TheSMARTSeed

For shits and giggles, let’s say that I, hypothetically of course, lived on a farm, a peach farm to be exact. I’ve picked all of my peaches and counted out the ones that I would need for canning. After I’ve done my counting I have two bushels of peaches left that I do not need. Therefore, I need to complete a trade. My two bushels of peaches for something of equal value. Now, my neighbour down the road grows pluots, a hybrid fruit that is derived from a plum and an apricot. In our world pluots and peaches are worth the same. She says, “Leanne, I’ll give you two bushels of pluots for your two bushels of peaches.” It is a simple trade, but most importantly it is a fair and mutually beneficial trade, which is essential. Our society relies on mutually beneficial trade. From an exchange between neighbours, corporations, and countries every economic act is an act in trade. Every time we buy something or sell something we are participating in a trade. As Canadians, we are reminded over and over that we are a “trading nation” and that “trade” is essential to our success. Last year, our Canadian Prime Minister was in China scrounging up an agreement to just start the talks on a free trade agreement between China and Canada. Before that, he was in Vietnam restarting the Trans Pacific Partnership. In 2017 alone, trade and investment agreements have been concluded between Canada and the European Union, Guinea, Mongolia, and Ukraine. To put it plainly, Canada is going trade gangbusters and has been for awhile and there is probably one big fat reason why--the United States. Canada is and has always been overly dependent on our neighbours to the south as they count for about 77% of our trade. With Trump in the White House and the renegotiation of NAFTA not going so well, to say the least, Canada is best to diversify and diversity fast. Now, this mutually beneficial part can get pretty sticky. It’s not just making sure that all countries benefit from a trade deal, but making sure that enough people within those countries benefit to make the deal a good one. It’s the danger of creating trade agreements around the needs of multinational corporations and not around the needs and desires of people. For, if the people don’t benefit then what is the result? Trump? Maybe. Protectionism? Perhaps. War? It’s possible. It’s definitely happened before. Which brings us to this week’s episode: China, Britain, & the Poppy. When I was a kid I remember watching an episode of Seinfeld with my dad. In the episode, Elaine was invited to go on a work trip to Kenya, but one requirement was that she had to take and pass a drug test. Well, two tests later, Mr. Peterman gave Elaine the news that she had failed both tests, due to traces of opium in her system, and because of the failed tests she not only wouldn’t be allowed to go on the trip, but she would also lose her job. Flummoxed. Elaine sat at the diner, chomping down on a poppyseed muffin, and sharing her exasperation over the situation with the waiter. Only to have a noisy fellow diner bring up the fact that she was eating a poppy seed muffin and pose the question, “Well, you know what opium is made from?” “Poppies!!!” Elaine yells as the light bulb flashes in her brain. At the time I remember thinking, “Jeez Louise, who would have thought they were from the same plant?” Well, I guess certainly not a twelve year old me. Plants are often multifaceted--they give what we decide to take from it and they are an object to what we decide to impose on it. The poppy can be our nourishment. It can be a remedy to our pain. It can be a tool for our vices and our addictions. It can be a symbol of loss, violence, and remembrance written in song and poetry. In most ways, how we use plants is much more a reflection of us and our own history rather than a reflection of the plant itself. In China, in the 19th century, the country saw the poppy in much the same way as we do today--through the lense of opium.

I’m indifferent. I guess that is the best word I have, and, surely, it can be argued that this is the worst type of being. To have no passion, no hate, no love, no opinion of one thing or another. To simply be uninterested, so much so, that you care not to know. Actually, there is no “care”--it just is what it is. I am rarely indifferent. Throw a topic out there and some type of emotion will wither its way out of me: Climate Change, United States Foreign Policy, NAFTA negotiations, Tax Reform, the supply-management system, French only signs in Quebec’s National Parks, the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Oh, yes, there is deep hatred for that one. If you name it I can definitely sort out an opinion. I can state, ever so matter of factly, that there is no greater indifference than the indifference that U.S Sports broadcasters on ESPN or TNT have towards the Toronto Raptors. To be up front, NBA Basketball and the Toronto Raptors is my primary form of escapism. For a year now, I have fully committed myself to being a true and knowledgeable fan. Last year, I rarely missed watching a game. I kept the computer on while they went through that dreadful stretch from February to March. I learned to appreciate as they fell behind by twenty points and then pushed out the young guys to try to provide a spark. Sure there’s Kyle Lowry and Demar Derozan, but I was interested in the folks on the bench like Delon Wright, Pascal Siakam, Jakob Poeltl, and Fred VanVleet. Instead of paying the exorbitant prices to watch a Raptors game we hung around young families and watched a D-League Game in Mississauga. I started watching interviews with the players, the general manager, Masai Ujiri, and the coach, Dwane Casey. I stayed up to date during the offseason keeping track of who was being traded to whom and the implications those trades and others had on the league itself. Through all this time I realized one thing--the US was indifferent to the Raptors. I would watch Inside the NBA on TNT with Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Ernie Johnson, and Shaquille O’Neal. Whether it be through the regular or post-season the Raptors were just a footnote--an obligatory mention. They would spend more time, much more time, talking about teams who weren’t nearly as good or consequential to the season itself. And, when they did mention the Raptors they only ever talked about Derozan and Lowry, as if they were the only two on the team. Frankly, I think if you asked them to name the Raptor’s roster, they would only know perhaps four or five players. Yesterday, I listened to an in-depth conversation with Masai Ujiri on the US based Bill Simmon’s Podcast.  Simmons spent most of the interview asking the Raptor’s General Manager to comment on players outside of the Raptor’s franchise, and then near the end Masai asked, “Have you ever visited Toronto?” Simmon’s responded, “Ah, no, I haven’t.” And, perhaps, that is at the crux of the indifference. Sports teams are so often wrapped up in the cultural identity of the city. What is Regina without the Roughriders or Montreal without the Canadians? If you do not know the city then perhaps it’s harder to care about the team. If we do not attempt to create a relationship if we do not ask the question, “Why should we care?” then what are we missing by choosing to not know. Which brings us to this week’s episode, “The indifference to an always has been, but shouldn’t be, humble liquid.”               When it’s use is often so industrial and so woven in the fabric of our everyday we can often take it for granted. Even more so it can be denigrated; it’s value no longer appreciated, because we do not know what it was like to not have it. I believe that this is such a case. So much so, that I wish not to even say the word, because that alone would make it appear unworthy of our time and attention. So, let’s not say what it is we are talking about. Instead, let’s be introduced to it as if we had never encountered it before.

