Farm to Kitchen: The Potential of "Local Food"

10/08/21 • 60 min

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This episode looks at what it might take to make locally grown and processed food the hub of our food system. Why? For one, Covid-19 has exposed vulnerabilities in our current food system that is dependent on a sprawling, global web of connections on the one hand, and industrial-scale, concentrated agriculture on the other hand. The longer term threat that’s been creeping up on us for decades is the loss of soil fertility almost everywhere. A sustainable food system would be built on small, diversified farms close enough to form symbiotic relationships with population centers.
I first speak with Thomas Locke of Bois d’Arc Farm. He raises livestock using sustainable practices less than 100 miles from the Dallas Farmer’s Market. Thomas shares his story and what it’ll take to make DFW a more vibrant local food scene.

I then share part of my conversation about urban farming with Owen Lynch, an associate professor in the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU. Owen is helping folks in South Dallas help themselves to develop a systemic solution to systemic problems around food access by developing a network of professionally run urban farms to support a local produce market. The starting point is Restorative Farms.
Jeff Bednar started Profound Foods several years ago as a small food hub in Dallas. Through it he sells his own small farm's 150 varieties of edible greens as well products from 50+ local farms to some 6,000 residential subscribers and a range of restaurant chefs. He tells me how he got started and reinforces the need for more food hubs like his.
Next, Zach Correa describes for us how lemonGRAFT works. It's another sort of food hub based on software coordination. lemonGRAFT connects produce eaters with growers - backyard warriors and small farmers alike - who live in the same vicinity. He also talks about the compelling benefits of this system.
Finally, Judith McGeary, of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, addresses the elephant the room when it comes to the local food movement; farm policy and regulation. After explaining the factors that have constrained local food, Judith suggests ways that citizen eaters like you and me can make a difference.
There is local food potential everywhere. We have to want it...To really want to re-engineer the current food system model in favor of locally grown, raised and processed food. My sense is that we will need to live through more shocks to consider demanding change of others and of ourselves.
Photo courtesy of Brad Roa at Restorative Farms

Previous Episode

Gastrophysics - Enjoying food with all your senses

Charles Spence, author of Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating defines this realm of research as the scientific study of those factors that influence our multisensory experience while tasting food and drink.

The basic premise of gastrophysics is that all aspects of the eating environment – where, when, how, and with whom - provide essential sensory cue, and that the eating experience is influenced by multi-sensory faculties you don’t even know you have.
In this episode I share some of the findings from this book with the help of Charles Spence, Professor of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, and Head of the Cross-Modal Laboratory.
Flavor is not experienced with taste buds alone. Not by a long shot. And the smell receptors in the back of the mouth are critical in cataloging memories of what we eat and drink. The sense of smell is what draws emotion into the eating experience.
I also look at how sight and touch cues can heighten the appeal of what's on the plate. Charles then shares with me the power of "sonic seasoning" and how all these cross-modal effects can be used to change behavior. He explains how we can eat healthier, for example.
Finally, we look at the future of gastrophysics. How can the five senses be manipulated to deliver extraordinary eating experiences?
Wine sound associations courtesy of Jozef Youssef of Kitchen Theory at a TEDx LSE conference in 2018.

Next Episode

Franken Taters

In this Halloween audio blog post I muse about the results of an experiment where a human gene that codes for obesity was implanted into the genome of a potato. The spuds grew to be 50% larger! What could be wrong with that? The research is real; only some of the implications conjured here are plausible...