Thursday, May 1, 2008

Food, Food, Food

Food is so hot. Food is one of the reasons I started a blog. Yet I haven't been posting nearly enough about it!

There have been two articles in the NY Times worth checking out recently. One is part of a series called "The Food Chain" which is in the business section about the global food crisis and various other food issues. The articles is "Shortages Threaten Farmers' Key Tool: Fertilizer." The long and the short of it, again, is that we should stop eating meat. Really.

The other article actually says that we should eat more meat, assuming that meat is from a heritage breed or other endangered, culturally significant food source: "An Unlikely Way to Save a Species: Serve it For Dinner". For the most part, I agree with the perspective of this article; too many heritage breeds and heirloom varieties are being lost to the uniformity of global food production.

However, I have to take issue with a few of the species they list in the infographic as food supplies worth conserving, including leatherback sea turtles, wild bison and Snake River chinook salmon. They do mention this to a degree in the article, with regards to the flying squirrel (yep, squirrel is on there too), but I just feel like they don't talk enough about the species on here that we need to do a lot more for than just eating them; that, in fact, we might do better for by not eating them at all. I think putting the species on this list at all, although they may be culturally significant, is not going to do them any favors. This is especially true for the poor over-harvested salmon; hopefully no one will look at this article and say, "Well, we're harvesting a heritage food, we'd better keep eating them to conserve them!" Maybe I'm underestimating people, but... I don't know. It's a little disconcerting. Definitely interesting in regards to the fainting goats and the Makah ozette potato, though!

If someone figures out a cure for chestnut blight based on wanting to eat them, that might be wonderful. Seeing a chestnut stump with sad little sprouts is a tragedy.

PS: I have never been to a clambake.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had a burger for lunch. With bacon. Soooo tasty.

Burrrrrrgerrrrrr....

Anonymous said...

where can I buy THAT bunny???????? bmb