The Food Chain

Ep. 1377 Real Food from Real Farmers - Guaranteed!

Michael Olson with Catherine Barr, Executive Director, Monterey Bay Area Certified Farmers Markets

In the 1826 edition of The Physiology of Taste, Jean Brillat-Savarin wrote, “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.” 

Then in the 1863 edition of Spiritualism and Materialism, German philosopher Ludwig Feurerbach wrote, “A man is what he eats.”

Today, in the 1377^th edition of the Food Chain Radio Show, Michael Olson is jumping into the conversation by saying, “If we are what we eat, then we are what our food ate.”

Following that thought will take us deep into the soil, where everything is eating everything.  It is the great smorgasbord of life that we do not see, and therefore just take for granted, like we do with all that food that fills the grocers’ shelves. 

But if we really want to know what we are, we must come to grips with what our food eats.  That is not an easy thing to do, because so much of what we eat now comes to the table wrapped in fancy packaging from thousands of miles away.  What that food has eaten should be listed on the package label, but that means we must trust in the truthfulness of whoever wrote the labels, and they are in the business of selling food to people they will never meet.

There is one way to really know what food our food has eaten, and that is to look directly into the eyes of the farmer who grew that food, and ask him or her. Aside from the farm itself, there is one place where one can shop and be guaranteed that the food for sale is real food.  And so we ask:

Where can one be guaranteed the food for sale is real food from a real farmer?

Ep. The Tyranny of Oligarch Food

Michael Olson with Tereza Corragio, Author, How to Dismantle an Empire

America’s big money oligarchs are buying up the world’s farmland and its fake-food companies.  Guessing at what their intentions might be leads us to ask: 

Can we escape the tyranny of oligarch food?

Topics include how communities lose their food and financial sovereignty to the empire of debt; how the empire of debt might be dismantled with community banking; and how to begin the dismantling.

Ep. 1376 FEEDING BABY POUCH FOOD

A FOOD CHAIN RELEASE FROM MICHAEL OLSON 

The hungry baby is crying for food.  The harried parent is short on time.   The solution:  Give baby a baby food pouch.   But that solution leads us to ask:

Do convenience pouch foods do a baby’s body good? 

 

The Food Chain Radio Show & Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Dr. Elizabeth Dunford, Research Fellow, George Institute, Assistant Professor of Nutrition, University of North Carolina, and Author of “An Evaluation of the Nutritional and Promotional Profile of Commercial Foods for Infants and Toddlers in the United States,” for a conversation about feeding babies and toddlers.

Topics include a look at what Dr. Dunford’s study found in baby convenience foods; the possible consequence of feeding babies convenience baby foods, and what time-poor parents might do to feed their babies and toddlers good food.

 

Show Host:  SantaCruzVoice.com “Feeding Babies Pouch Foods” (#1376)

Producer Host:  www.metrofarm.com:  Share your story, win the business!

Ep. 1296 Defending Beef!

Michael Olson hosts Nicolette Hahn Niman, Author, Defending Beef: The Ecological and Nutritional Case for Beef

We have been told that cows cause the climate to change by emitting greenhouse gas.  Now we are told to replace the beef we eat with patented, manufactured meat-like substances.  And so we ask:

Should beef be banned?

Topics include a look at why some believe the cattle industry should be terminated to save the environment; why others believe we must work with cattle to save the environment; and a consideration of the nutritional value of eating beef.

 

Ep. 1314 The Blue Revolution

Host Michael Olson with guest Nicholas Sullivan, Senior Researcher, Tufts University, Author of The Blue Revolution

Fishermen used to rely on good luck to haul in the big catch.  But when they began relying on information, instead of luck, they almost caught all the fish in the sea.  That leads us to ask:

Can we catch fish so there will be fish left to be caught?

Topics include how the world’s most productive fisheries were fished out; what some nations are doing to create sustainable fisheries; and how the farming of fish is replacing the fishing of fish.

Ep. 1375 Hawaii's Condominium Farming

Michael Olson with Peter Savio, Savio Realty LTD, Honolulu, HI

In the 1970s, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz told America’s farmers to “Get big or get out.”  Since Butz made his proclomation, farms have been getting bigger, and farmers have been getting fewer.  This leads us contrarians to ask:

Can unprofitable big farms be converted into profitable small farms?

Topics include how real estate developer Peter Savio converted Hawaii’s defunct plantations into income-generating condominium farms; how condominium farmers generate a huge cash income from their 1 or 2 acre-sized farms; and how the condominium farm community is organized around a plantation camp.

Radio Station:  www.santacruzvoice.com

Show Host Contact:  www.metrofarm.com

 

Ep. 1374 Costs of Alcohol on the Body and Mind

Technology has given us the ability to look deep into the human body, and to see how the body reacts to various environmental stimuli.  That being the case, we simply must ask: 

Does alcohol do a body good?

The Food Chain Radio Show & Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Timothy B. Sullivan, Doctor of Psychiatry and Internal Medicine, for a conversation about alcohol’s effects on the body and mind.

Topics include the 9,000 year history of the human use and abuse of alcohol; how many of the studies that tout the health benefits of alcohol are tainted with biases; and whether alcohol really does do a body and mind good.

Broadcast Home:  www.santacruzvoice.com

Host contact:  www.metrofarm.com

 

Against the Big Food Merger

Claire Kelloway, Manager, Food Systems Program, Open Markets Institute  

 

As is true with the fish swimming in the sea, big companies grow bigger by eating smaller companies.  That being the case, we simply must ask: 

Should Kroger be allowed to eat Albertsons?

The Food Chain Radio Show & Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Claire Kelloway, Manager, Food Systems Program, Open Markets, for a conversation about the consolidation of the nation’s grocery stores.

Topics include why Kroger and Albertsons believe they must merge to survive; why some believe that a merger of the supermarket chain giants is unfair; and whether the competition between businesses for the consumers’ dollars can be managed fairly by the government.

Host Radio: www.SantaCruzVoice.com

Producer / Host Contact:  www.metrofarm.com