FERN’s Friday Feed: Ethanol = comically inefficient solar power
Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
Ethanol is just comically inefficient solar energy
FERN and The New Republic
“For all the backbiting and vitriol,” writes Tom Philpott, no topic brought the main candidates in the recent Iowa caucus “into more violent consensus than the sanctity of federal support for corn-based ethanol. The heart of the nation’s corn belt, Iowa is the Saudi Arabia of that industry; and Donald Trump and his longshot rivals all vowed to maintain the federal policies that prop it up … President Joe Biden staunchly supports the practice of turning corn into car fuel, as does his agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, who once served as governor of Iowa. Whether they know it or not, all of these politicians are calling for the government to prop up what is a particularly byzantine and wasteful form of … solar energy. You can’t grow corn without photosynthesis, which converts energy from sunlight into plant tissue … There’s a more straightforward way to leverage the sun, one that could generate much more energy with a fraction of the fuss: the photovoltaic solar panel.”
A viral solution to farming’s antibiotic addiction
Ambrook Research
“Bacteriophages, also known as phages, are microscopic viruses that can be used to selectively target and kill all kinds of bacteria, including E. coli, salmonella, listeria, Staphylococcus aureus, and more. Phages, unlike other viruses, can’t infect humans. Every phage has a specific bacteria it is designed to find and kill, and it can only operate and replicate within those explicit cellular walls,” writes Hannah Macready. “Phages have been used therapeutically in human and animal medicine in Eastern Europe for decades, often in lieu of traditional antibiotics … In the United States, approximately 80% of all antibiotics sold are used in animal agriculture … Thus phages are being touted as a potential alternative, for both medicinal and growth uses. Companies in Europe and Thailand have already raised millions of dollars to implement phage therapy on livestock farms.”
Hippie, capitalist, guru, grocer: The forgotten genius who changed British food
The Guardian
“Almost 50 years later, the dairy and coffee house [Nicholas] Saunders helped conjure out of nothing have been almost inconceivably influential,” writes Jonathan Nunn. “There is strong evidence to suggest that the first commercially made flat white served in the UK was made with Monmouth beans, while if you walk into a cheese shop in the UK today, there’s a good chance the monger will proudly say they worked at ‘The Dairy’, without having to qualify which one. They are not only ‘the yardsticks by which other cheese shops and coffee emporiums are judged’, according to the writer Matthew Fort, but have also been responsible for the success of artisanal food producers across the country who have revived — in some cases, reinvented — British food traditions.”
A story of extreme wellness turned sour
Literary Hub
“It was during my junior year of college, during a period of time when my neurological symptoms—dizziness, aphasia, lapses in memory—were at their most severe, that I spent the long afternoons alone in my room praying to Google as if it were some kind of god, asking: What is wrong with me? Do I have seizures? Will I ever be able to run again? It was then that I first found the community I thought might save me,” writes Jacqueline Alnes. “When my browser first loaded, the 30 Bananas a Day website populated with a faded header of spotty bananas, an advertisement for ‘The Woodstock Fruit Festival,’ and a smiling apple parachuting from the sky toward a dancing cucumber. There were people with usernames like The FruitMonster, HunnyDew Sunshine, BeeFree, and Ivegonebananas. They left comments on forums titled: Fresh Dates! How long do they last?? VEGANS! Do you compare animal life worth to human life worth? Ah! What am I to do??? My fiance is anti-vegan!”
Time for the South’s food leaders to get political
Southern Foodways Alliance
“[B]oth politics and food are deadly serious business,” writes Angie Maxwell. “Food is intellectual and primal. It’s commerce. It’s an art form. It is simultaneously a luxury good and a human right. So many political issues intersect with the food industry in some capacity: infrastructure, climate change, inflation, immigration, health care, education. Foodways help define the South. And the South is the center of this nation’s political universe. The region decides the presidential nominees of both parties and the leaders of those parties. Individuals who care about Southern foodways have an opportunity to lead conversations and drive change. What is your vision for the way food is grown, distributed, used? What value do you put on food, work, and food workers? If you’re playing defense, it’s too late. Set the terms of the debate. You have a big stick. Use it. Because what food you put on the table absolutely matters, but who has a seat at that table matters more.”