No More Food Fights! Growing a Productive Farm and Food Conversation

No More Food Fights! Growing a Productive Farm and Food Conversation
Author: Michele Payn-Knoper
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2013-02
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 9781457517228

Food fights might seem entertaining, but there's nothing funny about the fight staking place over food production. Resource limitations, animal welfare, and biotechnology are just a few issues cropping up to create confusion in the grocery store. Ultimately, both farmers and food buyers are making a personal choice, and author Michele Payn-Knoper calls for decorum instead of mayhem in the conversation around farm and food. In an effort to break stereotypes, one side of this book describes farmers who don't wear overalls but who do use technology in producing food and preserving the environment, dairy farmers who work on "cow comfort," and how hard farmers work on sustainability. On the other side, the book reminds farmers that only a tiny percentage of the population lives on a farm and urges farmers to tell their stories through social media and everyday conversation to correct mistaken beliefs about food production perpetuated by traditional media. The book's very design lends itself to exploring both sides of the issue. One side of No More Food Fights!is aimed at those who primarily consume food-chefs, health care professionals, foodies, dietitians, and retailers. Flipping the book reveals the other side, which is geared toward those who produce food-farmers, agricultural businesses, and ranchers. Throughout the book, the author intersperses personal stories from farmers, foods cientists, dietitians, and ranchers. She naturally guides readers from both sides to"reach across the plate" to honestly explore food concerns and the critical connection from farm gate to food plate. Bring peace to your plate-and your next trip to the grocery store-with No More Food Fights!as your guide.

Food Bullying

Food Bullying
Author: Michele Payn
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2019-08-06
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1642794104

“A much-needed critique of our national obsession of guilt over food choices…exposes the multi-trillion-dollar marketing and misrepresentation of food.”—Dr. David Samadi, urologic oncologist and world-renowned robotic surgeon IPPY Award Gold Medal Winner More than 40,000 products can be found in a grocery store—and there’s a lot of money to be made by those who use misleading marketing to push us into emotion-driven decisions or make us feel like every purchase is a moral or social statement. Food Bullying upends the way you think about food and gives you permission to make eating choices based on your own social, ethical, environmental, and health standards—rather than brand, friend, or Facebook claims. Michele Payn, one of North America’s leading voices in connecting farm and food, takes a startling look at the misrepresentation of food and sheds light on bogus nutrition and environmental claims to help you recognize and stand up to the bullies. Food Bullying guides you through understanding food label claims and offers insight on “the hidden world of farming”. Armed with science and a lifetime on the farm, Michele provides a six-step action plan for you to overcome food bullying, simplify safe food choices, and even save time in the grocery store. “Engages and enables readers to overcome their fear to make shopping, food preparation and eating enjoyable endeavors rather than a battleground.”—Leslie Bonci, MPH, RDN, CSSD, LDN, Kansas City Chiefs Sports Dietitian

Food Truths from Farm to Table

Food Truths from Farm to Table
Author: Michele Payn
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2017-03-20
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1440849986

Don't believe everything you're told about food—most of it is highly misleading or completely untrue. Written by a farm and food advocate, this book identifies marketing half-truths and guides you through the aisles of the grocery store to simplify smart food shopping and restore your freedom to enjoy food. What is the only "food" on your dinner table that does not contain hormones? How can animals raised for food also be treated with respect? Is it true that a typical serving of broccoli has more estrogen than a serving of steak? Why is more than 40 percent of food wasted in the United States? Food Truths from Farm to Table: 25 Surprising Ways to Shop & Eat without Guilt answers all of these questions and many more, bringing an unheard voice into the highly emotional food debate. Authored by Michele Payn, a leading farm and food advocate with an in-depth understanding of both sides of the plate, this intriguing book helps readers understand how food is really produced, answers food critics, and points out how food marketing and labels are often half-truths or even "less-than-half truths." These 25 food truths enable an understanding of how food is grown, providing a transparent window into today's farming and ranching practices that empowers you to make informed personal choices and determine what is right for your family. Each chapter presents a farm or ranch story, answers questions around a major issue, provides science-based information, and includes a sidebar section of food truths and myths. Readers will gain insights from a food expert who offers a viewpoint that stands in stark contrast to the typical sensationalist and often negative perspective on fashionable food—accurate information that will help you to better trust the intentions and processes in farming and ranching. The revelations in this book will simplify food shopping, reduce guilt about being a consumer, and give you the freedom to enjoy your food again.

Food Fight

Food Fight
Author: Dan Imhoff
Publisher:
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2012
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9780970950079

Discusses the Farm Bill; explores the connection to obesity; and offers twenty-five ideas, including aligning the bill with dietary guidelines, affordable healthy foods for everyone, and new farmer programs.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

The Omnivore's Dilemma
Author: Michael Pollan
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 476
Release: 2006-04-11
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 9781594200823

One of the New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of the Year Winner of the James Beard Award Author of How to Change Your Mind and the #1 New York Times Bestsellers In Defense of Food and Food Rules What should we have for dinner? Ten years ago, Michael Pollan confronted us with this seemingly simple question and, with The Omnivore’s Dilemma, his brilliant and eye-opening exploration of our food choices, demonstrated that how we answer it today may determine not only our health but our survival as a species. In the years since, Pollan’s revolutionary examination has changed the way Americans think about food. Bringing wide attention to the little-known but vitally important dimensions of food and agriculture in America, Pollan launched a national conversation about what we eat and the profound consequences that even the simplest everyday food choices have on both ourselves and the natural world. Ten years later, The Omnivore’s Dilemma continues to transform the way Americans think about the politics, perils, and pleasures of eating.