“I appreciate camping, but that doesn’t mean I like it.”   A couple of weeks ago, as we struck down our tent in Fjord-du-Saguenay National Park just off of the St. Lawrence river in Quebec those words could not possibly hold more truth for me. To be fully enveloped in nature, to feel the wind rush through your tent, the glowing embers of a fire warm your hands, to see a lone falcon jetting along the skyline, or hear the sound of a pod of beluga whales bouncing off the hills are appreciable things. You can sit in nature and feel your smallness and insignificance and in some ways be comforted in that feeling. But, (and that is meant to be a big, bold but) living in nature also forces a return. A return to what we used to be, and inclement weather just compounds the situation. It is hard to keep clean while camping. The line between the clean you and the dirty you is thin. You try your best, but somehow you get sand in your sleeping bag; you have a shower, but there is a dampness to your clothes so it feels like you are putting dirty clothes on a clean body. You wake up in the morning and your hair smells like smoke and your neck is sweaty. It doesn’t matter how much organizing you do, you quickly become one with nature, and it doesn’t smell as sweet. You are reminded that without proper shelter you are becoming more animal than civilized human, and rain certainly does not help your lot.   We were stuck in our tent as the rain poured overhead. We had read our books, had our naps, and were becoming restless as the rain continued to fall. At one point there was reprieve. I quickly dressed in order to start dinner only to have the rain fall once more just as i was about to zip open the tent. “Damnit.” I have patience until I don’t, and it is amazing how quickly patience disappears once you start feeling hungry. Enough was enough. I wanted to be dry and cozy. I wanted to be full and content. Out of the tent and in the car we went. As we drove down an unknown highway, past the most beautiful flowing rivers and misty hills I had an image in my head. It was of the restaurants found in my hometown. These restaurants weren’t fancy, for sure. There were dim lit rooms, brunch buffets, club sandwiches, and thick and clumsy coffee cups. For some odd reason, in that moment, that’s what I needed. Twenty minutes down the road, the first restaurant we saw was exactly what I was looking for. It was absolutely wonderful in its guadiness with chipped yellow and red siding and flower boxes lining the porch. We walked into a packed room and sat at the nearest booth. As I opened a ridiculously long menu my eyes panned the room. It seemed like everyone in the small town decided to come here for dinner, and (i know this is a random tidbit of a detail, but I did find it odd) literally every single person was drinking a pepsi. Like, everyone. Pepsi. Diet Pepsi, and that’s it. My partner chose the club sandwich and I chose the salmon, which to be honest, if you are going to walk into one of these restaurants you never choose the salmon. The soup of the day, for sure, some fries, of course, but salmon, never. I will blame my uppity palette for the poor choice. After a brief confusing exchange with the waitress, where I had to remember the french word for hot, “Chaud. Yes. Tea. Chaud, Not Ice Tea,” out came our dinners. My oval plate consisted of a massive piece of salmon (a bit too dry and with little bones still in it) on a bed of iceberg lettuce with a side of salad, with, you betcha, iceberg lettuce. I looked at Troy and said, “Yup, this is exactly what I wanted.” Which brings us to this week’s episode, “The Ironic Nostalgia for Iceberg Lettuce.” Most of the time, for me, in order to enjoy what I’m eating food needs to have flavour. And when I talk about flavour I’m not just asking you to pass the salt. However, for others (and I include myself in this bunch from time to time) the enjoyment of food goes much deeper.

Once upon a time there was a farmer whose name was Rod. Rod was a pilot who also happened to be an organic farmer. He grew 100% grass fed beef, pastured pork, chickens and eggs, greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers, and basil. Oh, and satisfying delicious flax cookies. At the Regina Farmer’s Market, which during the winter was held at a small community centre in the Cathedral District, Rod’s booth was right beside the one that I worked at. At first sighting, he instantly reminded me of a liberal version of my father. A little too opinionated and a little too forward you could tell that some customers didn’t know how to take him. Was he joking or was he being serious? Should you be offended or should you laugh? Rod was a proud farmer. Although, having said that I don’t know if I’ve ever met a farmer who wasn’t proud. I guess when the time comes and your truck has broken down and a crop has failed and the bank is knocking at your door it’s always good to hold on to something. Anyway, Rod was proud. His products were always more than what they appeared. His tomatoes weren’t just tomatoes. They were juicy and flavourful and were what tomatoes used to be like, not the hard, cardboard tasting ones we’ve become accustomed to. However, it was in talking about one item, in particular, when his tone would get a little lighter and a little more earnest, and that item was basil. Rod would often have around ten little ziploc bags full of freshly cut sweet basil to sell. On the days when they didn’t sell out he would give me one. Almost every time he’d tell me, “I love basil. Sometimes I even put a little under my pillow so I can go to sleep smelling it.” Rod would always insist that I take good care of the basil he gave me, “Tuck a little moist paper towel in the bag, and never put it in the fridge. Ever.” This week's episode is: Basil, Language, & a Myth or two. I didn’t really grow up with herbs. As I mentioned in previous podcasts, my mom was a good cook. Full disclosure, my dad was a nonexistent cook. His idea of cooking was slapping together a sandwich. Two slices of bread, relish, mustard, and pickled herring was all he needed. My mom certainly dabbled in her spice drawer from time to time, although some of those spice bottles looked like they had been sitting there for a while and turned into hard clumps in a jar. Once late spring hit, my mom would put together a planter of herbs--sweet basil, thai basil, parsley, thyme, and rosemary. It smelled great, but I don’t ever remember using it. They remained in their pot, never picked, never pinched, never sprinkled. Perhaps, our lack of herbs was a side-effect of a Northern European diet, or perhaps a Northern European diet that had been cut and removed from some of its fundamental properties.  We were a family of Dutch immigrants and our food reflected more a need for sustenance than enjoyment. Meat and Potatoes were what we ate, and there was no need to fancy it up. Or, perhaps, it would be more apt to say that there was no thought that there was a need to fancy it up. The perfect word to describe this type of food is bland, and bland is the exact opposite of flavour. It can be argued that the first time I ate basil was the first time I appreciated flavour. Basil has a subtle peppery flavour and smells entirely fresh, as if the wind has blown a thousand flowers towards you. Basil dances with your senses. It transforms food. From pizza, pasta, ice cream, pesto, curries, salads, food is often better with basil then without. It’s transformative effect on food and the people eating it is almost magical. In a way, all herbs, have this ability. The intensity of their flavour and their fragrance turns basic sustenance into what food should be. And in doing so has an impact that goes far beyond food. There are three words. The first word is Basilisk. In “Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets”, the second installment in the series, the book ends with Harry Potter battling the Basil...

