Hi

I’m Angelica, and I’ve been interning at What’s On Your Plate? since November, give or take a little. I’m sixteen years old and I attend high school in New York. I’m 5’2 (and a half) and I tend to giggle a lot. My favorite foods are sushi and mangoes (separately), and I like the word kayak because its spelled the same way forwards and backwards. I like the color red, traveling, people who make me laugh, spring/summer, and art. Spiders are probably my least favorite thing in the world. I’ve never really gardened before, but once as a child I planted cherry pits in my grandmother’s backyard and it grew a tree a couple year later. Coincidence? I think not.

I came to WOYP? hoping to gain more experience on blogging and writing. But I actually ended up getting a whole lot more out of it. Its exposed me to a whole different perspective on food. We’re all used to scary documentaries badmouthing food and giving it a nasty reputation. But WOYP? goes beyond that to celebrate food and promotes healthy local communities at the same time. As a blogger at WOYP?, I want to enforce that message, and show that despite all the greasy corporate industries, there is still fresh and organic produce, even in bustling cities. I’ll probably never look at my lunch the same way again.

We have yet more reasons not to drink sugary coke.

At the risk of becoming infertile, scientists suggest that men drink fewer caffeinated products. Researchers from the American Journal of Epidemiology tested 2,554 young Danish men to see if there was a connection between their fitness, the amount of soda they drank, and their fertility rates. The results implied that a moderate soda-drinker may not experience decreased semen quality, however a large intake is associated with reduced sperm count. An intake of 800 mg of soda a day – or 14 half-liter bottles a week – could decrease sperm concentration.

You may also be paying more for soda now. The Coca Cola company is increasing the price by two or three cents per ounce of coke. That may not seem like a ridiculous amount, but keep in mind that those cents add up to a 50-140% increase. You’re getting a whole lot less for more. And this is from the people who threw hissy-fits when asked to raise a cent-per-ounce in the soda tax!

Our blogger, Cassie wrote an article supporting the soda tax. Although soda may seem tasty and affordable, its damages hormones which help signal your brain when you are no longer hungry, leading to obesity. This tax could decrease obesity and soda consumption by 10%, and generate 1.2 billion dollars. Already over 72% of NY residents favor it, and it seems like the obvious solution. This begs the question, when will it be passed?

Here at WOYP? we suggest that people trade in soda for a healthier alternative anyway, unless you want to hazard infertility or pay 140% more for it than what you normally would.

Hello, I am Cassie and I blog here.

Jasper and I

Some tidbits about me:

1. I’m from the DAIRY CAPITOL OF THE WORLD and currently live in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
2. I compost in my kitchen and garden in Queens.
3. My greatest joy is taking my dogs to the Prospect Park Dog Paradise. (Mornings before 9 a.m. dogs take over Prospect Park. It is Lovely and Amazing)
4. I study video & radio documentary, media advocacy, and journalism in the Integrated Media Arts graduate program at Hunter College.
5. I have a radio show where I interview friends and colleagues about their art & activism.
6. I hop around NYC yoga studios in search of a good deal.
7. I love driving across the country and sleeping outside.
8. I’ve been at WOYP since October and have relished the opportunity to champion find my favorite topics: media activism, the healthy life, community, and growing things in the dirt.

Internet, let’s talk about science. Specifically, let’s talk about the intersection of science and food. I have two bits of information to share with you: the first is an article on PepsiCo’s new form of salt, just out of the lab, that dissolves more efficiently on the tongue, so that a smaller amount of salt will taste more salty. The second is a TED talk by Dan Barber explaining a method of fish farming used in southern Spain that produces large numbers of tasty fish while actually improving the local ecosystem.

