Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
When you eat seafood, chances are you’re eating plastic
FERN and Mother Jones
Alarming new research suggests that, contrary to what scientists have long believed, tiny plastic particles consumed by fish and other seafood do not stay in the animals’ digestive tracts, but rather seep into their flesh, as Liza Gross reports in FERN’s latest story, published with Mother Jones. And that means those plastic particles also seep into the diet of people who eat seafood. A recent study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, found that seafood is the third-largest source of chemical-laden “microplastics” in the average American diet, behind bottled water and air.
A tofu heir learns to make tofu
The New York Times
“Two years ago, Paul Eng decided to confront a reality he had been facing most of his life: He was the heir to a tofu tradition who had no idea how to make tofu,” writes Aaron Reiss. Eng had decided to reopen his shuttered family business, and in the process, recreate his family’s lost recipes for tofu, rice cakes, and other traditional foods. “Fong Inn Too had been one of the last two places in Chinatown where you could buy freshly made tofu right from the factory, made much the same way as it had been for over a thousand years. But as rents have increased and demographics have changed, tofu factories and shops have largely disappeared — either moving to New Jersey and other boroughs, or shuttering altogether.”
While dairy farms shutter, dairy executives make millions
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“As the number of dairy farms nationwide has plummeted by nearly 20,000 over the past decade, there’s one corner of the industry doing just fine: The top executives at Dairy Management, who are paid from farmers’ milk checks,” writes Cary Spivak. “The Illinois-based nonprofit is charged with promoting milk, cheese and other products—spending nearly $160 million a year collected through federally-mandated payments from dairy farmers. In 2017, a year in which 503 dairy farms closed in Wisconsin and 1,600 were shuttered nationwide, IRS records show 10 executives at the organization were paid more than $8 million—an average of more than $800,000 each.”
The country music-culinary nexus: Men in lights, women doing the work
The Bitter Southerner
“Here in Nashville, we have at least seven new restaurants with celebrity names like Jason Aldean’s Kitchen and Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock n’ Roll Steakhouse,” writes Jennifer Justus. “It occurred to me that while country music and food have long had a special bond, the men are more apt to slap their names in neon on places of business, while the women work it out in the home kitchen, sharing their recipes through books and cooking shows.”
Climate change plays a role in emigration from Central America
The Conversation
“Rising global temperatures, the spread of crop disease and extreme weather events have made coffee harvests unreliable in places like El Salvador. On top of that, market prices are unpredictable,” writes Miranda Cady Hallett. “In the absence of coordinated action on the part of the global community to mitigate ecological instability and recognize the plight of displaced people, there’s a risk of what some have called ‘climate apartheid.’ In this scenario—climate change combined with closed borders and few migration pathways—millions of people would be forced to choose between increasingly insecure livelihoods and the perils of unauthorized migration.” For more on climate migrants, check out this FERN story from last fall.