Hungry for Change

May 24, 2012 By Nourishing Words in Food, Sustainability Tags: food systems, Hungry for Change, Mark Bittman, Northwest Earth Institute, sustainable food, Will Allen 14 Comments

This post relates to Week Six of Hungry for Change: Food, Ethics and Sustainability, a discussion course offered though the Northwest Earth Institute. Readings featured this week were written by Christian Schwagerl, Mark Bittman, Jonathan Bloom, Roger Bybee, Lisa Abend, Raj Patel and Anna Lappe. This week (actually a few weeks ago) was our last week, and was quickly followed by a celebration potluck a week or so later.

A few weeks ago, this six-week discussion course ended with readings and questions about waste, better ways of managing our food system and working toward change.

Our group, by this time, had settled into a comfortable rhythm together. Honest conversation came easily to us by now, and we’d long since established a common philosophy that “it’s all good.” Continue reading →

Eating for Earth

April 27, 2012 By Nourishing Words in Environment, Food Tags: Cheese, Environment, Hungry for Change, Northwest Earth Institute, sustainable cheese production, water conservation 13 Comments

This is the fifth in a series of six posts relating to the discussion series Hungry for Change: Food, Ethics and Sustainability. This week, we explored the challenging and sometimes frustrating world of resource depletion and the many impacts of food production on climate change and the environment. Session Five readings included work by Lisa Hymas, George Wuerthner, Sandra Postel, Tom Paulson, Robert Kunzig, Natalie Reitman-White, Sarah Mazze and Sustainable Table.

The people drawn to participate in our Hungry for Change group (perhaps predictably) are environmentally conscious by nature and are concerned about tending this planet for future generations. Continue reading →

A Healthy Appetite

April 6, 2012 By Nourishing Words in Food, Healing and Wellness Tags: food choices, healthy eating, Hungry for Change, intuition, Northwest Earth Institute 10 Comments

This post relates to the third week’s discussion (a little late) in Hungry for Change: Food, Ethics and Sustainability, a six-week discussion course made possible by the Northwest Earth Institute. This week, we read articles by Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, Francis Lam, Tom Philpott, Mary Vance, Alan Greene and one from The Organic Center.

Each week, we begin with an “opener,” offered by one person who shares a thought, a memory, an object—anything relating to our work in this course. It gets us thinking and talking. Beth, as an opener for Week 3, brought a bag full of packaged foods from her home cupboards, most of which were labeled “organic.” What we passed around surprised us all. One by one, we read the labels, revealing marketing claims, additives, chemicals and trans fats lurking in the fine print. Continue reading →

Politics of the Plate

March 26, 2012 By Nourishing Words in Food, Sustainability Tags: Farm Bill, food insecurity, food politics, global vs local action, Northwest Earth Institute 10 Comments

This post relates to the second week discussion of Hungry for Change: Food, Ethics and Sustainability, exploring food policy issues and the effect of global politics on food systems. To prepare for the discussion, we read articles by Lester Brown, Danielle Nierenberg, Mara Schechter, Marion Nestle, Daniel Pauly, Sandra Steingraber, Guari Jain, Eric Holt-Gimenez and Lucy Bernardini.

A few paragraphs into this week’s readings, I realized how little consideration I give to global issues related to food. My personal focus is just that—personal. Continue reading →

Nourishing Words

on food, gardening and healthful living

Tag Archives: Northwest Earth Institute

Hungry for Change

Eating for Earth

A Healthy Appetite

Politics of the Plate

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