Next 2 us

Can consumer demand drive changes in food options

Tim at Nature's Harmony has a great post regarding what needs to be done to change the food industry.  I am a great admirer of what Tim and his wife are doing on their farm for their customers.  You can read his post here and my observations are posted there and here.

I agree there needs to be a "revolution" in food and, in the main, it must come from consumers.  That is why I built the HungryGarden.com web site so I can find fresh local food near me and allow others to do the same.

Disrupting McFood

The food industry has become so complex, that many times what we eat doesn't resemble food in its natural state, or as it would be recognized by man or beast.  Food has become highly processed, re-engineered and reduced to individual "components." These components are then re-constituted, re-combined, packaged and marketed (as what has come to be known) as food.  This does not involve all the foods we eat; but, specifically, highly processed foods. There are whole host of reasons for this.  One is cost.   Highly processed foods that are broken down to individual components can be re-engineered to: a) substitute cheaper components for more expensive ones, and b) extend the shelf life of food so it can be warehoused and transported over great distances before residing on store and home shelves some times for months or even years.

Who Grows Your Food?

Who Grows Your Food? from Anthony-Masterson on Vimeo.

List of Links

Rob Marqusee, Director of Rural Economic Development for Woodbury County, will eat only food grown within 100 miles of the Woodbury County Courthouse for the entire month of June 09 (and no meat will be allowed in the diet).  A special page on his web site will chronicle the adventures in real time (beginning 6/1/09). Read about it here   This is great idea and one that should be replicated by others.

Check it out, Still Tasty is a web site that tells you the shelf life of various foods.

Carbon foot print your food here.

Civil Eats has a good article "Next Spring Break Get a Real Tan  -- A Farmer Tan."

The organic local debate here.

Pictures of white house garden.

Article about homemade baby food.

Toward a less efficient and more robust food system

La Vida Locavore cites a great article by Tom Philpott about how to create a robust, diversified local system in High Country, a three-county region in the mountains of western North Carolina.   Philpott starts his article referencing Jane Jacobs great book The Economy of Cities.  I believe it is an apt comparison as maybe we need less efficiency in our food industry.  Near the end of the article Philpott writes: