The global, industrialized food system faces increasing scrutiny for its environmental impact, given its voracious appetite for land is linked to mass deforestation, water pollution and a sizable chunk of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The implied trade-off has been that advances in agriculture have greatly reduced hunger and driven societies out of poverty due to improved productivity and efficiencies. But Mark Bittman, the American food author and journalist, argues in his new book Animal, Vegetable, Junk that these supposed benefits are largely illusionary.
In a sweeping deconstruction of the history of food, spanning the past 10,000 years of organized agriculture, Bittman takes in everything from Mesopotamian irrigation to the Irish famine to the growth of McDonald’s to posit the rise of uniformity and convenience in food has mostly benefited large companies, fueled societal inequities and ravaged human health and the environment.…
–The Guardian
Sent us by Maui Surfer
Thanks so much for sharing this! I so agree with his comment that as food gets cheaper (and full of garbage foods we can’t and would never make at home) the cost of health care goes up. It is definately time to follow the Lloyd Kahn and Lesley Creed Half Acre Homestead and home garden model, it has always been a good time to follow the Lloyd Kahn and Lesley Creed home garden model, but now more than ever.
Pretty much agree with this. As food gets cheaper, suspect it is also less nutritious.
Here’s one example, of making food cheaper. It comes from Canada, but suspect it happens all over.
For at least a couple of yrs, likely more, I have expressed the gripe that butter (here in Canada) is not the same. I said it does not taste the same
(used as butter), does not cook /fry the same, does not make up baked goods the same. I/we have been LONG time butter eaters, as we’re not keen
on many chemicals in margarine. Just sitting on your cupboard a dish of butter now remains HARD, and needs to be nuked to spread.
Even putting a slice of butter on a plate and softening it in microwave, does not soften the same.
I had pretty much come to conclusion they were adding chemicals and water to it. to me tastes sort of plastic/water.
So, a few yrs back price of a pound of butter sky rocketed (8 more dollars canadian a pound), and butter became scarce, long before covid. It would be limited to one per purchase. It was said there was some problem with Canadian cows producing enough milk (cream), for some weird reason.
all of a sudden…there is LOTS of butter, and it is once again cheap.
month or so ago, there were many news articles here (Canada) of others having same thoughts as me on butter.
and also wondering why it was scarce, and not now.
well, apparently after the scarcity, someone got the bright idea to feed the cows some chemical to increase milk/and cream content of milk
it has now been suggested this is responsible for change in butter.
I suspect they are right, but there is such a big change, i wonder too if manufactures are adding a little “plastic” chemical to the actual butter.
It’s some kind of palm oil derivative, which they are feeding to the cows to increase the fat content of their milk and the resulting payment to the dairy farmer. If you are avoiding margarine because you don’t like its palm oil content, you are out of luck! Whichever way you turn, you are getting palm oil and it’s all your fault that tropical rain forests are being destroyed
off topic, but still about food…
Been seeing more and more news articles, U.S. and Canada, of folks doing this kind deed. So nice that good deeds and news gets some
print…
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.6016476/oklahoma-restaurants-cover-walls-with-prepaid-receipts-for-anyone-who-needs-a-meal-1.6016479
Customers can prepay for meals and hang up the receipts so someone in need can have a hot lunch or dinner
Several restaurants across a handful of small cities and towns have started covering their walls with meal receipts. Customers are invited to prepay for a meal for someone else and hang the receipt on the wall. Then anyone can come in, grab one, and order some grub, no questions asked.
We’ve had to expand into having two walls — so the entire front of our restaurant at the moment on the inside is covered with tickets,” Jennifer White told As It Happens host Carol Off.
White’s restaurant in Miami, Okla., The Dawg House, was the first in the area to enact the food sharing program, and since then it’s taken off.
“Within about six hours of starting the wall, we had another restaurant in town that jumped on it and started the wall there. And then next, a third restaurant actually started their wall as well,” she said. “So we’ve kind of provided as a community three different places that people can go and get a hot meal.”
The phenomenon has also spread to the nearby towns including Grove and Vinita, Okla, according to the Washington Post.