Tag: political
Blog Action Day 2009: My Ice Cream is Melting
It’s Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change! “You just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist.” According to Matt Prescott, manager of vegan campaigns for PETA, it is inherently contradictory to eat meat and care about the environment. Is this true? Well, according to the FAO, the livestock business makes more greenhouse gas emissions that any other [...]
You Lie! Food System Reform=Health Care Reform?
“You lie!” Source: CNN Ah, yes, the outburst heard ’round the world. What is it about health care that leads our politicians, who are supposed to be erudite, well-behaved, and level-headed (stop laughing), to act like 3-year olds in the sandbox? Make that 2-year olds. Unless you haven’t turned on the news or been traveling, [...]
Defending Industrial Farming
If you have been following us for a little while, you probably realize that I support small, local, family farms. I also try to stay aware of how corporate greed has infected our food (Taking Control) and support protecting our family farms (End of Farmer’s Markets?) Like many of you who support eating and living [...]
Happily Ever Laughter
Unintended consequences are just that – unintended. Sometimes the best intentions lead to adverse results. For example, the U.S. market-oriented agricultural system seems to be a natural result of Keynesian economy…let those who can compete compete and the weak will simply fall by the wayside…or is it a perpetuation of elite dominance? Let’s look at [...]
Money Matters
Over the course of the last four days, I have eaten more fast food than I have had in many, many, many months. I am a sucker for fast food, I admit it. Not very Zomppa-like or healthy, but it’s sometimes real good. But generally, it’s sort of a “treat” for me, not a way [...]
Taking Control
A friend of mine passed this along – it’s a documentary called Controlling Our Food that apparently aired in France in 2008 (many of you may have already heard of it) but it certainly is not one that will be aired anytime soon here in the U.S. Why? It doesn’t have too nice things to say [...]
Food: The Little Black Dress
Nothing earth-shattering today, but to pass a thoughtful article by Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle. Carrol deftly articulates the central role of food. As he says, “start with the food.” I couldn’t agree more–food is always in fashion. It impacts everything, everything-politics, religion, the economy…. What seems trendy now is often a revitalization [...]
End of Farmer’s Markets?
Most of you have probably heard about the Food Safety Modernization Act, aka H.R. 875, proposed by Representative DeLauro. With what seems to be increasing outbreaks of bacteria and unsafe substances in everything from baby formula to peanut butter, there has been even more urgent impetus to address the fact that our food safety system [...]
Art of Food Justice
I came across an interesting collaborative of artists working on different social movements: Just Seeds. They just came out with a series of posters on urban gardens, healthy cooking for youth, and urban food deserts. Check them out: Food concerns more than nutrients; it concerns social and economic justice; it is empowerment, it is a [...]
Pass (on) the Popcorn
There’s nothing like the smell of the buttery box of freshly-popped popcorn that you swear you won’t buy but then you do and proceed to eat half of it before the previews are over at the movie theatre. Every afternoon, someone in my office pops a bag of Orville Redenbacher’s and boy, it smells good. [...]