I had once gone to a wedding in upstate New York. After the ceremony, a dance, and the presentation of food, it was time for the speeches. The best man stood up and went to the microphone to say a little something about the groom,his brother. What he said, which I thought was poignant at the time, was that his brother above all else was nice. Nice is such a simple, overly spent word and, yet, I thought it was the best word to describe my friend. It is a quality that does not come and go, depending on who you are interacting with or what is happening around you, it is a part of you. As the speeches continued, I briefly zoned out and thought to myself, “Hmm...nope, I’m definitely not nice.” One of the great things about getting older is that, if you are wise enough, you can start to see patterns within your own life. One pattern that has dogged me since I was very young is a type of divisiveness that I create. As my husband once said, “Leanne, people either love you or hate you.”  This fact, that every few years the later, gets smacked in my face is hard to swallow and as I get older I do try my best to avoid it. A quality that is as true to me as my friend’s niceness and the main cause of the divisiveness is a type of blatant honesty that I share. In recent years I’ve mitigated the fallout by choosing not to say anything at all. Unfortunately, my face betrays me more often than not, and folks can tell what I’m thinking regardless.  People either hate my honesty or they love it. It is the same quality, but often comes with different reactions. It might seem like an odd, ill-thought segue to start talking about seaweed right now, for what does seaweed have to do with my divisiveness issues? What is divisive about seaweed? Heck, what do we even know about seaweed? Unless, you live in Asia or are of Asian ancestry, your connection to seaweed is probably pretty limited. A little Nori in your California sushi roll and that is probably it. At least that is what you think. Seaweed is actually pretty pervasive even in a North American diet. However, it is the fact that we aren’t fully aware of its presence or the names that it is hidden under that allows us to create a division that we aren’t really aware that we are creating. You might not know this but seaweed is in your chocolate milk. It’s in your toothpaste. It’s in your canned beans. Essentially, seaweed is the source of a few of our most used food additives. You might see the words carrageenan, agar, or monosodium glutamate (yes, folks, that’s MSG). All derived or originally derived from seaweed. In some food circles, these additives are put on a big blackboard and labeled, “Watch out, that shit’s bad for you.” On the other side of the spectrum, seaweed, like Chlorella or Spirulina, are bottled up in vitamin capsules and presented as a wondrous super food that will be your source for boundless energy. It will prevent inflammation, while at the same time your seaweed derived additives will cause inflammation. Supposedly, it can be both at the same time, and perhaps it can. When you manipulate food anything can happen. This week’s episode Seaweed: A Complicated Relationship you didn’t know you had. There is something called the Coastal Route Theory, which is basically a theory that explains how humans first arrived in the Americas during the last Ice Age. In school, when it was the 90's and I was young, naive, and full of dreams I learned about the Bering Land Bridge Theory, which suggested the Americas was populated by folks walking from Russia to Alaska. Well, the Coastal Route Theory suggests that South America and Western United States was first populated by Southeast Asians or Polynesians who hopscotched their way across the pacific ocean on boat, by either crossing south or north of the pacific. Along with the Coastal Route Theory is another theory called the Kelp Highway Hypothesis. This hypothesis suggests that forests made of kelp and other coastal ecosystems...

If you’ve ever had the pleasure or misfortune of getting stuck in a conversation with me, you might notice one thing. I most always say, “Well, I think.” or “Well, I’m pretty sure.” I don’t tend to talk in certainties. It may be because I am more concerned about being wrong rather than being right. My belief system is a perfect example of my ambivalence.  “Is there a God? Maybe?” I wouldn’t want to completely discount it. Either way, the day I finally find out the answer to that question no one will be able to say that I was entirely wrong. I just hedged my bets. And then in one scenario I will definitely be sent to purgatory. This maybe surprising, but working in the food industry has pushed me to double down on my “Well, I think” and “Well, I’m pretty sure.” It is an intentional pushback against all of those fellow co-workers and customers who over the years have talked in absolutes. GMOS. Bad. Vaccines. More Bad. Bone Broth heals everything. Reishi Mushrooms cures cancer. Absolutes that always seem to be based on anecdotes and not scientific consensus. Perhaps, for those of us who are not doctors or scientists should be a bit more humble in our certainties when it comes to areas where we have no expertise. For sure, I am not completely immune to the random moment of righteousness. A couple of years ago, after I moved back to my home province of Ontario and started a new job I found myself on the wrong side of a pesky, yet not an inconsequential debate. What is a sweet potato? And, what is a yam? For my new co-worker, the orange skin and orange flesh elongated root was a sweet potato. For me, it was a yam. I explained that I was a produce queen. I had spent the last three years knee deep in organic produce splendor. Sunchokes, kiwi berries, burdock, broccoli leaves, passion fruit, persimmon, you name it I’ve tried it. With a few caveats.  I gently explained, perhaps, with a bit of a condescending tone that I had already had the yam / sweet potato conversation with a produce distributor, and that they explained that the yam was the orange skin and orange flesh root, and that the sweet potato was the purple skin white flesh root. So, yeah, my apologies, but I’m right. Well, I was wrong. Which brings us to this week’s episode: The Unfortunate Case of the Sweet Potato and Yam Debacle. You know once in awhile I wonder if the time and money I put into my English Degree was worth it, and then more often than you would think as I do research on my next podcast a book will come up, and I say to myself, “Wait a minute. I’ve read that book. I have that book. That book is upstairs.” This was one of those times. The book is called, “Things Fall Apart” and the author is Chinua Achebe. Now, let’s be clear I remember precious little about this book other than the fact that I liked it. That goes with pretty much every single novel I read throughout my university career. Robertson Davies was my favourite author. Why? I don’t remember. In “Things Fall Apart,” which is set in Nigeria, there is a chapter that describes “The Feast of the New Yam.” In the book, the festival is held every year prior to the harvest, to honour the earth goddess and the ancestral spirits of the clan. The festival marked the season of plenty and a new year. Old, shriveled up, fibrous yams would be disposed of, for the new year must begin with new, fresh yams. Needless to say, spiritually and culturally, the yam is interwoven into West African culture. A variant of the word “yam” in some tribes actually means “to eat.” So, yeah, if it’s synonymous with the act of eating then it must be important. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHS4CpLMddY The yam is a tuber, similar to a potato. And, a tuber, is basically a storage vessel that grows from the root system to then create another plant. A sweet potato is a root. They are not related.  The yam originated in West Africa and Asia, and the sweet potato came from South America. So,

