Food and its obvious necessity to sustaining life has been a particularly hot issue this year with increased concerns about rising costs, safety and quality. This week, we’d like to share with you two interesting projects that unveil aspects of the current state of food in the United States. Let us know what you think!
Check out the trailer for this new documentary by Chris Taylor about food culture in the United States. The film features interviews with culinary heavy hitters such as Wolfgang Puck and Alice Waters, as well as nutrition expert, Marion Nestle and acclaimed author, Michael Pollan.
Food Fight is a fascinating look at how American agricultural policy and food culture developed in the 20th century, and how the California food movement has created a counterrevolution against big agribusiness.
Today we start our 30 day challenge of a one dollar diet. This means that for the month of September we will each have one dollar to spend on our daily allotment of food.
When we first started talking about doing this, we didn’t really have an agenda, or any developed sense of why we wanted to do it. It just seemed like an interesting challenge; one that would force us to see things differently.
We are interested in many of the strands related to this experiment; food choices, consumerism, waste, poverty, social psychology, etc., and this experience may provide insights that could help us better understand and teach about a variety of concerns (we both teach Social Justice in a public high school).
As a child, Halloween was my favorite holiday – an excuse to wear an outrageous outfit and walk around my neighborhood getting free candy – what was there not to love? Sadly, I’m a few years past my trick-or-treating prime (though I still enjoy those crazy costumes!), but thankfully there are many bakers out there making sophisticated Halloween treats right in their own kitchens! Check ‘em out.
The distinct chill of fall is in the air and I’ve started engaging in the usual rituals of preparation for cold weather — unearthing my pullovers and sweaters and hypoallergenic comforter. I’m cancelling items on my social calendar in favor of curling up at home with a pair of knitting needles and a few skeins of yarn. And with all this newfound time at home, I’m dreaming of roasting butternut squash with sage, baking a silky cinnamon spiked pumpkin pie, and mulling a comforting mug of apple cider.
Seems like some of my favorite food bloggers have the same idea. Check out these awesome autumnal recipes and share some of your own.
With the presidential debates drawing to a close this week and Election Day coming up, we’re finding that everyone’s got politics on their mind – and for good reason. This week’s featured read is from Michael Pollan who wrote a thorough and detailed open letter to our next ‘Farmer-in-Chief’ in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine’s Food Fights! issue. He encourages the US’s next leader to bring the important issue of food quality and safety into the discussion and see the new administration address some issues that are important to all of us.
It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.
What changes would you like to see in food policy in the coming years?
Okay, we’re cheating a little this week and perhaps this post would be better named “What We’re Watching…” ’cause that’s been the preferred method of media consumption this week. A friend of mine reminded me of some excellent TED | Talks that I’d encouraged him to listen to a few months back.
But of course, as inspiring as these talks were, I was hungry for more and just yesterday, stumbled upon TED’s new lists, which allow users to order talks based on user ratings on criteria such as “most beautiful”, “most jaw-dropping”, “most ingenious” and “funniest.”
I think it’s pretty safe to say that in these difficult economic times, we’re all looking for ways to save a bit of money. Thankfully, this doesn’t mean completely changing your lifestyle. Some of our favorite ‘green’ blogs offer up some very do-able, unique solutions for conserving cash. Check out some of our favorite creative solutions:
Convince your boss to let you work four (slightly longer) days a week
Working four ten-hour days instead of five eight-hour days is not only a great way to have a longer weekend, but it’ll save you some cash, too. You’ll save 20% on whatever you spend for commuting, coffee, lunch, and any other daily expenses you incur by dragging yourself to the office. Let’s say you do it on the cheap, and don’t drive yourself, pay for parking, or spend more than a few bucks on lunch. Even if you spend $2 on the bus or public transit, $2 for a coffee and $6 for lunch, you can easily save several hundred bucks by working four days a week. Get the nitty-gritty in our guide for How to Go Green: Commuting.
Alternately, you can telecommute on the fifth day of the week; it’ll cost a bit more in energy and food expenses, but it’ll still save money in the long haul.
