For Food's Sake

Are 'GMOs' good or bad? Are they safe to eat? Are they symbolic of what is wrong with our food system? According to plant geneticist Pamela Ronald, such generalisations make little scientific sense and do nothing to advance discussions on sustainable agriculture.

This week, we talk 'GMOs' with Pamela Ronald from the University of California Davis. Pam and her colleagues have received a number of awards for their work on submergence-tolerant rice. She's also very well known for her pragmatic but unique approach to sustainable agriculture that brings together genetic engineering and organic farming.

We discuss:

• The issues with defining and discussing GMOs in a generalist sense
• Some of the criticisms associated with the topic, the misconceptions and misinformation
• The role genetic engineering may play in helping to forge disease-resistant, climate-change-resilient crops
• The millions of farmers planting seeds carrying a gene Pam and her collaborators isolated.
• Sustainable agriculture: combining genetic engineering with organic farming

Links:

• The Case for Engineering our Food - Pamela Ronald TED Talk
• Pam's Book- Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food 
• Recent overview of GMOs - McKay Jenkins (2017) Food Fight: GMOs and the Future of the American Diet
• Washington Post interviews Mckay Jenkins: 'We're having the wrong arguments about GMOs'
• Bill & Melinda Gates weigh in: GMOs combatting starvation in Africa

This week, we discuss the exciting world of edible insects with Robert Nathan Allen (RNA) from Little Herds.

Little Herds is an educational non-profit based in Austin, Texas teaching and spreading awareness about edible insects as a resource efficient, economically viable, nutritious and delicious food for us to eat, and as feed for the animal products that we consume.

We discuss the enormous potential of edible insects: how incorporating them into Western diets and food systems could help us meet the current and future nutritional and environmental demands and needs of a growing world population.

In this episode, you'll hear all about:

• what edible insects are
• RNA's love story with bugs
• The historical and cultural significance of edible insects across societies and cultures
• Western taboos towards insects and how we can overcome them
• first impressions and how they taste as I try them live on air!
• the nutritional benefits of edible insects compared to other livestock
• the resource efficiency of edible insects (feed conversion ratio, land and water use)
• the ethical argument for eating insects
• insects as feed for the livestock we eat 
• criticisms and concerns about edible insects
• RNA's tips, tricks and suggestions about edible insects

Links:

• RNA's Little Herds Website
• The insects I ate from Jimini's Edible insects company
• UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) 2013 'Edible insects: Future prospects for food and feed security'
• UC Davis Study. Lundy & Parrella (2015) 'Crickets are not a Free Lunch: Protein Capture from Scalable Organic Side-Streams via High-Density Populations of Acheta domesticus'

This week, I talk with Dr. Dennis vanEngelsdorp, assistant professor of entomology at the University of Maryland in the United States, and project director for the Bee Informed Partnership. A former acting Chief Apiarist in Pennsylvania, Dr. vanEngelsdorp is widely known for his influential work with bees on a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder.

In this episode, we discuss the wonderful world of bees and why bees matter.

We explore:

• The historical significance of bees and our evolving relationship with them
• What bees really are, what they do, and a few misconceptions surrounding bees
• Why bees matter for sustainability and why we can't live without them
• The mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder
• What we can all do to directly support bees

Links

• 'A plea for bees' Dennis vanEngelsdorp TED Talk
• Bee informed Partnership – a collaboration of leading research labs and universities to better understand honey bee declines in the US.
• US Geological Society, Sam Droege Solitary Bee pictures, Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab
• 'The first 21 days of a bee's life' Anand Varma - TED Timelapse
• The Xerces Society - international nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitats.
• Pollinator Partnership -promote the health of pollinators, critical to food and ecosystems, through conservation, education, and research

This week I talk with Iemke Postma. A young entrepreneur in food sustainability, Iemke has set up organisations and businesses in permaculture and mushroom cultivation. He is currently Operations and Project Manager at Florim, a business growing plants, fruits and vegetables in hydroponic greenhouses for local hotels and restaurants in Cape Verde. He's also setting up his mushroom business in Cape Verde called Cabo Melo.

