{"id":45275,"date":"2014-10-23T16:45:32","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T23:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/?p=45275"},"modified":"2014-11-04T15:06:21","modified_gmt":"2014-11-04T23:06:21","slug":"food-matters-obesity-poverty-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/food-matters-obesity-poverty-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Matters – Obesity, Poverty, Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Recent

Recent CBC News story<\/p><\/div>\n

News reports of late<\/strong> <\/em>have warned us to expect the cost of our fresh produce to rise because of drought conditions in California. Welfare advocates warn that benefits recipients simply don’t have enough money to buy healthy food. And at the same time the amount of food we waste around the world is at an all time high. I touched on all of these topics this week on Food Matters.<\/p>\n

These are all definitely matters of concern<\/strong><\/em>, but when you put them together it starts to sound like the perfect storm\u2026 I\u00a0can’t have a full discussion of prices, poverty and waste in one blog post.\u00a0But I do like to get you to at least start thinking about these issues and provide a few directions for further study if you’re interested.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time<\/strong><\/em> we\u2019ve heard of drought in California having an effect on our fresh fruit and produce prices, but part of what\u2019s different this time around\u00a0is the length of the drought, and the fact that the growers haven\u2019t been able to easily bounce back from one dry season. It\u2019s been basically 30 months of drought now, and prices just have nowhere to go but up given the old supply and demand scenario. What I find the most disturbing part of this, though, was contained in a report <\/a>released earlier this month that was commissioned by VanCity. The data from 2010 showed we rely on the United States for 67 percent of our fresh produce imported to BC, and half of that is from California. At the same time, vegetable crop production in BC has fallen by 20 percent between 1991 and 2011, and just between July 2013 and July of this year, have gone up between 6 and 10 percent. I really don\u2019t know why production of our own fruits and vegetables hasn\u2019t gone up instead of down. I know you can look at certain sectors, probably grapes, blueberries, cherries and cranberries, where there is a bit of a boom going on, but these are wine grapes and a lot of the other fruits get exported.<\/p>\n

\"Bif

Bif Naked’s $21 Welfare Challenge shopping<\/p><\/div>\n

You would think the answer<\/strong> <\/em>to combat rising prices of imported goods would be to grow more of them here, right?\u00a0I guess that\u2019s the simple answer, but I\u2019m not an economist. But I also think there\u2019s something wrong when our governments spend money promoting exports of our products when we can\u2019t even feed ourselves. While our food prices continue to rise, people who are living at or below the poverty line will find it increasingly difficult to put healthy food on the table. We all know it\u2019s cheaper to buy 2 litres of soda than it is to buy 2 litres of milk. Junk food costs less to buy than healthy food\u2026and junk food generally has high levels of fat, sugar and salt, which plays right into rising rates of obesity, heart disease and type two diabetes. Vancouver-based singer Bif Naked has been drawing a lot of attention this week while she is taking the Welfare Challenge this week, trying to live on just 21 dollars to spend on food. Her Facebook page<\/a> is loaded with literally hundreds of comments, some negative, mostly positive on her effort to get governments to raise welfare rates.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what she bought,<\/strong><\/em> and keep in mind she sticks to a vegan diet: brown rice, 2 cans of chickpeas, 2 heads of (non-organic) iceberg lettuce, a pint of cherry tomatoes, six zucchinis, six bananas, and a bag of (non-organic) spinach. In a photo of what she would like<\/em> to buy, papaya and handfuls of organic spinach, organic cucumber, 4 organic zucchinis, 4 organic bananas, vegan protein powder, hempseeds, pea shoots, almonds, 2 organic Roma tomatoes, and an organic avocado: $45.00.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve scrolled through the comments,<\/strong> <\/em>many people have noted that there is a real lack of education on how to shop and cook and feed ourselves in a healthy manner. I\u2019m not very surprised at that given how so much of our industrial food system is targeted at producing convenience foods that basically take all of the knowledge of what goes into making food out of our hands. I think I could be quite creative at stretching a dollar but I have been cooking for decades, learned from a mother who pinched pennies and have a big arsenal of cookbooks to refer to.<\/p>\n

\"Grant

Grant Baldwin<\/p><\/div>\n

The waste of perfectly good food<\/strong><\/em> is the last scary issue on my agenda today, and again we\u2019ve talked about this before. Crops that never get harvested because they might be blemished or overripe or just aren\u2019t the right size or colour for demanding shoppers. The number of people that could be fed if we could just get over that demand for perfection is staggering. Please mark Wednesday, November 19th<\/sup> on your calendar if you are anywhere near Victoria, Sidney or Salt Spring Island where the documentary Just Eat It, A Food Waste Story <\/a>will be playing that evening, complete with discussion afterwards. This documentary<\/a> was made by a Vancouver couple, Grant Baldwin and Jenny Rustemeyer and created a stir of good reviews at the Vancouver International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

Get this: The duo lived on food<\/strong><\/em> they mostly retrieved from dumpsters for six months, they spent only 200 dollars on food during that time. The film covers their adventures doing that, but also features interviews with food scientists and activists trying to make a difference. I\u2019m really looking forward to seeing this, as the reviews I read really praise it from a number of angles, including the cinematography that, for example, features Baldwin standing in a huge garbage bin described as \u2018swimming pool sized\u2019, filled with sealed plastic packs of hummus that are still one month before their best before date.<\/p>\n

\"Kitchen

Kitchen Ecosystem<\/p><\/div>\n

If you’re interested in cutting down on your own kitchen waste, you should check out The Kitchen Eco-System <\/a>blog by Eugenia Bone. She shows you how to use everything, and I mean everything that comes into your kitchen in very inventive ways. You may also want to check out her book,\u00a0The Kitchen Ecosystem: Integrating Recipes to Create Delicious Meals<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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