My all time favourite political show is Power & Politics with Rosemary Barton on CBC. I’ve been watching the show, on and off, for the past ten years all the way back to a time when Power & Politics was just called “Politics” and Don Newman was the host and Rosie was an up and coming, scrapper, of a political journalist. Don would open the show with his famous “Welcome to the Broadcast” line. His last show prior to his retirement was full of sniffles and awes as he told Rosie that her success in being a journalist relied on her “just being herself.” Well, Don was right, eventually. It was just pure silly oversight on Don’s part, but he forgot about gender inequities in the workplace. First, Evan Soloman took over Don’s job despite the fact that I’m pretty sure he didn’t do much political reporting prior to (think Sunday morning show host) and from one puff interview after another I stopped watching. Then Evan Soloman decided to partake in a few improprieties using his CBC job to sell some expensive artwork to some fancy people, and BOOM it was Rosie’s time to shine. Well, not quite yet. The CBC named Rosie the temporary host of Power & Politics, because we all know ladies we need to earn our way. It was only after a truly slaying interview with Conservative MP Chris Alexander on the Conservatives inaction on the Syrian Refugee Crisis that Rosemary finally proved her chops to the CBC brass and got the job! Since then, Rosie has solidified herself as “my type of oprah” weaving good-hearted fun with hard-hitting interviews. It’s certainly the best way to consume Canadian Politics. So, there I was, last week watching my favourite political show. Rosie was interviewing a fella by the name of Dominic Barton (no relation) who is on the government’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth. By the sounds of it, it’s a group of people in suits, pretty sure the suits part is a requirement, and they brainstorm ways the federal government can improve the economic growth of the country. Pretty dry stuff. Indeed! The main substance of the interview was how does the Trump administration affect a trade dependent country like Canada, and Dominic’s response was two-fold--it’s a challenge and it’s an opportunity. Dominic believes that the challenges the Trump administration poses could, in a way, jolt the Canadian economy to a new level of growth. As the USA is pulling in on itself, we can take advantage of their absence and build new relationships with other countries and enter a new era of Canadian economic wealth. Sounds divine, in a twisted sort of way, to take advantage of what is essentially a horrible and chaotic situation for our neighbours to the south. Yet, to think that the Canadian government and Canadian companies wouldn’t try to make the most out of a bad situation would be a bit naive. Case in Point. At the end of January, a group of Canadian tech companies sent an open letter to the Canadian Government to ask for an “immediate and targeted visa” to those people affected by the United State’s Muslim Ban. Was it a political stand against government overreach and Islamophobia? Or, were they ceasing the opportunity to recruit top talent to their companies. The later, maybe, yes, definitely. Which brings us to this week’s episode, as we delve into the cashew industry and look at a few countries taking advantage of a bad situation. This week’s episode is Cashews: When Opportunity Strikes. First off, before we continue, I would like you do something. If you wouldn’t mind, bring up your internet browser and search Cashew Apple. Photo Credit: Greenthaicurry.com Flickr via Compfight cc Do you see what I’m seeing? I have a feeling the last time you were eating a bowl of roasted cashews you didn’t have this in mind. It looks like an apple is midway through a bowel movement, and it reminds me that, at some point, I really need to get down to the equator so I can try this cashew apple out. If you are not too sure what you are looking a...

Our fears reveal quite a lot about us. It reveals our biases, our phobias, weaknesses, and our privilege. What we fear sheds a light on the worst part of us. The really ugly part. There are conversations that I have had that come to mind. However, if I am too ashamed to share the worst part of myself then I certainly have no right to share the worst part of others. Suffice it to say at the end of these conversations I had one thought. Perhaps, what we fear says a lot about our station in life and our inherent privilege. What a privilege it must be that your worries and fears are not about what you don’t have, but what you do have and what you are worried will be taken away from you. There may be no logic or reason for this fear, but there it lies. Those who have the most in our society are perhaps those who fear the most. Building walls around their money, their families, and their power. How this contrasts with the fears of those who have nothing I am not too sure. I know what it feels to have not a lot, but “not a lot” is a far cry from nothing and “not a lot” is highly relative. Perhaps, if one has nothing, one goes beyond a state of fear. Fear is a luxury and one’s actions move in a direction that is motivated solely by getting to a place in which you have something rather than nothing. If we were to consider individuals who have nothing, perhaps the most appropriate indicators of nothingness is whether or not that individual lives under a government that acknowledges and respects their inalienable rights. If you have no right to vote, no right to hold office, no right to own land, no right to own property, no right to worship, and no right to your own language then in reality you are living under conditions in which nothing is really yours. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century this was the reality for Irish Catholics. After a series of failed Irish uprisings against British rule, the British government imposed, what is called, the Penal Laws which quickly stripped the Irish Catholics of their rights. These laws were devastating to the Irish Catholic community. In 1640, over 50% of land in Ireland was owned by Catholics, by the mid 18th century this number decreased to just 7%. The intention of the Penal Laws was to push Irish Catholics into a permanent state of subjectification, and in turn remove a perceived threat to British Rule and the English homeland. You see, that’s the funny thing. Over the centuries, Irish Catholics had fought against the English for the sole purpose of regaining autonomy and control over their own land and their own country. However, the English did not see it that way. The English saw Irish rebellion as an existential threat to England’s power. How the English could confuse a fight for freedom with a fight to invade is curious. At the very least it takes an absolute lack of empathy and complete self-involvement for the English to see themselves as the threatened ones in this situation. They were the colonialists and yet they were worried about being colonized. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb11KxSGQpk After two centuries of living under the punishment of the Penal Laws Irish Catholics made a strange bedfellow with Irish Presbyterians, who also felt that they were being unduly treated by their British overlords. Together they formed the United Irishmen to fight for emancipation under the Penal Laws and for a free Irish Republic. With their diplomatic efforts squashed in 1798 the Irish turned to violent Rebellion once more. There is a poem written about the 1798 Rebellion titled “The Wind That Shakes The Barley”, and it reminds me of why I’ve never really been much of a fan of a lot of poetry. Essentially this is how the poem goes. Boy loves Girl. Boy loves Country. Boy hates the British. Boy decides to fight for country, but boy doesn’t want to leave girl. Girl gets shot. Girl dies. Boy fights for country. Boy dies. The end. (Play song)  The imagery that is stitched throughout...

