Road Scholar — “Buying Fresh & Local”

I’ve been lucky to have been asked to give a presentation about local food to a Road Scholar seminar that comes to the area three times a year. My hope with this talk is to get people thinking about what “local” might really mean. Does it have to just be a geographic designation, or can we broaden the concept to reflect personal values and the changes we would like (and need) to see in our food system?

The following is a brief list of some of the articles, books, etc. that I refer to in my presentation — with live links. Hopefully, it will provide some food for thought! Also, if any of the Road Scholars have questions or comments, please feel free to drop me an e-line at katy@casafestiva.com.

Civil Eats is a daily news source for critical thought about the American food system, publishing stories that shift the conversation around sustainable agriculture in an effort to build economically and socially just communities.

Walk a Mile in A Farmer’s Boots — eye-opening perspective of some of the many challenges facing farmers, including crippling economic conditions and high suicide rates.

CRISPR is one of the latest technologies in food; here’s an article from The Guardian explaining a bit about it — “Crispr technology is still in its infancy. Short for “clustered regulatory interspersed short palindromic repeats”, Crispr was first used in cells with a nucleus only six years ago.”

A UC Davis study has shown that buying local, especially direct from farmers, has a significantly greater impact on the local economy than buying from middlemen.

If you’re interested in learning more about chicken processing, check out this Fresh Air podcast with Maryn McKenna, author of the new book, Big Chicken. (Spoiler alert … you may not want to ever eat industrially produced chicken again!)

A look at why farmers get paid so little on every food dollar — more reasons to support your local farmers!

Some good people to follow via social media and/or their blogs are …
Robyn O’Brien — mom who came to the discussion of food and the food industry via her child’s food allergy issues, and has since become involved in changing food policy for the betterment of us all.
Tom Colicchio — a chef whom you may know best from the Food Network and Top Chef; he and his wife have become very involved in food policy, especially addressing childhood hunger, making restaurants safer environments for women, and sustainability issues.

A good read about reducing added sugar in your diet — it’s easier than you might think!

Here’s some good information about food labels and what they actually mean … or don’t mean. From A Greener World, and there’s info about how to get an app for your phone so you can check labels at the market.

This New York Magazine article is a little discouraging because it seems there are no 100% good food choices, but some are certainly better than others.

Also, here’s a visual example of the “greenwashing” concept” — if you look at the labels of most of the owned companies, there will be absolutely no mention of the parent company. Here’s a chart showing who owns other food companies — less than 10 parent companies!

And here’s a link to some information about organic labeling I shared at a recent talk. The label info is at the end of this article.

localfoodtalk_some other references

4 thoughts on “Road Scholar — “Buying Fresh & Local”

  1. Katy, Thanks for your presentation to the Road Scholar group last week. It was very informative. The entire course, based in Paso Robles, was well worth it. Interesting area with a lot going on — food and otherwise.

  2. Hi Katy, I really enjoyed your talk at the Oct 2018 RS group. I’m posting that NYT article on my FB page. Thanks again for raising all those issues!

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