Real Food Reads

When we speak of biodiversity loss, the climate crisis, and food injustice, we have to go to the root: colonialism. From the perspective and "voice" of the nutmeg, The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis by acclaimed author Amitav Ghosh does just that. Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka and is now based in Brooklyn. He's the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction including The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. His most recent book, The Nutmeg's Curse, opens with the Dutch Empire's brutal war in the Banda Islands—a small archipelago that's part of what is now Indonesia—to establish a monopoly on the nutmeg trade. From there, he takes us halfway around the world and back again, weaving together stories of colonial violence, human resilience, and non-human agency. SHOW NOTES: 2:32 | Why European navigators sailed off in search of spices in the 17th century 4:00 | Dutch colonialism and the 1621 Banda Massacre 9:46 | Nutmeg production as the earliest instance of industrial agriculture and racial capitalism (and why it matters) 11:19 | Racialized workforces in agriculture around the world 14:20 | The pleasures of gardening, including growing your own spices 15:15 | How spices came to be devalued (and associated with “onanism”!) 17:40 | On the mysteries of the vanilla plant 20:40 | Environmentalism's dark history (and present) of ethnic cleansing 22:20 | The role of militarism in transforming food systems and contributing to the climate crisis 23:30 | The Pentagon and other military institutions as the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world, and yet they are excluded from climate negotiations 25:42 | Amitav's call for a “vitalist politics” DIG DEEPER: Follow Amitav Ghosh on Twitter: @GhoshAmitav Visit his blog: http://amitavghosh.com/blog/ Buy the book: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo125517349.html ​​For more on this episode, expanded show notes, and full transcript, visit: https://realfoodmedia.org/portfolio/the-nutmegs-curse/ Join the Real Food Reads book club: https://realfoodmedia.org/programs/real-food-reads/ Become a Patreon supporter for early access to our episodes and premium content with the authors here https://www.patreon.com/realfoodmedia

Indigenous people make up 5 percent of the global population and steward 80 percent of the world's biodiversity, yet they aren't centered in most discussions or actions for environmental justice. An Indigenous woman and scientist, Dr. Jessica Hernandez talks about the importance of Indigenous science (and scientists) in her new book Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science. In this conversation, Jessica talks about the importance of Indigenous-led stewardship projects, Black-Indigenous solidarity, and shares the moving story of how she came to the book's title. SHOW NOTES: 1:51 | The difference between an interdisciplinary scientist and an Indigenous scientist 3:50 | What is Indigenous science? 5:50 | Indigenous people support 80% of the world's biodiversity 10:15 | Conservation as a Western construct and the trouble with the original concept of National Parks 12:44 | The importance of #LandBack and Indigenous-led stewardship projects 17:49 | The impact of banana plantations in Central America 22:30 | The title of the book and the personal impact of war in El Salvador DIG DEEPER: To learn more about Dr. Jessica Hernandez, visit her site https://www.jessicabhernandez.com/ Follow Jessica on Twitter: https://twitter.com/doctora_nature Buy the book: https://bookshop.org/books/fresh-banana-leaves-healing-indigenous-landscapes-through-indigenous-science ​​For more on this episode, expanded show notes, and full transcript, visit: https://realfoodmedia.org/portfolio/fresh-banana-leaves/ Join the Real Food Reads book club: https://realfoodmedia.org/programs/real-food-reads/ Become a Patreon supporter for early access to our episodes and premium content with the authors here https://www.patreon.com/realfoodmedia

There is a broad consensus around the “endangerment” of crop diversity—among scientists, advocates, policymakers, and corporations, actors who tend to disagree on a number of other issues. But Helen Anne Curry says: not so fast. Where does this endangerment narrative come from? Whose interests does it serve? And what assumptions does it make? Conventional approaches to crop conservation largely center on conserving seeds off-farm in gene banks, as opposed to protecting the livelihoods, communities, and farming systems of the peasants and Indigenous peoples who developed and steward those seeds. In this conversation, Curry delves into the history and science of seed conservation—and its implications for the future of food. SHOW NOTES: 2:23 | What is the “endangerment narrative”? 6:11 | Origins of endangerment in the early history of plant breeding and industrial agriculture 14:35 | Endangerment as an outgrowth of settler colonialist & racist assumptions 19:01 | Defining ex situ (off site) vs. in situ (on site) seed conservation 24:08 | Does diversity change and evolve over time? Is crop diversity inevitably declining or can we think about crop diversity increasing? 28:00 | Crisis thinking or crisis narratives 34:03 | The story of glass gem corn 37:15 | Difference between conventional and food sovereignty approaches to seed conservation DIG DEEPER: To learn more about Helen Anne Curry, visit http://www.helenannecurry.com/ Follow Helen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hacurry Buy the book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520307698/endangered-maize ​​For more on this episode, expanded show notes, and full transcript, visit: https://realfoodmedia.org/portfolio/endangered-maize-industrial-agriculture-and-the-crisis-of-extinction/ Join the Real Food Reads book club: https://realfoodmedia.org/programs/real-food-reads/ Become a Patreon supporter for early access to our episodes and premium content with the authors here: https://www.patreon.com/realfoodmedia

