Food for Thought: EVST 315 Food, Culture, and Sustainable Societies Blog

Jared Fogle was an obese college student who started what is today known as the Subway diet. Fogle would only consume Subway subs for lunch and dinner every day of every week. Fogle has gone from 425lbs to 200lbs through the Subway chain.

“The Subway diet was his [Fogle’s] own idea — a 6-inch turkey sub for lunch and a full-length veggie sub for dinner, both meals with a bag of baked chips and a diet soda”.

Though I am not sure if I support the concept of the Subway diet, Fogle’s transformation was truly incredible and this article is extremely interesting to read. Let me know what you think about the subway diet!

Aspartame is one of the worst chemicals in diet soda, making it a national problem. On a personal level, there was a teacher at my high school that actually had a heart attack due to this chemical, so this is an important issue to me. In a recent study, it was shown that people who drank at least 2 sodas a day were more prone to heart disease. Thankfully, the records show that diet drink sales are decreasing. This could be a good sign, since it would make high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweetners less prominent in our diets and could lead to other changes as well.

http://eatlocalgrown.com/article/12974-is-this-the-end-of-diet-soda.html?c=tca

Ronald McDonald isn’t just a representation of the brand- he is the brand. 96% of children recognize him, and since brand recognition begins at two years old, taste perceptions are also formed early. In a study where children were given the same food but one was unlabeled and one was in McDonald’s packaging, the children overwhelmingly liked the McDonald’s better even though there was no difference. For adults, it’s marketed in a way that shows these corporations are doing good deeds (like the Ronald McDonald House). None of the advertising roots out of actually having healthy food, which is a problem. Possibly the only solution is to change marketing, but this is difficult due to so many different factors that it is nearly impossible at this time.

http://eatlocalgrown.com/article/13057-it-s-time-for-ronald-mcdonald-to-hang-up-the-red-wig.html?c=tca

I see articles like this all the time- stuff that debunks every piece of health advice ever given. This one hits some important points, like the nutrients in egg yolks and that obsessing over calories makes no sense. It’s interesting how health is catered to profit now; the facts are so mixed up because every company wants to make money by claiming low calorie, low fat, and other things that make it attractive in the market.

http://eatlocalgrown.com/article/12863-the-worst-nutrition-advice-in-history-here-s-top-5-contenders.html

(As you can tell, I spend a lot of my time watching food documentaries)
This one was specifically on the obesity crisis in America, but some parts of it were striking in terms of what foods are made available to people. One part of the documentary has a spokesperson for General Mills saying that they won’t change their products or bring out actually healthy products, but the plan was to add Omega-3s, whole grains, and other nutrients to make a set of “better for you” foods. This was a complete advertising scheme that does nothing to help the children who want these products and don’t know any better. It’s so interesting how companies are willing to ignore the well being of their consumers so that they can continue to rake in a profit.

http://munchies.vice.com/articles/its-time-to-start-hoarding-your-precious-italian-olive-oil

If you’re anything like me, this article could easily be re-named “The World is Ending.” 2014 will now be known as “The Black Year of Italian Oil” because of the series of devastating weather events which caused the Italian olive crop to suffer. Now, the price of extra-virgin Italian olive oil (you know, the good stuff) is expected to drastically rise. Not only that, but mis-labeling and misrepresentation is also predicted to soar. In an industry where 70% of extra-virgin Italian olive oil isn’t actual what it says it is, us Americans may not see the real thing for at least this coming year.

I fear that climate change may cause more weather events such as those that struck the Mediterranean to jeopardize specialty crops that are only grown in certain areas of the world. As we lose these specialty crops, we may lose some of the items which are at the root of cultural identity. Imagine Italy with no extra-virgin olive oil!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/11/03/360434287/on-the-trail-to-preserve-appalachias-bounty-of-heirloom-crops

Interestingly, Appalachia grows the most diverse set of crops than any other region in the US. But like so many good things, this diversity is in danger. This diversity requires maintenance and people who are passionate about preserving it. As many seed savers are aging, the number of people with this passion are dwindling, though there is a new movement to increase these numbers yet again. The history of heirloom seeds in Appalachia stretches back through generations. Families have saved the seeds from their ancestors which may have first originated from Native American cultivations or from Southern Mexico.

This article highlights the Bloody Butcher Corn in particular and how it is beginning to become a more widely used crop. There is actually a restaurant that serves polenta made from the Bloody Butcher. The story of the Bloody Butcher Corn shows that we can preserve interesting varieties of foods that would have otherwise been lost if we focus on local food systems.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/11/16/364115200/big-data-companies-agree-farmers-should-own-their-information

There has been a triumph in how farms interact with the agribusinesses for which they supply and work. Farmer’s collect a lot of data on how much they plant, how much other inputs they use, and various other things in order to determine profit maximizing decisions for coming years. Until this recent agreement between businesses and farmers, businesses such as Monsanto, DuPont, John Deere, and Dow had access to much of this information. They had begun to offer data collection services which incited worries about who had access to this information. Although the article remains vague about whether or not these companies actually exploited their previous access, it assures that now there is a legal framework to prevent potential problems.

I’m not entirely sure how much of a victory this is, but one potential issue that was noted in the article is that these companies could have used famers’ data to speculate on commodities. That could definitely be a potential way for these companies to further exploit farmers. However, I applaud them for conceding to this new legal framework.

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/12/04/the-greenhouse-of-the-future-a-step-by-step-builders-guide/

Ever wanted to sustain your food needs fully? Live in an area where that might not be possible under traditional means? Find yourself needing some warm sun energy in the dead of winter? Then I have found a great holiday gift for you to give to yourself. I have tried to stay up to date on developments in Earthships which are entirely self sustained residences and there are extensive manuals on how to actually build them yourself. Now there is a similar manual, now extensive DVD, on how to build your own greenhouse. So if you don’t necessarily want or need to build an entire house, you can just get the food sustainability part of it.

Many of us live on properties with some sort of open field or unused grassy space. This could be a great summer project and then your family would have veggies from their own greenhouse year round. Imagine if all people with the space and means to do this, did…..

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/12/04/364745790/food-babe-or-fear-babe-as-activist-s-profile-grows-so-do-her-critics

Vani Hari, known from her blog as “Food Babe” is speaking out against unhealthy things in our food. Awesome, right? However, people with real credentials (Hari is primarily trained in computer science) and real knowledge on food (doctors, food scientists, nutritionists, etc.) have been openly criticizing her manipulation of the truth to create fear in her followers as well as massive contributions to her bank account. By collecting speaking fees and advertising for various non-GMO and similar organizations on her website, she has made her Food Babe title a full time career.

Although it’s great that Hari’s efforts have caused Kraft to remove their artificial orange coloring from their mac n cheese and Subway to do away with a common bread additive, I fear that someone with few credentials and a very clear profit motive may seriously impede other food movements. If we only focus on small additives in foods that we really shouldn’t be eating anyway, we will be distracted from the bigger picture. We will forget about the advertising that has created an obesity epidemic. We will ignore the unfair economics that are causing small farmers to go bankrupt. We will lose focus from the obscene pollution that comes from factory farming.