Annual savings: $500+ for a four-day workweek (that’s $10 per day, one day a week, for 50 weeks a year — you get two for vacation, right?); slightly less for telecommuters.
We recently challenged some of the best food bloggers out there to a recipe contest. Make a weeknight meal for 4 for less than $4 per serving. Entries came in from chefs of all kinds – cookbook authors, vegans, college students, stay-at-home moms, engineers and we had to narrow a large pool down to our favorite six. But even our runner up recipes were pretty awesome and we thought we’d share with you some of our favorites that didn’t make the cut…
About three months ago, I purchased my first home – a modest one bedroom, less than a fifteen minute bike ride to work, in a safe but diverse neighborhood and with a gorgeous, gorgeous brand new kitchen. I remember when I first moved in how my enthusiasm (and lack of funds – man, closing costs add up!) drove me to cook meals for myself from scratch almost every night. I’ve since fallen out of this habit – choosing to go out with friends or just ‘grabbing something quick’ instead of enjoying my own home cooking.
So this week I started to wonder – how do other single folks to it? Whether you’re a college student, a young professional, a single parent or otherwise on your own – how do you adequately feed yourself without spending all your time and/or money on the effort? Here are some ideas from what we’re reading…
I raced home from work and had a total of 1/2 hour to feed both dogs, make dinner, and change for an Austin City Limits taping with My Morning Jacket. I impressed myself by successfully slicing some red onion, chopping a roasted red pepper and fresh parsley, slicing 1/2 a zucchini, and throwing everything together with eggs and fresh goat cheese for the perfect fresh summer dinner.
Sometimes we forget how easy it is to pull together a simple and elegant meal quickly on a weeknight. Thanks, Jodi for reminding us!
I’ve been traveling this week – nothing too spectacular- just a flight to upstate NY for a family reunion, followed by a road trip back down to NJ to spend a week with the family and on Sunday – the NYC Century. During a particularly long layover on my way to NY, as I circled the terminal for the tenth time, I realized just how few options exist in airport dining for anyone seeking healthy, natural or organic – let alone anyone with a dietary restriction. Same goes for a road trip and its commonly frequented fast food joints and gas stations. So how do you stay healthy on the move? Here are some blogs that answered that question.
Tomorrow we’re leaving to go to Switzerland for a conference, and it’s going to be a long trip from San Francisco to Geneva – 14 hours! Airplane food is not known for being particularly tasty, and we’d like to pack our own meal. But with security regulations, we wondered: what can we carry on the plane?
If you’re planning your own end-of-summer getaway, I’ve gleaned some ideas from my own experience on how you can vacation without gaining 20 pounds, not to mention throwing your eco-conscious intentions to the wind.
It’s no secret that airline food isn’t particularly kid friendly, and lately most flights don’t include any food at all, leaving parents to bring along their own snacks and meals for their hungry kids. [...] There is an art-form to packing snacks to bring along on an plane ride. They need need to last un-refrigerated for hours, cannot contain liquid, and preferably they take no space at all, are filling, and not sugar laden.
So, what are your favorite travel snacks and how do you stay healthy while on the road or in the air?
I wish my childhood lunches had been filled with more delightful and evocative images, so I could recount to you complete sensory detail, my memories of elementary school at noon. But alas, I had a lot of bologna on white bread, American cheese on white bread and peanut butter and jelly… on white bread. Not that my mom wasn’t awesome, but she lacked the time and the… culinary creativity to spin brown bagged meals into flavorful memories.
But, what I lack in personal experience in my youth, I’ve more than made up for in living vicariously through other people’s lunches.
Welcome to Whole Story, the official blog of Whole Foods Market.
Don’t know us? In a nutshell, we are the world's leading natural and organic grocer and we’re passionate about healthy food and a healthy planet. Learn more about us.
We’re lucky to have a whole bunch of smart, passionate people doing incredible things in areas like organics, supporting local growers, green practices, fair trade, micro-lending and all kinds of food related stuff. We’ll use this blog to share some of the cool things going on around here.
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