   If you walked past the farmhouse, past the barns, and manure pits, along the line of birch trees you would find what we called “The Gully”-- a wooded ravine that spanned acres wide. A tractor trail knifed its way down, across the creek, and up to a hidden wheat field. The trail provided a clear path for us to explore. On the right, we walked past the unmarked graves of our lost pets, on the left was piles of old rusted chicken cages. The broken wooden fence that skirted around “the gully” and the crab apple trees that lined the trail betrayed a different time and a purpose. A time before the agricultural industrial “green” revolution. The broken fences had once boxed in grazing cows and the crab apple trees were what was left of an apple orchard. We skipped along broken slabs of cement--a haphazard bridge across the creek. Before the cows and perhaps before the apples “the gully” bore witness to the “Battle of Longwoods” which took place on March 4, 1814 and was apart of the British-American War of 1812. On that day Americans defeated a coalition of British Soldiers, Canadian militia, and Native Americans. Where the creek trickled through the bottom of the ravine two hundred years prior bodies lay dead. Near the creeks embankment it would not be completely unusual to find spearheads from the Natives arrows. Arrows that were used perhaps during the war and before. A time before white people and before colonization.  My father had a little tin box full of them, which he had been collecting since he was a child walking through the same gully. Around the hidden wheat field, into The Gully once more, off the tractor path through dense forest growth my sister and I explored unaware of our footsteps and the past that was beneath us. On the other side, closer to home as we walked out of the woods we hit a patch of weeds. The weeds had leaves that looked like elephant ears and soared up beyond our heads. They were also covered in a prickly, brown burr. We kept walking. As we stepped out into a clearing my sister and I looked at each other with a bit of shock on our faces. Our hands gently touched our heads and we slightly tugged at one of the hundreds of burrs that had Velcro-ed to our hair. It took our mom a good part of the evening to release the burrs grip from our long brown hair, scolding us for our recklessness as she pulled them off. Even on a day of truce, my sister and I were still able to get into trouble. As I looked in the mirror, grimacing in pain, I again was oblivious to what I was interacting with. It’s past and it’s place. This week’s episode is Burdock: Everywhere and Nowhere. Photo Credit: GRH7447 Flickr via Compfight cc To be placed in a box, labeled, or classified can be frustrating. I, personally, know this frustration all too well. You, your abilities, and your purpose are all of a sudden limited in the eyes of those who have placed you in that box. For a plant, maybe the worse label is that of a weed. A weed is a nuisance. It has no benefits. So, you should just pull it out, burn it, or spray it.   In an 1878 article titled “About Weeds” a person by the name of W.W Bailey stated, “What is a weed? Generally speaking it is any plant that interferes with the operations of agriculture or gardening. Some plants are weeds because by their rapid growth they thrive to the exclusion of better things; others are so, simply from their unsightly appearance and their uselessness.” Oh, to be seen as lesser, ugly, and useless. Concerning Burdock, Bailey was a little more nuanced. He begrudgingly admitted that Burdock was kind of pretty. However, the fact that it grew everywhere and often in places where other plants wouldn’t grow was seen as a negative. How dare you burdock? If marigolds won’t grow there neither shall you!  Photo Credit: kevinandrewmassey Flickr via Compfight cc To most of us Burdock is a word that literally means nothing. To my sister and I, the burrs that stuck to our hair were burrs from a wee...