Colonialism is at the root of the problems we see in our food system, and, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently stated, it is also at the root of the climate crisis. By cultivating diversity within the soil and amongst farmers, we can work towards a liberated future. “Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming” by Liz Carlisle shares the stories of Black, Indigenous, Latino, and Asian-American farmers around the United States who are using their ancestral agricultural traditions to heal the soil, build climate resilience, connect with their culture, and create pathways for racial justice. Tiffani's conversation with author Liz Carlisle and scientist Aidee Guzman highlights what is possible when we focus on diversity above and below ground. SHOW NOTES: 02:25 | The four per mille study and why regenerative agriculture has sparked hope in recent years. 04:35 | What's possible when you take “regeneration” and regenerative agriculture to heart 06:25 | Aidee Guzman's research on soil health and habits of bees on diverse farms vs monoculture farms in California's Central Valley 07:56 | The 450 million year old fungi that helped bring plants to the land. 10:05 | How to support a diversity of farmers and farming techniques 13:53 | History of agroecology in Mexico and how it intersected with the Green Revolution 19:33 | There's no such thing as a weed 21:35 | For Aidee, there are two distinct worlds of agriculture 25:12 | Reciprocal farm labor practices abroad and in the US 29:40 | How the agricultural industry in the US was designed and why it is extractive today 32:45 | The one thing Liz Carlisle and Aidee Guzman want you to know about climate, justice, and the deep roots of regenerative farming. DIG IN: To learn more about Aidee Guzman, visit https://www.aideeguzman.com/ To learn more about Liz Carlisle, visit https://www.lizcarlisle.com/ ​​For more on this episode, visit: https://realfoodmedia.org/portfolio/healing-grounds/ Join the Real Food Reads book club: https://realfoodmedia.org/programs/real-food-reads/ Become a Patreon supporter for early access to our episodes and premium content with the authors here https://www.patreon.com/realfoodmedia

Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America by James Beard award-winning author Mayukh Sen gives us an intimate look into the lives of seven women who've changed the way we think about food in the US, while sharing some unique insights into how food media shapes our appetites.

Frances Moore Lappé's groundbreaking book in 1971 exposed the true cause of hunger while also changing the way many people eat, for the better. 50 years later, she released a new edition with an updated introduction that speaks to her ethos, what has changed in the last 50 years, and what's next.

The Covid pandemic, mass uprisings against injustice around the world, raging forest fires... Our bodies, societies, and planet are inflamed, argue Raj Patel and Dr. Rupa Marya. Their epic and timely new book "Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice" will forever change the way you think—not only about food—but about the ruptures in the web of life that have wrought so much damage on our health and relationships. Rupa is a physician and professor of medicine dedicated to healing the wounds of colonialism through food medicine, story, and learning; and Raj is the best-selling author "Stuffed and Starved," "The Value of Nothing," and co-author of "A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things." For more on this episode, visit: https://realfoodmedia.org/portfolio/inflamed/ Join the Real Food Reads book club: https://realfoodmedia.org/programs/real-food-reads/

The story of humankind is usually told as one of technological innovation and economic influence—of arrowheads and atomic bombs, settlers and stock markets. But behind it all, there is an even more fundamental driver: food. In this episode, Anna Lappé and Mark Bittman dive into how food has shaped our past, but also how we can transform it to reclaim our future. For more on this episode, visit: https://realfoodmedia.org/portfolio/animal-vegetable-junk/ Join the Real Food Reads book club: https://realfoodmedia.org/programs/real-food-reads/

“Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice” centers the Black experience within the US food system: what is missing and what is possible. Edited by Dr. Ashanté M. Reese and Hanna Garth, this anthology features voices and experience from around the nation.

Ken Meter is one of the most experienced food system analysts in the United States. He's promoted local food economies in 143 regions in 41 states, two provinces, and four tribal nations. In Building Community Food Webs, he makes a strong argument for reversing the extractive economy and weaving “food webs” that restore local wealth, health, capacity, and connection.