The Pepsi article points out that, while the new salt would mean that the salt content of snacks made by Pepsi, like Lay’s Potato Chips, could be significantly lowered, the effect on the health of Pepsi’s customers would likely be small. The article mentions Sweet ‘N Low, which reduced the amount of calories in food where it was used, but in the long run probably helped us eat more sweet foods and might have made matters worse. As happens so often with food research, Pepsi has, through years of expensive and painstaking research, provided us with a product incredibly similar to one readily and cheaply available in nature, except that it helps us feel better about consuming larger quantities of Pepsi products. I love science, and the idea that people can make anything they think up, simply by methodically working out a solution. But it bothers me that Pepsi employs research chemists to work on something as inane as tastier salt. There are still diseases out there to cure, fossil fuels to replace, or if you aren’t into chemistry, there are oceans to explore, a whole universe to fathom. There are enough exciting, humanity-benefiting goals out there for everyone on the planet to be working on them, let alone everyone with a PhD in chemistry. It’s a terrible waste of talent, and a symptom of how we treat science in our society, but it’s no use moping over where research grants come from.

Which brings me to Dan Barber’s TED Talk. Barber’s lecture centers around a very cute metaphor (the fish he fell in love with) and makes some excellent points about what it means to be sustainable. Barber compares two methods of fish farming, one that relies on external (and kinda gross) feed for the fish, and one that takes advantage of an entire ecosystem to feed the fish and raise better meat, at the cost of a slightly lower output. The first farm initially seemed a model of sustainability. By the traditional metric of fish farm sustainability, the feed conversion ratio (how many pounds of food go into raising one pound of fish), the farm was exemplary (2.5:1), it was also far enough out at sea that the fish waste was able to disperse, instead of concentrating, which is often a problem. As it turned out, this farm was feeding their fish chicken, essentially raising one artificial population to feed another artificial population, and burdening multiple ecosystems in the process. The second farm is run by a biologist who figured out how to cultivate a ecosystem that would essentially raise delicious, relatively disease-free fish all by itself. The fish eat what they would in the wild, and the water that runs through the farm actually comes out more pure than when it got there. Incredible? Totally. Amazing? Yes. Sustainable? Yeah, and it brings up a neat little point: sustainability is actually how the world works, or how it tries to. Sustainability in an industrialized society takes a bit more work, but not as much as you might think. This is where my opposition to food science breaks down. I see no point in figuring out how to make saltier salt, or low-fat ice cream, or brighter-colored tomatoes, but I can’t think of a more noble project for a biologist than creating a fish farm that not only takes pressure off our oceans’ plummeting fish populations, but actually enriches a local ecosystem with its presence. In the end, I’m as excited about the one as I am angered by the other. Pepsi researching saltier salt is a huge waste of time, resources, and talent. Hardly worth the lab coats. Farms that mutually benefit the farmer, the consumer, and the local ecosystem should get Nobel Prizes.

The New York Times just alerted me to a strange trend out there in the internet world. It seems that a lot of people like to take pictures of their food and post them on blogs, flickr, what have you. The thing is, a lot of people are doing this with everything they eat. Like, at every meal, even snacks. On the one hand, it totally makes sense. There’s some good lookin’ food out there, and pretty much everybody can relate to getting excited about delicious-looking food, so the impulse to share the visual joys of food seems pretty natural. But isn’t it a little weird? I can totally get behind blogs like Fed Up With School Lunch, which documents food at a particular school. In Fed Up, pictures of food form an overall narrative, the blog makes a point, I feel enriched for having read it. But one of the things I look for in the food reform movement, and in the general awareness of food that is growing in this country, is that our attitude toward food should become less neurotic. Pictures of good food look tasty, and sometimes seeing a really delicious meal makes me want to go out and try new foods, or new recipes, but if there is one thing we shouldn’t have to obsess over, it’s food. Good food is wonderful, it should be eaten with friends, talked about, savored, remembered fondly, but maybe not compulsively photographed.

As you may or may not be aware, Internet, the WOYP crew was just in Los Angeles for a screening at the Hammer museum. While they were in the neighborhood, Sadie, Safiyah, and Catherine took a trip up to San Francisco for a screening and Q&A session at the Julia Morgan School for Girls. The screening went great, and the students asked some great (tough) questions. We hear there’s a video of the Q&A out there somewhere, and we hope it’ll make its way to the web soon. We’re always glad when people watch WOYP, but what we really want is for people to talk about food, so we get really excited when people see the movie and start asking questions. Debate, Internet, is what it’s all about.

