For many, along with all that good cheer, the holidays bring a bunch of food-related conundrums: what to bring to the pot luck, what to eat and not eat at the company party, what gifts to buy for our culinary-focused friends and family, and how to be ecologically responsible without compromising taste. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with a food expert who can help solve these holiday food puzzlers. Gigi Berardi is a professor of food studies and geography at Western Washington University. Her new book, FoodWISE lays out ways to make better decisions about what we eat. We discuss the differences between frozen and canned foods, take a look at “Big Organic,” and examine how the food industry’s misuse of the word “healthy” has warped its meaning.

Narrator | 00:02 - This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

Gigi Berardi (GB) | 00:14 - Choose whole, be informed, choose sustainable, and go for the experience.

Narrator | 00:24 - For many, along with all that good cheer, the holidays bring a bunch of food-related conundrums: what to bring to the pot luck, what to eat and not eat at the company party, what gifts to buy for our culinary-focused friends and family, and how to be ecologically responsible without compromising taste. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with a food expert who can help solve these holiday food puzzlers. Gigi Berardi is a professor of food studies and geography at Western Washington University. Her new book, FoodWISE lays out ways to make better decisions about what we eat. We discuss the differences between frozen and canned foods, take a look at “Big Organic,” and examine how the food industry’s misuse of the word “healthy” has warped its meaning.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:40 - I am joined now on Sea Change Radio by Gigi Berardi. She's a professor of food studies and geography at Western Washington University, and her new book is Food Wise Gigi. Welcome to Sea Change Radio.

Gigi Berardi (GB) | 01:52 - Thank you, Alex.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:54 - So you have a new book coming out early 2020 entitled Food Wise. What is the Wise approach? It's an acronym. Why don't you explain to our listeners what the Wise approach to sourcing and preparing meals is all about?

GB | 02:09 - Right. Uh, Wise is an acronym, and the acronym is Whole for W. Informed is the I, S is sustainable and E is experience. So experience-based thinking. And I had thought about using Wisest and that would've allowed me to add a T for Tasty, but I did not. And so in its simplest form it represents an approach to dealing with food choices. So this book is a little different in that it's not about food so much as about food choices, which are really difficult for many of us to make.

AW | 02:54 - So is it for consumers who are going to the store shopping and the choices that they have to make when they get home?

GB | 03:02 - Precisely.

AW | 03:03 - What are some of the biggest challenges that you think that consumers are facing in today's marketplace?

GB | 03:10 - Time and money. Uh, so, uh, in particular, I mean, I think people can choose wisely and find, uh, inexpensive foods and, uh, inexpensive ways to cook, but then it comes down to time, and that is, you know, valuing time, the time it takes to cook, to prepare a meal, to invite friends, uh, over and, um, to be hospitable. Uh, so I think that that time is a, a real limiting factor. And, um, I should say that when I wrote this book, I was really trying to address my students, uh, as well as friends, family, colleagues, uh, and other people I work with. And students are very busy with school and also are on tight budgets. And so they find it very difficult to, uh, to find the time and money, but, um, to cook. But in one of my classes we've got, uh, 150 students, and part of the class is cooking for a potluck. So we have potlucks with 150 students and 50 students cook at a time.