While many people acknowledge that they don’t know much about the production side of the things they consume, taking the next step to find out more can sometimes be a struggle. Followthethings.com is a cool website that helps consumers find documentaries, books, and more that detail how their products are created, distributed, and consumed. “Things” [...]
Grist reported earlier this week that the fast food industry is turning more and more towards fresh and healthy foods: Fast food companies understand that Bad Fast Food might be approaching its expiration date. Rather than clinging ever tighter to their fattening products like Coca Cola did, they’re remixing them. As one of the main [...]
In Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir, Amy Trubek looks at the definitions and manifestations of “terroir,” or the idea that one can taste the place in which a product was produced. The term “terroir” is often used to describe flavors and varieties of wine, so Trubek appropriately begins with an examination of terroir [...]
Over spring break I joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in the last legs of their celebration of the New Day for farm workers, the 200-mile March for Rights, Respect and Fair Food. According to their website: The CIW is a community-based organization of mainly Latino, Mayan Indian and Haitian immigrants working in low-wage jobs [...]
I recently received an email with the following from the COMFOOD elist (which is sometimes worth the absurd amount of emails it bombards you with): “Former Trader Joe’s President Doug Rauch is in the news this week for his announcement that he plans to open an urban grocery in Boston (Dorchester) that sells foods that [...]
As part of several student groups dealing with food on Tufts Campus, I found Peggy Barlett’s piece in American Anthropologist, “Campus Sustainable Food Projects: Critique and Engagement,” to be very interesting. She argues that campus food projects are powerful spaces to test ideas and ideals about alternative food systems. But something I’ve been grappling with [...]
Food deserts have been the target of numerous urban farming initiatives. But city spaces are not the only ones that can be “food deserts,” as I learned over Thanksgiving break. When I was home for a couple days in November, my mom gave me an issue of the local newspaper she’d saved for me [...]