While in San Francisco, Sadie, Safiyah, and Catherine also stopped by to visit Oliver Taylor, who has been raising money to get WOYP screened at his school in Lafayette, CA. Oliver has been working with The Urban Farmers, helping to plant fruit trees in downtown Lafayette, and it was really cool to finally meet him.

Thanks for a great time, San Francisco!

Hi there! I’m Nate, and I’ve been an intern at WOYP since June, 2009. I’m 22 years old (aquarius) and I will soon graduate from the lovely and prestigious Sarah Lawrence College where I’ve been studying urban planning (I get really excited about rooftop gardens and farmer’s markets). I’m 5’10″ tall and I need a haircut. I enjoy ginger cookies (snaps or non-snaps) and detective stories. I dislike squash and making a fuss. My favorite color is blue, I like the Beatles better than the Stones, and I am afraid of heights. I like to cook enchiladas because all of the ingredients are different colors, so I know when I’ve forgotten something. I love portable foods in general (sandwiches, dumplings, pies, things with tortillas) and my ambition is to learn to make all of them deliciously.

My favorite thing about WOYP is that it is an optimistic take on what can be a very depressing and pessimistic subject. Much of what I read about and blog about paints a picture of a scary food-world, in which much of what we eat is either bad for us, or produced and distributed in ways that are harmful to the planet, rob communities of their economic autonomy, and distance us from our neighbors. Where most information about food reform focuses on the problem, WOYP is all about the solution. WOYP shows that building strong, efficient, local food-production systems is entirely possible, even in a city like New York. My favorite part of the movie is the big meal at the end, which reminds me that making food and eating it are community activities. I hope that films like WOYP will help people see how a community can come together around a meal, from the farm to the table, and how, even in these times of e-z mac and Cargill, such a meal isn’t so impossible a goal.

When I write for the WOYP blog, I try to focus on good things that are going on in the world of food reform. Sometimes I have to let the Internet know about depressing things or urgent problems that I get outraged about, but mostly I think the problem is all around us and impossible to ignore and I try to post solutions I find as often as I can. That tends to mean a lot of jokes and fun links, but I try to stick to helpful things.

How about this one:

Long term consumption of soda and sugary beverages alters your hormone
functioning – making it harder for your brain to know when you are full.

The debate over the New York soda tax continues. While both Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg support a 1 cent-per-ounce tax on soda and other sugary beverages, there has been extensive lobbying against the tax by the beverage industry. And this seems to have influenced many NY politicians.

The pro-soda tax camp is rallying too though. A article from the Sunday New York Times profiled Dr. Richard F. Daines, the NY state health commissioner, who has been traveling around the state drumming up support for the soda tax. This issue is bigger than soda, he explains. It also has to do with what’s advertised to you, and the kinds of food available on your block.

From the NY Times:

“I raised my kids on Park Avenue. You can walk at least from 60th Street to 96th Street on Park Avenue. You won’t see a single soda billboard, you won’t see a single fast-food outlet, and I don’t think you could buy a soda. Basically, a child raised in that corridor has a soda-free day after school.”

But walk 30 blocks north to Harlem, he said, and the picture is different.

“This is cheap, it’s heavily advertised, it tastes really good. And then we plunge kids into that environment, and we say, if you have a problem, you lack self-control.”

Indeed. While what you eat is a personal choice, it is greatly influenced by what’s affordable and at your fingertips. In order to deal with our obesity epidemic we have to get past blame and shame, and work on solutions.

Another New York Times article gives a scary reason why drinking soda can lead to obesity:
Prolonged consumption of fructose causes a resistance to leptin — the hormone that signals to the brain when hunger is satiated.

Not only does soda give you unnecessary calories, it actually disrupts your body’s natural hormone functioning.

There truly are so many reasons to support the soda tax. And according to the NY Times 72% of New York residents favor the soda tax if the revenue is used for obesity prevention. The tax could generate $ 1.2 billion and reduce soda consumption buy as much as 10%.

It seems like an obvious solution. So why why why isn’t this idea picking up steam in Albany?

