I grew up with the habit of Thursday nights as the time when family shopped together at the local supermarket, and I always assumed, for good or ill, that supermarkets were permanent. It’s now clear that old style super-markets are on their way out. Beginning this month, Wal-Mart Canada kicks off its one-year agenda to add 40 new supercenters to…
Category: Food
Is being vegan the only green option?
Join the discussion on how green and vegan issues relate; see my intro to the issues in this debate with PETA member Bruce Friedrich: http://www.newint.org/argument/2011/01/01/vegan-green-debate/
New Book Explains Why Big Cities Back Hometown Food
As a local food enthusiast, I often wonder: why is it that places most removed in their landscape from farms, most outward-turning in their economy, most cosmopolitan in their culture, most multicultural in their backgrounds, most futuristic in their outlook — North American cities such as San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Chicago, Toronto, New York and Boston — are the very…
Foodbooks for Thought: Mark Winne’s New Book an Organizer’s Manual for America’s Food Rebels
Mark Winne has been working in the galleys of the U.S. food movement for 40 years, before there was a food movement of any note. He’s a social movement guy as much as a foodie guy. The title of his new book –Food Rebels, Guerilla Gardeners, and Smart-Cookin’ Mamas: Fighting Back in an Age of Industrial Agriculture — shows the…
RESPECTING VOLUNTEERS OF THE GAIA CITY
Politics has changed so much since I grew up that I still have trouble coping with modern conservatives who are usually outraged by the way things are going and are very militant and venomous about the need for abrupt changes. I find today’s radicals equally out of character with my memories. Many old-time Toronto activists seem moderately comfortable about the…
It’s An Ill Wind That Shows Local Food Is No Longer Debatable
Driving from Toronto to Halifax last week to help move my daughter Anika into King’s College, I had a lot of quiet time to rehearse a rant against a recent flurry of attacks against local food systems by right-wing extremists across North America. I was pretty happy with some of my vitriolic lines until we got to the university residence…
Northwest Territories Gardeners and Farmers Work Together For Local Food
Yellowknife and Hay River “We’re so far behind up here that we’re ahead,” Evellyn Coleman told me, explaining why her Territorial Farmers Association, the first in North America to consider accepting backyard and community gardeners as full members, was inviting me up to speak in the Northwest Territories. Just south of the Arctic tundra, where lichen and moss are the…
Agro-Ecology Is the Oldest and Newest Form of Bio-Mimicry: Count the F Words
Imitation is the highest form of flattery, and the intricate form of food production practiced by peasants through much of Asia and South America still express that flattery in relation to Nature. In the Global North, all food production except hunting and gathering is commonly referred to as agriculture. But in the Global South, the peasant and Indigenous styles of…
The Stress of Food Bank Food
I was fully prepared for several days of poor eats when I took part in the Stop Community Food Centre’s Do the Math media stunt earlier this April, when ten well-known Torontonians signed on to stretch a three day ration of food bank grub for as long as possible. But I was shocked by how quickly and completely this poverty…
“If Id Known You Were Comin…” The Role of Food and Hospitality in Community Development
Here is a great presentation by Wayne regarding the role of food and hospitality in community development. He talks about the role food policy experts can take in understanding the global tradition of “breaking bread” and how food bolsters connection and community with each other and other species.