Meet: the Food Justice League. No, they’re not superheroes. They’re a growing community-based movement based in Gainesville, FL, that’s working to abolish exploitation and prison slavery from the food system. They’ve launched a public campaign to pressure the University of Florida to ditch the exploitative food service company Aramark—and commit to buying more ethical and sustainable food. Learn about the Food Justice League’s strategies and movement-building efforts in the Season Two premiere of Foodtopias.

Like many Caribbean and Central American nations, Belize is a place where healthy, diverse farming systems have been violently replaced with sugar plantations. The legacy of that dispossession is yet another sugar-related violence: diabetes. Cultural anthropologist Amy Moran-Thomas contextualizes diabetes within a long history of racial capitalism in her book "Traveling with Sugar: Chronicles of a Global Epidemic."

Carey Gillam’s 2017 book, Whitewash, exposed the dangers of the world’s most popular weedkiller: Monsanto’s Roundup. Gillam’s new book, The Monsanto Papers, tells the riveting story of the man who became the face of a David-and-Goliath showdown against one of the world’s biggest agribusiness corporations.

Allinee ‘shiny’ Flanary—founder of Come Thru Market, a Black, Indigenous, and People of Color(BIPOC) producer farmer’s market in Portland, OR—joins us for the season finale of Foodtopias to talk about the origins of the market, what it looks like to offer meaningful support, and the role of abolition in food sovereignty. This conversation was a part of The Power of Community-based Food Systems with The Wallace Center.

A veteran journalist and former farmer, Tom Philpott cracks open US agriculture—and where it went horribly wrong. Highlighting scientists documenting the damage and the farmers and activists pushing back, Perilous Bounty is a must-read for eaters and activists alike. This Real Food Reads episode breaks down key food system concepts like no other.

The global peasant leader and food sovereignty activist Elizabeth Mpofu speaks to us about growing up in a farming family in Zimbabwe, practicing climate resilient agriculture, and how rural women are impacted by Covid-19. Mpofu is General Coordinator of the international peasant confederation La Vía Campesina and founder and chairperson of the Zimbabwe Smallholder Organic Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF). This conversation was part of the Hunger for Justice series from A Growing Culture. View the full broadcast at: http://www.agrowingculture.org/hfj/

Centuries of colonization have disrupted Indigenous communities’ ability to control their own food systems. But throughout the United States, projects are underway to reclaim and protect the land, water, plants, animals, and food & farming practices that underpin Indigenous self-determination and wellbeing. Native Choctaw scholar Devon Mihesuah joins us for this special Indigenous Peoples Day episode.

Long-time Real Food Media friend and ally Jose Oliva joins us to talk about his co-authored chapter, “Food Workers versus Food Giants.” In this dynamic conversation, we cover the food system’s legacy of slavery, corporate consolidation, unions, and the strategies workers are using to carve out pathways for a more just food system.

Dr. Cindy Ayers, head farmer and CEO of Footprint Farms in Jackson, MS, is carrying on a long legacy of activism and farming. Descended from Civil Rights veterans and sharecroppers, her 68-acre farm is a hub for learning and support, creating real opportunities for young, Black people. We cannot free ourselves until we feed ourselves.

For the debut episode of Foodtopias, we speak with labor organizers Axel Fuentes (Rural Community Workers Alliance) and Christina Spach (Food Chain Workers Alliance) about working conditions in the meat processing industry pre-Covid and during the pandemic, and the worker-led strategies for holding Big Meat accountable.

Our newest podcast series, Foodtopias, showcases the stories and strategies of workers, farmers, healers, ecologists, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), womxn, and community organizers who are growing food & cultivating utopia. The inspiration we need for building a post-pandemic, food sovereign world.

In her new book, Minkoff-Zern argues that farmworkers have the skills and the knowledge to lead the sustainable farming movement, if given the opportunity. The book shares powerful stories of farmworkers who have successfully transitioned to owning and operating their own farms.

Jennifer Gaddis takes us into the world of school lunch—and it’s not pretty: unhealthy food and exploited cafeteria workers abound. But all that can change if we organize together to make fair and healthy school food a reality for all children.

Bryant Terry's stunning collection of recipes is a celebration of vegetables and flavors from the African and Asian diaspora. This episode explores his ethos, work to decolonize veganism, and shed myths about soul food.

Part cookbook, part travelogue, and part investigative journalism, Yasmin Khan’s “Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen” takes us through the joy and the struggle of eating in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

What does it mean to cook with soul? Lazarus Lynch tells us as we dive into his cookbook “Son of a Southern Chef: Cook With Soul” and uncover the world he wants to create through his art.

