I hope you had an excellent weekend! I have been enjoying a fabulous time with alumni from my program, but of course we do find time to decompress and read a bit – these are some of the things that caught my eye.
Around The World In 8 Hospital Meals showcases the stark differences that exist between countries in what food recovering patients are served. It’s always baffled me how little attention is paid to the nutritional and culinary quality of hospital meals, especially as food is so central to health especially in times of weakness. The article collects stories and pictures of eye witnesses and it’s fascinating to see how it is being done, and what could be achieved – the overwhelming leader in this regard being Japan.
To Spotlight Food Waste, This Activist Is Biking Across the U.S. and Only Eating out of Dumpsters. Though it sounds like a Buzzfeed headline, this is a pretty nice feature article of environmentalist Rob Greenfield, who decided to turn the spotlight to the huge amounts of food wasted in the US by relying mainly on dumpstered meals for sustenance on his cross-country ride. The problems aren’t new, but any bit of extra publicity helps – and these kinds of pictures don’t disappoint:
And finally, apparently Monsanto Woos Mommy Bloggers by inviting them onto the fields and informing them about the company’s aims and strategies. The article gives a fascinating insight on the controversy around the company, including links to a number of recent articles on them (including a great long read on Monsanto’s really poor ability of spin control and subsequent PR problem), and brings up the question – are sponsored tours like this which bloggers thereafter report on a necessary and justified awareness-raising effort or, as Anne Lappe argues, “stealth marketing techniques [which] reveal how the food industry — from biotech behemoths to fast-food peddlers — is working surreptitiously to shape public opinion about biotechnology, industrialized farming and junk food”?
What are your thoughts on the juxtaposition between awareness-raising and stealth marketing?