FERN’s Friday Feed: The meaning of gleaning
Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
One farm’s trash…
Daily Yonder
“Recently I told a friend I was canning potatoes we gleaned. It took me by surprise when she asked, ‘What does gleaned mean?’ My explanation failed to convey sufficient information about this time-honored rural tradition,” writes Donna Kallner. “I know because her response to it was, ‘Where I come from, that would be called stealing.’ I’d like a do-over on that explanation. Gleaning may not be the most commonplace activity, even for many people who live in the country. But it speaks to values many rural people hold dear – values that are sometimes hard to understand by people from other places. And I really don’t want my transplanted city-girl neighbor to think of me as a petty thief.”
The coming collision between whales and tankers on BC coast
Hakai Magazine
“The Kitimat fjord system is a long, winding network of channels, islands, and inlets that stretch 140 kilometers from the open Pacific to the industry town of Kitimat at the end of Douglas Channel. Not only is this the only known fjord system in the world where fin whales regularly visit, it’s where commercial whalers once hunted them mercilessly. After the last BC whaling station shut down in 1967, no one spotted a fin whale here for nearly 40 years. In 2006, [Hermann] Meuter and [Janie] Wray became the first people to document the fin whale’s return to the fjord,” writes Laura Tretheway. A decade later, the Canadian government approved a plan to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) out of Kitimat, and in 2025, LNG Canada will send “a massive tanker about 300 meters long and carrying up to 68 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of methane through the fjord system every day.” If two other LNG projects that are in the works move ahead, there will be “about 350 tankers transiting in and out of the fjord every year … A 2023 study from the North Coast Cetacean Society … estimated that increasing tanker traffic will kill more than two fin whales and 18 humpbacks each year due to ship strikes.”
NFL players eat an estimated 80,000 Uncrustables a year
The Athletic
“[M]ost nutritionists wouldn’t recommend frozen, processed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as their No. 1 healthy snack option for players,” writes Jayson Jenks. “But Uncrustables can do the job, especially when time is limited, and even nutritionists at the highest level of sports performance make compromises. The bread and jelly give players quick carbohydrates. The peanut butter provides a little fat and a little protein. They’re easy to digest, convenient to eat and a comfort food that players love … San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle eats two on flights to road games and anywhere from two to four on flights home. Chiefs defensive end Mike Danna eats them at the team facility and at home. Ravens kicker Justin Tucker grabs one from the snack table on his way to meetings. Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce claimed on his podcast that he eats more of them than ‘anything else in the world.’”
The surprising story of how peaches became an icon of the Southeast
Scientific American
“As sea levels rise and extreme weather becomes more common, experts say that Britain’s traditional defenses — sea walls, tidal barriers and sandbanks — will be insufficient to meet the threat,” writes Rory Smith. “It is not alone: in September, deadly floods in Central Europe led to the deaths of at least 23 people. But on a tendril of land curling out from the coast of Somerset, in southwestern England, a team of scientists, engineers and conservationists have embraced a radical solution.In a project costing 20 million pounds (around $26 million), tidal waters were allowed to flood the Steart Peninsula in 2014 for the first time in centuries.”
What is ‘greedflation,’ and does it explain high grocery prices?
The Atlantic (audio)
“At their recent peak, in August 2022, grocery prices had increased 14 percent since the previous year. Although inflation has cooled significantly since then, that doesn’t mean prices have actually gone down; it just means prices have stopped rising as dramatically. But why did all this happen? One explanation that has become more popular is ‘greedflation,’ the idea that corporate greed, via excessive markups, is responsible for the pandemic-era price increases. But the word is used so differently by politicians, economists, and regular people that it’s become a confusing term of art. It can’t be that companies suddenly just got greedy in 2021, yet there’s a growing belief—particularly in some parts of the Democratic Party—that corporate greed is at the heart of the inflation problem.”