Dina Gilio-Whitaker explores Native struggles for land, food, water, and sacred sites from colonization to Standing Rock—and what they mean for climate and environmental justice movements—in this important new book.

Joshua Specht takes a hard look at the cattle industry in the US in Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-Table History of How Beef Shaped America. This isn’t a book about what you should, or shouldn’t, eat: it is a book about how stories shape our choices and our realities.

Teresa Mares’ new book 'Life on the Other Border: Farmworkers and Food Justice in Vermont' tells the story of food insecurity and fear experienced by the workers who sustain the dairy industry on the Vermont-Canada border—and how they are practicing food sovereignty in their daily lives.

The rich story, and steep cost, of how California’s arid Central Valley became an agricultural powerhouse and what that means for farmers, rural communities, and our food supply as we face the climate crisis.

With finite resources, a growing population, and a changing climate, how do we feed the world? With research conducted on three continents, Tim Wise shows how small farmers around the world—those who already grow most of the world’s food—are our best hope for eating tomorrow.

From “culinary brownface” to the “fetishization of the agricultural other,” this collection of hard-hitting essays from Paloma Martinez-Cruz takes a look at mestizaje identity in the United States through the lens of food.

Real Food Media founder and former Real Food Reads host Anna Lappé joins us to talk about how our food system drives the climate crisis, how food must be part of the solution, and how this conversation has evolved in the nearly ten years since the publication of her book Diet for a Hot Planet.

Seeds have stories to tell. In the face of climate change, corporate consolidation, and decreasing biodiversity, their stories are increasingly important for us to hear. Tune into this special conversation with Kristyn Leach, farmer and seed saver, and Mark Schapiro, author of Seeds of Resistance recorded live at CUESA.

At nearly 1,000 pages, the Farm Bill is difficult to understand for policymakers, let alone the rest of us. Dan Imhoff walks us through this vitally important legislation, and what it means for farmers, our health, and the planet.

Agriculture has often been seen as a site of oppression in Black history, but it is so much more than that. Dr. Monica White shares a different narrative of Black farmers, and agriculture, in the US—one of resistance, innovation, and collective liberation.

Foodies and celebrity chefs celebrate authentic Mexican foods like heirloom corn tortillas traditionally grown and prepared by peasant farmers. But thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), in Mexico this cuisine is being replaced by processed food and industrial agriculture. Tanya Kerssen speaks with Eating NAFTA author Alyshia Gálvez.

Chocolate is good for you? Bacon is best? Pomegranate juice will prolong your life? The expert who literally wrote the book on food politics (Food Politics, 2002) turns her eye to the unsavory story of food industry-backed nutrition research. Recorded live with Tiffani Patton at CUESA's Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market.

In 1910, 14 percent of farmland in the United States was owned by black families. Less than a century later, that number has fallen to less than 1 percent. “This was no accident,” writes this month’s Real Food Reads’ author, Leah Penniman, and this book—part brass tacks handbook, part political treatise, part spiritual text, and so much more—explores why and how to reverse this figure.

Chef Sean Sherman tantalizes our palettes—and our minds—with this cookbook bringing to life the foods indigenous to Turtle Island.

Weaving indigenous wisdom and ecological science, Kimmerer explores the nature of nature and its spirit of abundance.

A conversation with children’s book publisher and author, June Jo Lee — with special guest host Anna’s 9-year old daughter — that will leave you wanting to cook dumplings and devour awesome sauce with kids.

Partners in work and life, Luz Calvo and Catriona Esquibel inspire us to rethink nourishment and what’s on our plate.

In this David and Goliath story, we hear how the small town of Mals, Italy organized their community against Big Ag to win the fight against pesticides.

Green Enough: Leah Segedie | Ep.20 by Real Food Media

What if I told you there was a way to end hunger or, at least, begin to end hunger? One city in the heart of Brazil has answers to just that question and Dr. Jahi Chappell dives into this story: a city whose leaders made the bold decision to treat access to good, healthy food as a human right and then implement changes to make it do.

Behind the Kitchen Door: Saru Jayaraman | Ep. 18 by Real Food Media

Author of Stuffed and Starved, Raj Patel, turns his sights to the history of the world. Seriously. It's a grand scope, fascinating read, and powerful analysis to help us all understand what we eat today and what it's true price really is.

The New Food Activism: Alison Alkon, Tanya Kerssen, & Joann Lo | Ep. 16 by Real Food Media

A fascinating read on the politics of breastfeeding and a recipe for the changes needed to support all mothers who want to breastfeed.

Veteran investigative journalist Carey Gillam’s truth-seeking tome about a ubiquitous weed killer, troubling corporate spin, and worrisome toxicology.