Gaining Ground

Gaining Ground
Author: Forrest Pritchard
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2013-05-21
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0762794380

With humor and pathos, Forrest Pritchard recounts his ambitious and often hilarious endeavors to save his family’s seventh-generation farm in the Shenandoah Valley. Through many a trial and error, he not only saves Smith Meadows from insolvency but turns it into a leading light in the sustainable, grass-fed, organic farm-to-market community. There is nothing young Farmer Pritchard won’t try. Whether he’s selling firewood and straw, raising free-range chickens and hogs, or acquiring a flock of Barbados Blackbelly sheep, his learning curve is steep and always entertaining. Pritchard’s world crackles with colorful local characters—farm hands, butchers, market managers, customers, fellow vendors, pet goats, policemen—bringing the story to warm, communal life. His most important ally, however, is his renegade father, who initially questions his son's career choice and eschews organic foods for the generic kinds that wreak havoc on his health. Soon after his father’s death, the farm becomes a recognized success and Pritchard must make a vital decision: to continue serving the local community or answer the exploding demand for his wares with lucrative Internet sales and shipping deals. More than a charming story of honest food cultivation and farmers’ markets, Gaining Ground tugs on the heartstrings, reconnecting us to the land and the many lives that feed us.

Tomorrow's Table

Tomorrow's Table
Author: Pamela C. Ronald
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2008-04-18
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0199756694

By the year 2050, Earth's population will double. If we continue with current farming practices, vast amounts of wilderness will be lost, millions of birds and billions of insects will die, and the public will lose billions of dollars as a consequence of environmental degradation. Clearly, there must be a better way to meet the need for increased food production. Written as part memoir, part instruction, and part contemplation, Tomorrow's Table argues that a judicious blend of two important strands of agriculture--genetic engineering and organic farming--is key to helping feed the world's growing population in an ecologically balanced manner. Pamela Ronald, a geneticist, and her husband, Raoul Adamchak, an organic farmer, take the reader inside their lives for roughly a year, allowing us to look over their shoulders so that we can see what geneticists and organic farmers actually do. The reader sees the problems that farmers face, trying to provide larger yields without resorting to expensive or environmentally hazardous chemicals, a problem that will loom larger and larger as the century progresses. They learn how organic farmers and geneticists address these problems. This book is for consumers, farmers, and policy decision makers who want to make food choices and policy that will support ecologically responsible farming practices. It is also for anyone who wants accurate information about organic farming, genetic engineering, and their potential impacts on human health and the environment.

Food Fights

Food Fights
Author: Charles C. Ludington
Publisher:
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2019
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 9781469652894

What we eat, where it is from, and how it is produced are vital questions in today's America. We think seriously about food because it is freighted with the hopes, fears, and anxieties of modern life. Yet critiques of food and food systems all too often sprawl into jeremiads against modernity itself, while supporters of the status quo refuse to acknowledge the problems with today's methods of food production and distribution. Food Fights sheds new light on these crucial debates, using a historical lens. Its essays take strong positions, even arguing with one another, as they explore the many themes and tensions that define how we understand our food--from the promises and failures of agricultural technology to the politics of taste. In addition to the editors, contributors include Ken Albala, Amy Bentley, Charlotte Biltekoff, Peter A. Coclanis, Tracey Deutsch, S. Margot Finn, Rachel Laudan, Sarah Ludington, Margaret Mellon, Steve Striffler, and Robert T. Valgenti.

Closing the Food Gap

Closing the Food Gap
Author: Mark Winne
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2009-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0807047317

This powerful call to arms offers a realistic vision for getting locally produced, healthy food onto everyone’s table, “[blending] a passion for sustainable living with compassion for the poor” (Dr. Jane Goodall) In Closing the Food Gap, food activist and journalist Mark Winne poses questions too often overlooked in our current conversations around food: What about those people who are not financially able to make conscientious choices about where and how to get food? And in a time of rising rates of both diabetes and obesity, what can we do to make healthier foods available for everyone? To address these questions, Winne tells the story of how America’s food gap has widened since the 1960s, when domestic poverty was “rediscovered,” and how communities have responded with a slew of strategies and methods to narrow the gap, including community gardens, food banks, and farmers’ markets. The story, however, is not only about hunger in the land of plenty and the organized efforts to reduce it; it is also about doing that work against a backdrop of ever-growing American food affluence and gastronomical expectations. With the popularity of Whole Foods and increasingly common community-supported agriculture (CSA), wherein subscribers pay a farm so they can have fresh produce regularly, the demand for fresh food is rising in one population as fast as rates of obesity and diabetes are rising in another. Over the last three decades, Winne has found a way to connect impoverished communities experiencing these health problems with the benefits of CSAs and farmers’ markets; in Closing the Food Gap, he explains how he came to his conclusions. With tragically comic stories from his many years running a model food organization, the Hartford Food System in Connecticut, alongside fascinating profiles of activists and organizations in communities across the country, Winne addresses head-on the struggles to improve food access for all of us, regardless of income level.