Talk to Me About Food

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 a meal from scratch, so we turn to pre-prepared, packaged foods.

At the same time, many of us are literally feeling the effects of too much greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. We are worried, individually and collectively about the impact on our health, and, for some, even our survival as a species.

There is an uncomfortable, unrelenting tension between what we think we need, which translates into producing 300 million tons of virgin plastic feedstock every year, and the price we are paying in terms of the unsustainable levels of pollution we are generating, to live the way we do.
Recycling is not working nearly as effectively as it could or should. And while packaged food manufacturers have started to invest in alternative, more eco-friendly packaging to plastic, the fact is that the plastics industry is planning to make more food and beverage plastic packaging for years to come. Another, or parallel solution is for us consumers to just not ask for, or use as much disposable packaging. That is mostly what the zero waste movement is about.
This episode focuses on two zero waste shopping approaches. First, I talk to owners of two zero waste stores that have opened in the last year; Stephanie Lentz of Scoop Marketplace in Seattle, and Lea Rainey at Roots Zero Waste in Garden City, Idaho. Nothing is pre-packaged or branded in these stores. You bring your own containers, or pay to use the store's.
I also speak with Ben Weir, from Loop, a start-up that is testing a model where you and I can buy products in non-disposable, durable packaging that we send back to Loop for them to reuse when we've used up all the product.

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 Eating.”
An app promoting intermittent fasting - DoFasting - broke through the onslaught of January diet marketing for me because fasting brings back poignant memories. Not because I’ve fasted to lose weight, but because fasting was an annual event in my family growing up. Breaking the fast is what I remember most and best. Food never tasted so good! And not just any food. Special food that did more than replenish your energy. A hearty, nourishing soup called harira (I give you my vegan version of it in this episode), figs, dates, eggs, and a special Moroccan sweet treat called chebakia.
This wave of interest in fasting got me wanting to revisit my experiences to better understand the potential of fasting, especially as something more than a way to lose weight. From my limited experience it seems like fasting can heighten the pleasure of eating and offer emotional, even spiritual rewards if it’s part of an overall approach to eating.
In this episode I talk to Liliya, who recently started a fasting Meetup group, about her experience and why she's a big proponent of IF. I also speak with Dr. Rachel Herz, a neuroscientist who specializes in perception and emotion, and author of "Why You Eat What You Eat." She tells me about some of the latest research into the health benefits of intermittent fasting related to managing insulin. Dr. Herz also talks about how we experience food after not eating for a long time, and speculates on the potential emotional benefits we derive from breaking the fast. Martina observes a vegan fast for weeks at a time, in addition to periodic 18-24 hour fasts. She describes the spiritual rewards of fasting.
Then we talk about food to break the fast with. Mehdi Menouar, owner of Meska Sweets, a Moroccan bakery/patisserie in Englewood, NJ, talks about his Moroccan Macaron and elaborates on chebakia, the heavenly cookie/pastry that is one of my favorite things in Moroccan cuisine, and a staple during the fasting month of Ramadan.

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 Americans say they do some amount of food gardening, and the appeal is growing across a broad swath of the population. Millennials, in particular, are driving this trend. While the median garden size is 75 sq. ft, the average size is 550 sq. ft. That’s a fair amount of the most popular things we grow; tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, carrots, and summer squash.

This podcast explores a range of approaches to growing and foraging your own food. Marjory Wildcraft, founder of the GROW network talks about her 3-part system, which relies on animals, for growing up to half of your food needs in your backyard. I tap into the wisdom of Wild Abundance, a permaculture and homesteading school, to learn what vegetables to grow, and look at some examples of a forest garden; a valuable but undervalued source of perennial edibles. I also talk with Roman Gonzalez, founder of Gardenio, a company that’s all about initiating Millennials into successfully growing edible plants, one herb at a time.

Sound clip courtesy of dersuperanton at Freesound.org

Food waste remains a huge problem around the world - 1.3 billion tons of food every year according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. Some 40% of food waste in the United States is directly as a result of what we, as individuals, throw out at home or when we eat out. I know I'm as guilty as the next guy. Tons of food over the years, I'm sure, and all the packaging that the food comes in too!
Policy makers, think tank thinkers and academics have been dialing up the message of food waste for the past decade or so. The message has become more urgent. More strident. Why? Climate change. Food waste has been identified as a meaningful contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. This has spurred additional activists, environmentalists, a rash of op-eds and entrepreneurs hoping to help fix the problem. Not a week goes by when I don’t see an article in the business media about a start-up trying to tackle food waste.
It’s also not hard to find articles in consumer magazines that offer "X easy ways to reduce food waste at home." "How To" books have been published on topic. And I found a long list of ideas on how to reduce food waste on the government's EPA web site, that groups ideas into planning, shopping, storage, and meal preparation categories. The NRDC has a web site dedicated to the topic, with software tools for every step of the process.

I perused these lists, tips, and tools. I quickly realized that our family doesn’t follow many of the suggestions. It’s not surprising that we generate a lot of food trash. I got to thinking about why the average American family creates so much food waste, and how difficult it might be to change our planning, shopping, and meal preparation habits so that we can reduce this waste.
In this episode of Talk to Me About Food, I share findings from interviews I conducted with a handful of primary food shoppers around this topic, among them a list of what are likely the most effective of the 37 (!) suggestions, as well as thoughts on how to make other ideas more doable. Our relationship with the process of getting and making food is complicated... I also discuss an example of how the latest technology might help us act on our best intentions to reduce food waste at home.

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.