Talk to Me About Food

Audio blog post musings about the rise of large-scale indoor farming and what we might miss by not growing stuff in the rich soil of a  good vegetable patch. 

Regenerative agriculture is practiced on a very small percentage of total farm and ranch land in the U.S., maybe 3-5%. This figure is growing by the day because it is a sustainable approach to growing and raising food that also mitigates some of the effects of climate change. This is Part 1 of a two-part story. It seeks to define what regenerative agriculture is, how it’s different from convention...

Audio blog post sparked by perusing a new book called "Digital Food - From Paddock to Platform."  I muse about how food factors into the digital world of photo sharing, online video content, and meal sharing apps.

1 in 7 humans is involved in growing or getting food to the rest of us. Should and will the other 6 do more to help mankind do so sustainably? The UN thinks so.

Audio blog post about how we are, out of necessity, exploring the fringes of what we've considered edible; on land, and at  sea.

In this episode I interview Michelle Baade, wife, mom, and grandmother in small-town Wisconsin, about how a whole-foods, plant-based diet has dramatically altered her and her husband’s health trajectory, and transformed their relationship with food. Michelle and her husband were overweight, suffering from several ailments, and were at high risk for heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. Starting in...

In this audio blog post I break down bread as I think about breaking bread at Thanksgiving. It's back to the future for better tasting, more nutritious bread made with sustainably grown wheat. 

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response - ASMR - is that relaxing sensation all over your scalp and down the back of your neck in response to a range of stimuli. Getting your hair cut. The tone and timbre of a specific person's voice. Whispering. Repetitive tapping or scratching. Just the suggestion of one of these triggers, just thinking about it, anticipating it, or watching someone else exper...

Audio blog post pondering the sources of the record amount of food waste in America and the mindset change needed for consumers to do more to  reduce food waste.

Can zesting and juicing a lemon, and then savoring a lemony morsel of cake lift your spirits?  The School of Life recently published a book of recipes developed through a collaboration of philosophers, chefs, and psychologists. The book promotes the idea that certain foods and recipes can change your mood in specific ways. The authors of this book called “Thinking & Eating” assign symbolism to...

So called “DNA” diets have caught the public’s attention in the past few years. In the never-ending quest to find a diet regimen that really will take off the pounds for good, millions of us Americans have been at least intrigued by the idea of letting your genes tell you what to eat and drink, and what not to. Many more of us are also curious whether our individual genetic pre-dispositions say so...

Audio blog post reflecting on some of the "winning" new packaged food products of the past 25 years. Our desire to eat healthy or healthier is evident in the splash items like Snackwell's and CarbSmart made when they launched. The culprits (fat, carbs, refined sugar) have changed over time but the underlying emotional needs that drive us to experiment don't. 

We’re in the middle of a pandemic that’s made us put extra layers of protection between us and everything we come in contact with. That means a lot more plastic overall, and a lot more plastic food and beverage packaging for all the take-out and delivery. We’re starting to drown in plastic just as momentum was starting to build around alternatives to single use plastic packaging. It’s just a pause...

America's Grow-A-Row began as a weekend daddy daughter project to get a four year-old to want to eat fresh, healthy food by planting and harvesting herself. In the process Chip too has adopted healthier eating habits. And the more he gave away of the overabundance of produce from his oversized plot, first to co-workers and neighbors, then to those who really need much more fresh food in their...

Audio blog post about the importance of the ritual of making the time to make your own food. 

An audio blog post reflecting on how the drive for contactless contacts might accelerate the use of robots in restaurants. What all would we miss? A lot...

Meat is at the heart of the unprecedented growth in supermarket food sales these days. It’s one of the core foods we are turning to as we shelter in place. It’s at the center of the plate, and will likely be there for generations to come.  The rising challenge to this attachment to meat, according to many experts, is that we will not be able to sustainably produce enough meat to meet the demands o...

An audio blog post about how a new book, called "Thinking and Eating," has got me thinking about the power of the color of foods. I've been working on a food fiction piece about this.

Audio blog post about this food-centered movie experienced again in the midst of our current experience of making food at home like never before. 

The major disruption in how we feed ourselves ignited by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the worries about the on-going impact this will have on America’s food supply chain, has spurred more people to look into growing their own food. But “growing your own food” has been on a long-term upward trend since the financial crisis in 2008. According to the National Gardening Association, at least 35% of Amer...

We are not flocking to vegetarianism, and even less to veganism. In fact, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization projects that meat consumption will grow by 2% in the U.S. through 2027.  Between 20% and 30% of Americans say they are trying to cut or even drop meat-eating all together. Is it really happening? The increasing popularity of plant-based meat alternatives like the Impossible and Beyon...

Intermittent fasting has been on the periphery of my attention as something getting buzz in the broader world of food and food marketing. In fact, intermittent fasting is among the most popular weight loss strategies as we roll through 2020. According to an annual survey by the International Food Information Council, about 10% of Americans tried intermittent fasting in 2019, second only to “Clean...

The Specialty Foods Association holds a Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco in January. The 2020 edition just wrapped up. I did a virtual fly-over of the show to see what caught my attention. The sheer number of specialty foods and beverages on exhibit is overwhelming: 80,000 + items! There’s no way any one observer could cover the whole show in person or by perusing the online directory and p...

Our lifestyle, for the vast majority of us in the U.S., demands the convenience of packaging. This dependence on convenient packaging is only growing as we live more of our daily lives on the go, and we look to light-weight, sturdy, sealed, hassle-free packaging (think plastic) to transport our food with us. And when we do eat at home, many of us are often too time-pressed or too tired to prepare...

Chocolate can transport you to your happy place, some other-worldly realm, better than maybe any other food. If just for a few minutes. A product with this kind of magnetic pull - this sway over our emotions, was bound to become ubiquitous from the moment the conquistadors secreted the first cacao beans back to the Spanish court hundreds of years ago. It’s no wonder that chocolate is a $100+ billi...