Good Food is Everybody's Business
A new study by the Society of Actuaries – those folks who figure out all the odds that help insurance companies make money – estimates that the total economic cost of overweight and obese people in the U.S. and Canada is $300 billion a year.
First Lady Michelle Obama added the power of her presence to Walmart’s announcement of its Nutrition Charter, an initiative for healthy eating. Walmart will reformulate products to improve nutrition by 2015 by reducing sodium 25% and added sugars 10%, and removing all trans fats; make healthy food more affordable by reducing the cost of fruits and vegetables and healthier options; developing a healthy seal to make it easier for customers to make healthy choices.
Michelle Obama’s handshake with Walmart is center stage news today. The whole emphasis is on price as if the organic and natural food movement is responsible for low income people not being able to eat right and Walmart is ready to save the day by making good food affordable.
How local is local? Peter Platt thinks local within a global network. Challenged with running an ethnic restaurant that is closely tied to ingredients that can’t be purchased locally, Peter struggled to find the foods he needs and to source them in a sustainable manner.
The need for aggregating and marketing services is especially great with new and transition farmers. New farmers are challenged to learn the business side of farming while dealing with setting up farm systems. Mid-sized farmers who would like to transition to local markets deal in greater volumes than are typical of direct sales markets. Food hubs can serve these needs.
Nearly 40% of US consumers buy products that are – or contain – certified organic ingredients, a number that has held steady for the last three years. Where those consumers are shopping for those products has changed toward conventional and mass market outlets and away from natural food stores.
As cities grew, more and more people left the farms, and the food had to be brought to them. In the century since Seattle’s Pike Place Market was opened, a lot has changed and we have become distanced from our food and the people who produce it. It is today’s farmers market that is reconnecting American consumers to the land and to their food.
What should we have for dinner? The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species.