We all have a story that we would like to tell. The stories we choose to tell to our friends, family, acquaintances, and coworkers say a lot about how we would like to be seen. In marketing terms, our stories help create our brand. There are some that we frequently repeat when there is a new person to meet. They can be about lost relationships, nightmarish jobs, and great adventures. Collectively, these stories shape a narrative that we have, perhaps, sub-consciously created. We choose to tell some stories over others and we often choose to embellish some details and leave other details out. In the end, we are our own writer, and why we choose to tell the stories we tell has a lot to do with our motivations. Do we wish to make friends? Do we wish to get a promotion? Do we need to gain new customers? Do we need to maintain a competitive advantage? We have been telling our stories over thousands of years, and some have been utterly fantastical that you would be forgiven if you thought you had been plunged into the Game of Thrones. None more so than a few tall tales that were spun by some Arab Spice Traders hundreds of years ago. All in an effort to keep the origin of their spices secret from an entire continent. In the Medieval ages, Europeans loved their spices and they went bat shit crazy over it. Some have argued that Medieval European food would actually be more closely associated with modern day North African or Indian cuisine compared to modern day European cuisine. And it just wasn’t one or two spices. Cooks tended to have twenty or so spices in their repertoire.  The one spice that we will focus on, for it was about the most popular spice of the day and subsequently changed the power dynamics within our world was--pepper. And, when I say pepper I mean black peppercorns and not chili peppers which we can thank good old fuck-up Christopher Columbus for confusing us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAfiduVxE2I Europeans loved black pepper and back in the day it was expensive. They called pepper “black gold” as it could be used as its own form of currency. There is even a term for it--peppercorn rent. The reason for the high price of black pepper during Medieval Europe is the same reason why commodity prices tend to go up and down now. It is the relationship between supply and demand. To Europeans, pepper was fashionable, used medicinally, and in religious ceremonies, therefore, multiple uses to create demand. The supply, on the other hand, was tightly controlled. For being so fashionable, Europeans knew very little about where their spices came from. They knew pepper came from a place called India, which was out east somewhere over there, but they knew precious little about the country and its people and could only guess on the routes to get there. At the time the spice trade was largely controlled by Arab traders, who were the only people that knew about every aspect of the spice trade from start to finish. The pepper farmers in India had no idea about the Europeans and the Europeans reciprocated that ignorance. This gave the Arab traders a tremendous amount of power. They could buy the spices at a very affordable price and sell it at a very high price. However, they still had to defend those high prices, and in order to do that they relied on stories that had been told for centuries. According to our Arab middlemen pepper was grown in forests of pepper trees. Pepper was abundant. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was in the harvesting of pepper. For, you see, the pepper trees were all guarded by poisonous snakes. In order to harvest the pepper, farmers had to set fire to the trees and drive away the snakes. It was the fires that turned white peppercorns black and gave them their dry and shriveled appearance. After each burning, the trees would have to be replanted which required money and time adding to the price. This myth survived hundreds of years. In actuality,

In 1099, a group of knights traveled to the Holy Land, banded together in a mission to protect Christian Pilgrims from pirates and gangs. These knights called themselves the “Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon.”  Obviously, the name was quite the mouthful and over time they became known simply as the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar started dressing up in white tunics with a blood red cross stitched along the front and thirty years later they evolved into more of a militaristic monastic group and took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Photo Credit: Paul Bratcher Photography Flickr via Compfight cc The Knights Templar were a feared force during the medieval times and thanks to the support of the Vatican, Kings, and Lords the group as a whole became very wealthy and influential. Then, in 1305, rumours started to spread from an ousted Templar that the group was participating in anti-christian and homosexual activity. Not many thought much of the rumours. However, the King of France at the time, King Phillip IV, had a problem. You see, the King was indebted to the Knights Templar as they had loaned King Phillip some money to help fund a war with England, and the King really did not want to pay that money back. So, King Phillip decided to put pressure on Pope Clement to prosecute the Knights Templar for their rumoured crimes. In 1307, Pope Clement ordered all members of the Knights Templar arrested and all assets seized. Dozens of people were burned at the stake and the Knights Templar were disbanded. Centuries later in the Mexican state of Michoacan, which happens to grow the highest percentage of avocados in the world,  the Knights Templar re-emerged. You would assume that if you decided to create a group and then name yourself after a medieval band of Christian knights that you thought perhaps, “You know what? We can be like them. We can protect our neighbours and be heroic minus the poverty and chastity part, of course.” The one hiccup of course was that this version of the Knights Templar was a drug cartel. The Knights Templar of the Michoacan state emerged in March 2011. In public,they said that they were providing an essential service to their neighbours--protecting them from larger criminal organizations. In demonstrations, they would evoke the history of their namesake and use religious imagery to portray themselves in an altruistic manner. Reminding everyone that they were a force for good. However, their role as Mexico’s third largest drug cartel utterly contradicted with their message. In Michoacan and throughout Mexico they were regularly responsible for drug trafficking, kidnapping, and extortion. For reasons we won’t really get into today, let’s just say the U.S government was somehow involved, the Knights Templar were forced to find more profitable avenues to make money due to complications in the drug trade. Their foray into legal trade put them face to face with landowners, miners, and shopkeepers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzalpuffwFI It’s in this environment where we learn that there are events that can occur, some random and others more deliberate, that are completely out of our control and yet can have a devastating effect on our lives. There are three elements, one economic policy, one environmental, and one social that thrust the drug cartel--the Knights Templar--into the business of food, and it put avocado farmers in a position where they were forced to wage a war. On the surface, it was all good news for our Mexican Avocado Farmers. In 1994, NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) came into effect which opened the borders of the United States and Canada. Trade restrictions were lifted against Mexican Avocados and in 2015 the state of Michoacan exported $500 million worth of avocados to the United States and Canada. Then, what seemed to occur almost simultaneously, North American avocado consumption skyrocketed at the same time t...

  Coconut farmers don’t make a lot of money. In fact on average they make so little that I really should stop complaining about how much I make. Approximately 60% of small-scale coconut farmers live in poverty. They make anywhere between $70 to $7000 per year. Let’s say that again. They make anywhere between $70 to $7000 per year.  Poverty cannot be easily explained and definitely not easily solved, but to be sure the system that coconut farmers find themselves in takes advantage of that poverty. In order to better understand poverty’s reign we must take a closer look at the conditions that support its existence. The Philippines is the second largest producer of coconuts in the world, accounting for 26% of the world’s production. Indonesia is number one. Most coconut farmers in the Philippines do not own their own land. They are tenant farmers, and their landlords tend to be teachers, managers, military officers, and other professionals, and for the most part these landlords are absent. The fact that most coconut farmers do not own their own land already places them at a disadvantage. First, most farmers are under agreement with their landlords to share in the profit. These types of agreements can vary from reasonable to outright exploitative. Second, because the farmers don’t own their own land that means that they have little to no assets or equity. Therefore, unlike most farmers in Canada, Filipino Coconut Farmers cannot use typical financial mechanisms, for instance, lines of credit, to reinvest in their farms and improve their profitability. Third, their reality limits their power in decision making and negotiations. Coconut Farmers usually have no say in investments in their industry or national programmes. The plight of these farmers really came to light after Typhon Haiyan damaged or destroyed more than 33 million coconut trees in the Philippines in 2013. Coconut farmers were stuck in limbo as there was no communication or agreement with the landlords concerning who would cover the costs of the clean-up. They did not have the necessary equipment to clean up the damage themselves if they wanted to, and they were without any source of income or food. Quickly following the typhon international agencies urged the Filipino government to make wide-sweeping reforms in order to improve the situation, and one of these reforms had to do with a decades long battle between the government and the coconut farmers, and it also highlights probably the main reason poverty can be so entrenched. And that reason is corruption.    In 1971, the Filipino government enacted a law to establish the Coconut Investment Fund. A fund that was created to invest in the development of the coconut industry. Guess where they were going to get the money for this fund? Well, they were going to tax the coconut farmers. Not surprisingly at all, the money that was taken from the coconut farmers over a decade did not go into building up the industry, instead the President and his friends personally profited when they used the fund to buy a bank and other corporations in which the President and his friends held a majority stake. The issue is still ongoing today, with the farmers fighting for a share in the investments that was made with their money. There is currently $1.3 billion in the coconut levy fund. The impoverished reality of coconut farmers cannot be more starkly contrasted to the seemingly overwhelming success of today’s coconut industry. There is not just coconut oil, but there is cold-pressed, raw coconut oil. There is coconut flour, coconut meat, coconut chips, coconut ice cream, coconut creamer, coconut milk, coconut hand wash, coconut shampoo, oh and let’s not forget...coconut water. There are so many coconut products out there that at one time I opened up my fridge, turned to my husband and said, “I think we are slowly turning into coconuts.” As well, these coconut products are not cheap. So,

