FERN’s Friday Feed: The age of disruption
Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
The sad future of grocery shopping
The Atlantic
“A well-stocked grocery store is a wondrous place. Among the gleaming pyramids of fruit, golden rows of bread, and freezers crammed with ice cream, time and space collapse … Grocery stores defy seasons and geography to assure shoppers that they can have anything they want, anytime. For a moment last year, those promises no longer seemed to hold up: The egg case at my local supermarket in New York City was stripped bare,” writes Yasmin Tayag. “Bird flu is a unique, extreme case, but food shortages of all kinds keep hitting the grocery store. In recent months, olive oil, cocoa, and orange juice have been in short supply, sending prices skyrocketing. The problem is largely climate change. Olive oil has more than doubled in cost over the past two years because drought and bad weather in the Mediterranean have shriveled olive groves … Peanuts, sugar, vanilla, and beef—among other foods—have also been in short supply at points over the past few years. “We are entering an age of disruption,” Evan Fraser, a food-systems expert at the University of Guelph, in Canada, told me. Soon, Americans may no longer be able to count on supermarkets that are perpetually stocked with cheap food. The era of grocery abundance is ending, and a more somber one is taking its place.”
Farmworkers suffer wide range of health issues from pesticide exposure
Univision Noticias
“Over two years Univision Noticias spoke to more than 30 workers to understand how pesticide exposure has impacted their daily lives. Like [José] Soria, all of these workers have been sprayed in the course of their daily work with unknown chemicals from tractors, airplanes or by those fumigating on foot. They’ve also come into contact with pesticide residue by touching fruits that had recently been sprayed. These workers are rarely informed of the dangers they face. We also interviewed and consulted at least 15 experts, academics, and activists from Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Illinois. With their help, Univision Noticias came up with a tool to investigate pesticide exposure: special silicone wristbands that are able to detect dozens of pesticides. Univision Noticias used them on farmworkers in three states.This report shows some of the consequences of immediate and prolonged exposure to these chemicals: from skin rashes to serious illnesses, and even birth defects.”
How Janet Yellen became an unlikely culinary diplomat
The New York Times
“There was mayonnaise mixed with ants at a gastronomic taqueria in Mexico City. The garlic at a Persian restaurant in Frankfurt was aged 25 years. And, yes, the magic mushrooms in Beijing were hallucinogenic. This isn’t an Anthony Bourdain travel show but rather a taste of what Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary, has been eating on the road over the more than 300,000 miles she has logged over the last three years as she has been grappling with inflation and devising new ways to cripple the Russian economy,” writes Alan Rappeport. “Ms. Yellen’s food adventures have become the subject of global fascination over the past year, with local and social media lighting up about where and what she eats. The intrigue has been a surprising twist in the tenure of Ms. Yellen, an economist and former Federal Reserve chair, who unlike most previous Treasury secretaries prizes mixing in cultural experiences with the grind of government travel.”
What we can learn about a healthy diet from Indigenous Arctic foodways
The Sun
“It was while studying Arctic metagenomics as part of a doctoral program at the Technical University of Denmark that Hauptmann began exploring the ethics and social impact of her work. Born in Nuuk, Greenland, Hauptmann had grown up between cultures with a father who was Danish and a mother who was Inuit. Her household in Greenland had been primarily Danish speaking, and her family had eaten mostly Danish foods. What would it mean, she wondered, if her work as a biologist were to take a Greenlandic perspective instead? At the time research into the human gut microbiome had been rapidly advancing, but the focus was primarily on plant-based diets sourced from industrial agriculture. Hauptmann would later tell an interviewer at a scientific journal, ‘I wondered why no one seemed to acknowledge that some peoples, and in particular Arctic Indigenous peoples, have lived healthily off animal-source foods for millennia. It was clear to me that there is a large gap in our understanding of how healthy animal-source foods affect the microbiome.’”
When climate change gives you salty soil, make salt hay
Ambrook Research
“On the coast of Normandy, in Northern France, in the shadow of the ancient abbey atop Mont Saint-Michel, farmers produce a true delicacy. Flocks of sheep grazing on wide green meadows are destined to be sold as agneau de pré-salé, or ‘pre-salted’ lamb. Thanks to the high salinity content of the coastal grasses, the meat takes on a delicate tang, impressing diners in the highest-end Parisian restaurants and fetching farmers a premium price. Across the Atlantic,” writes Kate Morgan, “farms at the low, marshy edges of the East Coast are rapidly losing ground as rising sea levels push salty water further into the fields. American growers are beginning to see their own opportunities in reviving a historic salt hay industry.”