I’m sure you’ve heard, Internet, but rumor has it that Michelle Obama is getting serious about child nutrition. More specifically, she’s got a program called Let’s Move that aims to end childhood obesity in the U.S. She’s also got a vegetable garden right on the White House lawn, and is just generally using her position as First Lady to confront issues of child nutrition. This is a wonderful thing. I especially like that she always talks about getting better nutrition for kids as an important part of parenting, something she worries about as a mother, and a sort of moral imperative for her as a mother in the public eye. I was reading the always-excellent blog, Fed Up with School Lunch and Mrs. Q talked about Michelle Obama’s use of the word obesity in her campaigning. She uses the word because it’s a good political choice. Everybody wants to fight obesity. No one is going to take obesity’s side in this debate, that much is pretty obvious. But what is also fairly obvious is that Mrs. Obama isn’t actually campaigning against obesity, but working for better child nutrition, and that’s a much harder sell. And that leads us into a very weird thought process, or at least it led me into one.

I know that when Michelle Obama says she wants to stop childhood obesity in this country, she is really talking about improving child nutrition by improving this country’s food culture, both at home and at school. I know that good nutrition isn’t just about not being overweight, I know that obesity doesn’t come from eating too much nutritious food, but from eating too much food without nutrition, and actually not getting enough nutrients. But I also know that Michelle and Barack Obama do hang out a lot, and that they probably have similar styles of achieving goals, and I know that Barack Obama is a pragmatist. So then I assume that Mrs. Obama will probably be very practical about how she tries to accomplish her goals. When Barack Obama talked about a major spending freeze to hold back the increasing deficit, and then Michelle Obama talked only days later about improving school food, I knew that both Obamas were going to be pragmatic, and that improving child nutrition would probably take a fiscal backseat to the much scarier and more immediate problems of the economy. Basically, I know that Mrs. Obama probably won’t demand radical change from schools or food manufacturers, or tell the country to stop going to McDonalds and start going to farmers’ markets, or even talk about a lot of the big, specific changes that need to happen in our society, even though I’d bet that she knows how badly these things need to happen. I know that as much influence as Michelle Obama has, and as exciting as it is to have the First Lady make child nutrition a priority, immediate change is not a practical goal.

But on the other hand, I know that Michelle Obama knows just as well as I do that “obesity” alone is not the goal here, better nutrition is. The Let’s Move website lists the program’s goals as to “give parents the support they need, provide healthier food in schools, help our kids to be more physically active, and make healthy, affordable food available in every part of our country.” And that is exactly what child nutrition activists work for without even mentioning obesity. So if I know that the real object of Michell Obama’s campaign against obesity is the far better and much more difficult goal of better child nutrition, but I also know that the program will probably focus on small steps and gradual change, what should I expect? How do small goals and difficult compromises help us reach our ultimate goal? More importantly, should those of us who are a little less famous, less visible, channel our energies into pragmatic, reachable aims? We have less leverage, but we also risk less when we aim higher. I think the lesson here is that the most highly visible, farthest-reaching incarnations of the food reform movement must be somewhat conservative, and must compromise in order to gain any ground at all. However, at the local level, we can actually be more ambitious, and achieve much more through personal choices and local action.

Taxing soda actually makes kids healthier. Who would have known it was so simple? 

WARNING: SCARY FOOTAGE. IF THINKING ABOUT POWERFUL CORPORATIONS AND THE THINGS THEY ARE CAPABLE OF GIVES YOU THE CREEPS, DON’T WATCH THIS. Seriously, the twist at the end is the worst, though. Scariest thing I’ve heard about the legal system in a long time. 

Good news and bad news: the good news is that the FDA is cracking down on some of the more ridiculous food labels out there. The bad news is that somebody let food labels get completely ridiculous. I mean seriously. The POM website claimed the drink could fight cancer? I have no idea why they thought that would be okay. 

A cooking blog without recipes? Impossible! But also, somehow, intriguing… 

The Child Nutrition Act won’t fix everything at once, but it’s worth it none the less. That said, my favorite part comes from Margo Wootan: “We can’t go from candy bars to apples in one fell swoop.” Actually, I bet we could. But anything that does help us get there is probably worthwhile, and knowing how congress works, this will likely be the first of many, tiny little swoops.