contributing factor to high rates of hunger among teens. Most government food programs, especially the ones provided at or during school, target younger kids. The attention of the aid programs aimed at children, but the focus of the families may also be on younger family members. The study documented in the article found that teens themselves may be giving up their meals from aid programs to their little brothers or sisters. Both by stigmatizing food programs, and prioritizing children's food needs, cultural restraints play a big role in teen hunger.
Culture can also have other more far reaching implications on the issue of food security. The teens surveyed in this study often live in areas commonly referred to as food deserts. While more food programs at school for teenaged kids can help solve the problem "better and more accessible grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods would also help," says Lanarion Norwood. (How Teens Cope Without Enough Food At Home) Solving the problem of food deserts is one that has been heavily debated and also relates hugely to the issue of teen hunger in this case. As described in "Bringing Good Good to Others: Investigating the Subjects of Alternative Food Practice," by Julie Guthman, programs that work to help feed healthy meals to people living in food deserts are not typically, well received. Guthman describes how her students would report back feeling disappointed and discouraged after spending time helping in operations dedicated to getting 'good' food to people with little access to fresh or healthy foods. Culturally these programs can be seen as "white spaces," or places where white's try to bring in or dictate the types of foods they think the people in these neighborhoods should be eating. (431) Increasing the number of discounted farmers markets or other farm-to-table programs in these neighborhoods is viewed as one culture or social class influencing what types of foods should be favored by another, and is thusly not well received.
Both teen hunger and food deserts are problems that are influenced by broader cultural contexts. Solving these problems might be less about access and more about stigma, race, and cultural capital.
Farm Grown Genius
Embodiment of Grit': How Children Of Farm Workers Became Tech Professionals
Andy Matsui, wanted to help the type of people who helped his farm, so he started an intensive program that gets kids a four-year degree in tech in three years. The program has been running, very successfully, for three years and has helped land the first graduating class jobs with big-name tech companies like Uber and Google. Another good portion of the students excepted jobs in the agriculture industry, though. For example Jose Diaz and Monse Hernandez, took an internship at local agriculture company HeavyConnect to create software to help farmers with administrative tasks. These kids are smart, but they're still farmers. Programs like this one could be so beneficial to farm owners. Nobody knows more or cares more about working to improve the way that a farm runs, and make it more efficient than kids who grew up on farms. Although Programs like this one aren't that common because for some reason the idea of helping their farmers to help themselves is lost on most farm owners.
There is incredible potential there. These are the types of people that work all day long in fields doing incredibly physical and tedious labor and have energy left over to be excited about learning in their meantime. They are eager to better their condition, but also that of the farm. Like the woman that Tracy McMillan writes about in her book American Way of Eating, Pilar, who asks Tracy to teach her English and helps Tracy learn how to cut and package grapes neatly and quickly in her time on the grape farm. (p.19) There's not only an incredible potential here for learning, but also a plethora of cultural influence and background. Like the families interviewed in "The Pull of Pollo: How the Chicken Industry Transformed One Arkansas Town," they bring ethnic activity, food, and culture to towns previously void of such excitement. A cultural influence that, in the case of Springdale Arkansas, is welcomed and enjoyed by the local communities. The educated farm kids graduating from this program stand at a unique vantage point, one that gives them the ability to innovate and help the community's they hail from in really powerful ways. They have a foot in the latino community, the world of agriculture, and now the landscape of the tech industry. With more programs like this one who knows what could be accomplished.
Andy Matsui, wanted to help the type of people who helped his farm, so he started an intensive program that gets kids a four-year degree in tech in three years. The program has been running, very successfully, for three years and has helped land the first graduating class jobs with big-name tech companies like Uber and Google. Another good portion of the students excepted jobs in the agriculture industry, though. For example Jose Diaz and Monse Hernandez, took an internship at local agriculture company HeavyConnect to create software to help farmers with administrative tasks. These kids are smart, but they're still farmers. Programs like this one could be so beneficial to farm owners. Nobody knows more or cares more about working to improve the way that a farm runs, and make it more efficient than kids who grew up on farms. Although Programs like this one aren't that common because for some reason the idea of helping their farmers to help themselves is lost on most farm owners.
There is incredible potential there. These are the types of people that work all day long in fields doing incredibly physical and tedious labor and have energy left over to be excited about learning in their meantime. They are eager to better their condition, but also that of the farm. Like the woman that Tracy McMillan writes about in her book American Way of Eating, Pilar, who asks Tracy to teach her English and helps Tracy learn how to cut and package grapes neatly and quickly in her time on the grape farm. (p.19) There's not only an incredible potential here for learning, but also a plethora of cultural influence and background. Like the families interviewed in "The Pull of Pollo: How the Chicken Industry Transformed One Arkansas Town," they bring ethnic activity, food, and culture to towns previously void of such excitement. A cultural influence that, in the case of Springdale Arkansas, is welcomed and enjoyed by the local communities. The educated farm kids graduating from this program stand at a unique vantage point, one that gives them the ability to innovate and help the community's they hail from in really powerful ways. They have a foot in the latino community, the world of agriculture, and now the landscape of the tech industry. With more programs like this one who knows what could be accomplished.
Crunch Time
Crunch Time
In an article reporting on the opening of a new "cereal bar" in New York, Tanya Basu writes about Kellogg's fight against declining sales. "The New York City storefront is part of Kellogg's overall strategy to revamp cereal's image, by encouraging experimentation." (Tanya Basu, Crunch Time) It seems to me that Kellogg has taken a few notes from the convenience foods' book on Glamorizing. "Glamorizing was a lot like doctoring it up, but the aim wasn't merely to be creative, it was to achieve an unmistakeable impression of luxury and sophistication." (Laura Shapiro, Something From The Oven, p.66) The cereal tycoon is employing glamorizing as a tool to bring excitement and acceptance to their processed sugary products. In their new cereal bar, they're attempting to create a sense of sophistication associated to eating cereal for any meal of the day, at the same time as touching on a sense of nostalgia related to the memory of eating cereal as kids.
In an article reporting on the opening of a new "cereal bar" in New York, Tanya Basu writes about Kellogg's fight against declining sales. "The New York City storefront is part of Kellogg's overall strategy to revamp cereal's image, by encouraging experimentation." (Tanya Basu, Crunch Time) It seems to me that Kellogg has taken a few notes from the convenience foods' book on Glamorizing. "Glamorizing was a lot like doctoring it up, but the aim wasn't merely to be creative, it was to achieve an unmistakeable impression of luxury and sophistication." (Laura Shapiro, Something From The Oven, p.66) The cereal tycoon is employing glamorizing as a tool to bring excitement and acceptance to their processed sugary products. In their new cereal bar, they're attempting to create a sense of sophistication associated to eating cereal for any meal of the day, at the same time as touching on a sense of nostalgia related to the memory of eating cereal as kids.