Sweetness and Mercury

by: Hannah Farber

Tue Feb 10, 2009 at 17:29:03 PM EST

When I saw the news about the high levels of mercury researchers found in corn syrup this past week, I realized I wanted to recommend a book to all y'all: Sidney W. Mintz's Sweetness and Power. This is a work of anthropology from the 80s that was absolutely ahead of its time. It describes the impact of sugar on the British Empire. Really, this book is the grandfather of all of the All-We-Eat-Is-Corn Syrup literature that has been coming out over the past decade.

Mintz describes sugar as "the first luxury turned into a proletarian necessity." In his estimation, the rise of sugar is cause and consequence of the rise of the English laboring classes, who lacked the ability to make their own food once they moved into the city.

The heightened consumption of goods like sucrose was the direct consequence of deep alterations in the lives of working people, which made new forms of foods and eating conceivable and “natural”, like new schedules of work, new sorts of labor, and new conditions of daily life.

Sugar - like the imported stimulants tea and tobacco - made working life bearable. Impoverished children could get by on store-bought bread and treacle (sweet syrup) or jam (almost any kind of fruit or vegetable mashed up with sugar). This would allow a family to buy more meat for its primary male wage earner.  But at what cost?

Anybody who is into the whole food thing should give this book a shot - though our core sugar is now corn syrup, the lesson today is more relevant than ever.

Where'd the Grocery Store Go?

by: Hannah Farber

Mon May 05, 2008 at 21:07:13 PM EDT

Fewer and fewer supermarkets in New York City. No single bad guy, no easily identifiable group of bad guys taking them away, just fewer places to get fresh food. Of course, this is a health problem:

 “Many people in low-income neighborhoods are spending their food budget at discount stores or pharmacies where there is no fresh produce,” said Amanda Burden, the city’s planning director. “In our study, a significant percentage of them reported that in the day before our survey, they had not eaten fresh fruit or vegetables. Not one. That really is a health crisis in the city.”

It's not just a health problem. The article name checks a few of the related issues: rising rents, the inability for local stores to keep up with national chains, the loss of local unionized jobs... it's all connected.

Also, the food problem is not only a problem of supply at the top level. Even if you have a supermarket, fresh food is still expensive. If the city is going to provide various zoning and tax  breaks to keep the supermarkets within physical reach of the locals, it also needs to find ways to keep the much-applauded fresh food within financial reach of those same locals. If it doesn't, the people visiting the stores are going to keep buying the same lower-cost non-fresh food they would get anywhere else.

Much Needed Information

by: Hannah Farber

Thu May 01, 2008 at 17:07:55 PM EDT

Simon's Exodus Op-Ed in WaPo/Newsweek

by: Mik Moore

Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 14:40:45 PM EDT

Jspot contributer (and JFSJ President) Simon Greer has an op-ed, "Sharing Hardship and Prosperity," in the Washington Post/Newsweek "On Faith" section. In it, Simon examines a piece of the Exodus story in light of the current economic problems facing the U.S. He writes, in part: