todd m. sweet

Microscopic Food

Mapping Global Food Spending (Infographic)

A sobering infographic about the proportion of income that goes to food in countries around the world. Excerpt:

A one dollar bag of rice in the U.S. is not the same as a one dollar bag of rice in Indonesia. For an American, who, on average, devotes about seven percent of his or her spending to food, it won’t matter that much if the price of rice doubles to two dollars. An American can likely take the money that would have gone to a “non-essential” item and put it towards food instead. But for an Indonesian, who devotes 43 percent of his/her spending to food, it could mean less to eat.

Lunch Line Redesign - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com

A smarter lunchroom wouldn’t be draconian. Rather, it would nudge students toward making better choices on their own by changing the way their options are presented. One school we have observed in upstate New York, for instance, tripled the number of salads students bought simply by moving the salad bar away from the wall and placing it in front of the cash registers.

Foodie Elitism | Flavor Magazine

Because high-quality local food often carries a higher price tag than food generated by the industrial system, the charge of elitism coming from industrial foodists is often vitriolic, and embarrassed foodies agonize over the label. For all their positive energy surrounding food, I’ve found latent guilt among this group—guilt for paying more for local food when others are starving, guilt for caring about taste when others would happily eat anything. Instead of cowering in self-guilt, let’s confront the issue of prices head on.

Farmer Joel Salatin of Food Inc. and The Omnivore’s Dilemma confronts the elitist label for those willing to pay more for local foods.

Now Is the Time to Feed Our Children Well - José Andrés

I know that some people ask why we need to spend more money on feeding children when we are dealing with an epidemic of childhood obesity. Seems like a contradiction. But I want them to understand that hunger and obesity are the children of the same father. It is hard to eat healthy because it costs more. A gallon of milk is maybe $3.50, nearly $4.00, but a two-liter bottle of soda is only 99 cents.