Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
FERN
With Congress mired in partisan gridlock and the White House showing little interest, the nation’s colleges and universities are scrambling to address the growing crisis of hungry, homeless students, as Bridget Huber reports in FERN’s latest story. A comprehensive solution would “require the federal government to knit together social safety net programs with higher education policy — in essence overhauling the national approach to higher education in light of these new realities.” In the meantime, “a patchwork response to the problem of student hunger and homelessness is taking shape on campuses and in state legislatures across the country, from meal vouchers and emergency loans to help with food stamp applications.”
The kouign-amann is “a sugary, caramelized croissant, crispy on the outside and densely moist inside,” writes Caitlin Raux Gunther. “There’s some controversy about the kouign-amann’s exact origins, but most agree that it comes from Finistère — literally, the ‘end of the land’ — the westernmost tip of Brittany and an appropriately whimsical birthplace for the most extraordinary of French baked goods … Unlike daintier pastries like the macaron, the kouign-amann is beautiful in its rustic simplicity; a sum that is delicious due to the high quality of its parts: just dough, sugar, and butter.”
Chocolate companies lag behind on sustainability goals
The Washington Post
Mars, Inc., and other global chocolate companies once vowed to move to sustainable cocoa in an attempt to address rampant deforestation in cocoa-producing regions. Yet they remain far behind their goals. Meanwhile, deforestation to make way for cocoa production — a contributor to climate change — continues. “Recent wildfires have focused attention on the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, but West Africa is another major trouble spot,” writes Steven Mufson. “Ivory Coast has lost 80 percent of its forests over the past 50 years. And in Ghana, trees have been chopped down across an area the size of New Jersey, according to an estimate by the minister of lands and natural resources.”
Where your food actually comes from
Fast Company
Forget all the happy locavore talk about “know your farmer.” The first high-resolution map of America’s food-supply chain shows the extent to which we all remain reliant on far-flung producers, processors, and transporters. “Consumers all rely on distant producers, agricultural processing plants, food storage like grain silos and grocery stores, and food transportation systems,” writes Megan Konar. “For example, the map shows how a shipment of corn starts at a farm in Illinois, travels to a grain elevator in Iowa before heading to a feedlot in Kansas, and then travels in animal products being sent to grocery stores in Chicago.”
How to choose your food media
The Wall Street Journal
In today’s media landscape, there’s an abundance of food podcasts and outlets that each offer a different take on what and how we eat. In this roundup, Beth Kracklauer links audio and print together by recommending which journals you should read alongside which podcasts, and vice versa. Tune in and read up!