Alright, so if we really wanted to be accurate than using a Globe Eggplant emoji as a metaphor for male genitalia is probably not the most appropriate shape. Now, if you used a Japanese Eggplant emoji, which is longer and uniformly thinner,  then you would be on the right track. And, if you are already confused, and don’t know what a globe eggplant is. Well, it’s large, dark purple, and has a bulbous end to it. Photo Credit: USDAgov via Compfight cc  There are a few caveats  to the eggplant’s new role as an anatomy substitute that I should lay out. First, this is primarily a North American, I-Phone user phenomenon. The tech giant, Apple, uses a different set of emojis compared to Android phones.  And, it just so happens that Apple’s eggplant is better suited as a penis replacement compared to the Android eggplant.  Also, the reason this is mainly a North American phenomenon is for the same reason why I wanted to talk about the eggplant in the first place, because for the most part, we don’t eat it.  The fact that we in North America don’t have a cultural connection to the plant has allowed some of us to create our own meaning uninhibited from past experiences.  For example, we could use the Corn on the Cob emoji; however, most of us have actually ate corn on the cob. Chomping down into the cooked kernels and getting little bits of corn stuck between our teeth. That experience could possibly put a damper on the metaphor. I don’t know about you, but every time I eat corn on the cob I’m not necessarily thinking of a sexual act, and if I am then it is definitely a painful one. It’s good to note that none of this is new.  From the use of the banana in sex-ed as a training tool  to imagery found in medieval paintings we have created a tradition of using food as a means to describe sexual behaviour.  In 1518, a painter by the name of Giovanni da Udine painted garlands of fruits and flowers. In one of his paintings he painted a squash, with eggplant for testicles, penetrating a fig. Giovanni da Udine, detail of border surrounding Raphael’s Cupid and Psyche, Villa Farnesina, Rome. Nicole Dacos and Caterina Furlan, Giovanni de Udine, 1487–1561, Udine [Italy]: Casamassima, 1987, Vol. 1, p. 26 In Mesopotamia they used the same words to describe the abundance of a garden as they would to indicate sexual attractiveness.  There is a love poem from ancient Sumerian Literature, which describes the subject as an apple tree with fruit on the top vigorously sprouting and then watering some lettuce and watering some more. There’s definitely a lot of watering occurring.        Vigorously he sprouted, vigorously he sprouted and sprouted watered it --it being lettuce! In his shaded grove of the desert bearing much yield did my darling of his mother, my barley stalk full of allure in its furrow, water it -- it being lettuce, did my one -- a very apple tree bearing fruit at the top -- water it -- it being a garden!  The reason behind our sexualization of food is censorship. Whether it be a thousand years ago or today, in certain public forums we have just never been able to freely discuss and communicate sex, and so we must improvise. If there was actually a penis emoji then we wouldn’t have to use the eggplant and I could write an article on nightshades instead. Fruits and vegetables also just make sense. They are the produce that nourishes and feeds a desire--hunger. They also hold the seeds for future reproduction. In a sense, we are mimicking human biology into plant biology. Which brings me back to the Durex Condom and my naivete. Turns out, Durex also believes that an eggplant flavoured condom would not be so tasty. The condom is in fact not real, but a clever marketing attempt to get the Unicode Consortium to create a safe sex emoji.  Although I understand that painters who lived 500 years ago would need to be creative with their fruits and veggies, I don’t understand in this day and age why we need to cont...

It’s called the Asian Citrus Psyllid. It’s about 3 to 4 millimeters long with a long brown spotted body. A bit of an ugly little bug, and it is currently playing havoc on our citrus trees. https://www.morningagclips.com/pest-quarantine-in-fresno-co/ The story of this little ugly bug starts in southern China in 1919. This was the first year in recorded history when humans, the Asian Citrus Psyllid or ACP for short, and our citrus trees all met. Now, the one thing to note is that this wasn’t and isn’t a very symbiotic relationship. Rather, you could compare it to our relationship with the common flu. Always against us, always adapting, always moving, always one step ahead. The ACP does a few things to our citrus trees, but the most damaging is that it transmits bacteria which in turn creates a disease in the trees. Some folks call it “citrus greening” others call it huanglongbing. First, the leaves on the trees turn yellowish with a blotchy, spotted pattern. Then the fruit that is produced is grown small, lopsided, retains a partially green colour, and contains undeveloped seeds. The juice from the infected fruit then becomes bitter. Finally, in a few years the trees just simply die. Photo Credit: agrilifetoday via Compfight cc Over time the ACP has moved from Southern China, to the Philippines, Thailand and then in 1998 it popped up in Florida, US of A. Now, today, we are going to primarily focus on Oranges, and it can be argued that the two most important regions in terms of the production of Oranges is the United States and Brazil. The United States accounts for 14% of the world’s production of oranges and Brazil accounts for 32%, and both areas are currently under threat by the Asian Citrus Psyllid. To better comprehend the scope of the situation. The Florida citrus industry, alone, is currently worth $10 billion and employs around 76,000 people, and accounts for pretty much the entire U.S orange juice production.  Last year, the United States Department of Agriculture estimated that, in 2015 alone, Florida would experience a 20% decline in production. Florida is now entering a time where it will produce only half of what it was producing just a few short years ago. The end of the citrus industry in this state is in site. There is no cure for citrus greening, at least, not yet.  Farmers attempt to combat it with more fertilizers and pesticides, which certainly doesn’t help the environment and increases the cost of production exponentially. They have also started placing a type of aluminum sheeting along the ground at the base of the trees. The sheeting acts as a reflector which increases the temperature. The increased heat has led to improved growth and fewer sightings of the ACP. The University of Florida has also announced that it has developed a genetically modified orange tree that appears to be resistant to citrus greening. If or when this tree would be introduced is a long way off and maybe too late to even potentially save these industries. Since the arrival of the Asian Citrus Psyllid in Florida in 1998 it have now spread throughout the United States and in 2008 was first identified in California. There are no longer many places in the world, if any, that have not been affected by the ACP. And, unless a cure is found or other breeds are developed we might be breezing by more signs in our supermarkets. Perhaps, next time they will read. “Our apologies. Due to the ugly bug called ACP there are no oranges for you today.”

