Category: Food Systems

Buy local? Why local? Time for the REAL story!

Getting our food from the farm to the consumer – the “supply chain” – is certainly not as simple as it was in the past.Once upon a time, the consumer, his/her family, and the local community WERE the growers. Transportation from the field and barn to the kitchen was a matter of feet or yards, not miles.

Then things got more complex. As communities grew, consumers moved into towns and villages. The farmers brought their own products to market and sold them directly to consumers. Today, in the early 21st century, somehow we still want to believe that the supply chain – the link between the growers and the consumers – is just as simple as it used to be, way back when!

Well, folks, I hate to tell you, it ain’t so. Time to hear the real story.

Cooperatives – the Practical Alternative to Capitalism

Whether you consider the cooperative model to be market socialism or an alternative, both are opportunities to position it in opposition to pure capitalism. Cooperatives are one strategy to transition from a society that focuses on capitalist profit to one that focuses on human needs. Chances are you’ve bought products and services from a cooperative business and you’ve probably even belonged to a co-op of some kind.

Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States

Centuries of colonization and other factors have disrupted indigenous communities’ ability to control their own food systems. Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States explores the meaning and importance of food sovereignty for Native peoples in the United States, and asks whether and how it might be achieved and sustained.

Front Yard Pie – As Local as You Can Get

At GoodFood World, we’re all about whole or minimally processed food and avoiding all those additives and preservatives that Big Food uses to give “edible food-like substances” their creative aromas, peculiar colors, more-intense-than-real flavors, and months’ long shelf life.

8700 Miles to My Dinner Table??

Today I received an email inviting me to subscribe to a program (for $180/year!) where I could get a discount (and $80 shipping credit on each order) for beef “sourced from ethical farms within the world’s best regions for raising beef.” Which are? According to Herd and Grace, those regions are Southern Australia and Tasmania, more than 8700 miles away. What???