In this episode, we'll be talking about his journey in food sustainability. We'll be covering his path from an 'ultra skater' looking to optimise his nutritional intake to starting a business in mushroom cultivation in Cape Verde. We'll touch upon:

• What permaculture is and how it works
• Permaculture in Northern Thailand and 'permablitzing' in the Netherlands
• His time living in a cabin in the woods in Ireland working for a Seed Saving organisation
• The weird and wonderful world of mushrooms, how he got involved, and how he ended up in Cape Verde
• Iemke's tips and tricks for growing mushrooms & living more sustainably

Links: 

• The Urban Farmer Curtis Stone (YouTube)
• Rotterzwam Mushroom Growkit 
• The Blue Economy - Gunter Pauli 
• Mycelium Running - Paul Stamets 
• The One Straw Revolution - Masanobu Fukuoka
• World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) 

This week – as part of the new Learn by Doing initiative– I took on J.B. Mackinnon's 100-mile diet challenge. James Mackinnon was last week's guest on the For Food's Sake podcast, Episode 4: The 100-Mile Diet.

In this episode, I reflect on my week long adventure of eating a truly local winter diet in Paris.

In the 15-minute mini podcast, you'll discover:

• The challenges of eating local: the setbacks, the frustrations…is it really practical for urban dwellers?

• The rewards of eating local: the wonderful people, the tastes… is it worth the effort after all?
• Tips & tricks of eating more sustainably: what can you do?

Links:

• Local food producers near you through the Food Assembly 

• FFS 004 - The 100-mile diet

This week, I talk to Canadian best-selling author James Mackinnon about eating local and the local food movement.

James has won more than a dozen national and international writing awards in categories ranging from essays, to science writing, to travelogue. His latest book, The Once and Future World, is a national bestseller in Canada and won the US Green Prize for Sustainable Literature. He's also a contributor to the New Yorker on consumer issues and ecology, has publications in National Geographic and Reader's Digest, and also works in the field of interactive documentaries.

In this episode, we discuss his best-selling book The 100-mile Diet, which he co-authored, and which is widely recognized as a catalyst of the local foods movement.

We'll explore:

• What exactly a local diet is
• The many reasons for choosing to eat local
• The challenges and misconceptions surrounding local diets
• How the local food movement has transformed in the last decade
• The prospects for local diets and the locavore movement in the future.

As part of my new project – Learn by Doing – I will be adopting the 100-mile diet as part of a 7-day challenge. In the coming days and weeks, I'll be sharing my experience, tips & tricks on eating a local diet in mini-podcasts, as well as on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the For Food's Sake website. 

#Ourfield: Forty people on a one-year journey of co-farming a field of heritage grains, with a British farmer called John. 

Future Farm Lab's latest collaboration in creating #OurField has got everyone excited. #OurField is about reconnecting with farmers, living the farmers journey, and sharing his / her risks. By co-investing in a farm, you help call the shots on what is grown and how it's grown, bearing the farmer's risks but also possibly reaping the rewards.

In this episode, I discuss the project with Phoebe Tickell, a scientist and social entrepreneur from Future Farm Lab. Phoebe is passionate about creating opportunities of transformation for people, society and planet. She is fascinated by technology and how best we can get technology and science to best serve humanity. She is launching her very own podcast and network around this topic at Tech For Humanity. 

Some of the topics we discuss in this episode:

• What heritage grains are and why we need them
• The origins and inspiration for #OurField
• The often misunderstood realities of modern-day farming
• The dilemmas and challenges of 'going organic' for farmers
• A step-by-step, in-depth walk-through of the #OurField journey

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As part of my new project - Learn by Doing - I have personally invested in the #OurField initiative. I'll be one of the lucky 40 investors on a one-year journey of co-farming a field of heritage grains with John the farmer. Join me in the coming months as I document, blog and release mini-podcasts on my journey with #OurField.

Taxing food with high carbon emissions seems like a rational, reasonable, and feasible step that governments should take. It seems like the logical thing to do. Raise the price, lower the demand. Tax food, reduce climate change. Or does it?

I talk with Dr. Ariane Kehlbacher from the University of Reading about introducing a carbon food tax to combat the negative effects our diets can have on the environment. 

We first discuss the theory behind the tax, before delving into the issues that surround and complicate the initiative. It's not just what gets taxed, but who. 

I chat with Mark Pershin - CEO of Less Meat Less Heat - about how a Climatarian diet can reduce your carbon footprint and combat climate change. 

So why am I launching a podcast about food and sustainability? Glad you asked. I think we need more down-to-earth, genuine dialogues about the food on our plates. In this introduction, I outline why I'm curious and keen to learn more about the food issues of our time. I argue that grounded conversations with individuals working directly to tackle these issues is the best way how. Click play to find out all about the upcoming topics and issues.