Quinoa. Or, as my 2009 past self would have pronounced it Qi-no-a is perhaps the quintessential healthy food. Praised and exalted by patchouli scented foodies for the past couple of decades, quinoa, has all the qualities the health food scene desires. Quinoa has a great story. A recently discovered magic seed, highly adaptable to adverse soil and weather conditions, harvested and cleaned by exotic peasants living on the cliffs of the high Andes. At one time a subsistence crop, now, due to its growing popularity with foreigners, the exportation of this crop has, in a real way, increased the standard of living for these farmers.  A seed worthy of the worn out, thrown about, overly marketed term “superfood.” The United Nations itself classified quinoa as a “super crop” for its high protein content. It contains all nine essential amino acids, including the amino acid lysine, which is essential for tissue growth and repair, and quinoa is a source of manganese, magnesium, iron, copper and phosphorous. It is a great story. Yet, how the story is told, what is added and what is left out is dependent on the story teller. And Quinoa is one example of many whose story has been told through the gaze of the explorer and the conqueror. At the core it is a story not of a seed that was found, but a seed that was lost. According to some academics, Quinoa can be considered one of the oldest crops in the Andean Region. A region that spans the countries of Equador, Peru, Bolivia, Columbia, Chili, and Argentina. Quinoa has been cultivated over the past 5000 years with great empires, the Incas and the Tiahuanacu, playing a role in its domestication and conservation. These peoples and other lesser known groups, the Wari, Mochica, Chimu and Nazca cultures had a special interest in the domestication of plant species to the extent that by the 16th Century the Andes had more domesticated species than Asia, Africa, and perhaps even in Europe although for obvious reasons that comparison was never made by 19th Century American Botanist, O.F Cook. From the beginning of the 15th Century an exchange of seeds became widespread within the Inca Empire. It was through this exchange, that Andean Peasants were able to improve biological diversity as a strategy to cope with a risky climate common with mountainous agriculture. The Andean Peasants also worked within a highly technical agricultural system called Aynokas. Where community collaboration, crop rotation, and the temporary conversion of cultivated land to fallow land allowed the people to grow food while also maintaining the nutritional health of their soil. In the 16th Century, however, the Spanish arrived and along with their guns and diseases came their food which disrupted the Andean agriculture. Over time, quinoa, which the Incas’ had considered sacred and was referred to as the “mother grain” became marginalized and lost its influence with the population writ large. Quinoa returned back to its beginnings. The Andean farmers continued to grow it, but only for their own sustenance. For those who lived in more urban centers in the Andean countries it all but didn’t exist.Quinoa and other native crops were replaced with barley, wheat, oats, beans, and peas. These new crops that were introduced by the Spanish did well at high altitudes and compared to quinoa they were easy to process. Quinoa seeds are naturally covered with an unpalatable coating called Saponin which needs to be removed prior to consuming. It is a labour intensive process. Economically it made sense to make the switch. Food is food, right? So, if it was easier to produce and cheaper to trade the Spanish imports what if anything could be lost. Well, actually quite a lot.   As I’ve said before, although I know there are many who despise the term, quinoa is kind of deserving of the “superfood” status. First off, it’s ridiculously versatile. You can eat the seed and the leaves as is, or turn the seeds into flour.

It was in 1932 when a real estate broker, Bernard London, self-published an essay called Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence. London may or may not have coined the phrase; yet, he has certainly been given the credit for verbalizing this particular economic strategy.  In a nutshell, London advocated for the government to mandate arbitrary life cycles on material goods. After a certain time frame a variety of products would be deemed “dead” and no longer of use, regardless of whether they were really useless or not. London’s strategy was founded on a few perceived truths. One, that our productive capacity and productive potential far exceeds our population’s general capacity to consume, second, that for a prosperous economy we must have a balance of production and consumption, and, third, that our natural resources which feed such a cycle are infinite.  During the Great Depression, he witnessed consumers holding on to their products longer than they normally would have for the simple fact that they had no money to replace them. Consumer’s lack of purchasing created a bottleneck in the factories, who were subsequently forced to let go of employees as a result of the lack of demand. This regressive cycle “not enough money, not enough people consuming, more people losing their jobs” made the Depression exponentially worse as time went on.  So, London suggested that once the good met its time limit the consumer would return the good to a government agency, receive money in return from the government, and then use the money to buy a replacement. Consumers would be forced to give up their material goods on a frequent basis and this would relieve the bottleneck in the factories and provide balance between production and consumers. The United States did not implement London’s theory, and it is not known whether companies were directly influenced by his writings either. In fact, it can be argued that Planned Obsolescence has always been, London simply wanted to take it a step further and turn it into a government policy. There are a variety of examples that pepper the 20th Century--from the dawn of the lightbulb, to women’s nylons, to the first ipod. Companies have often withheld the best technology in favour of a product that might not last as long and might not work as well, but at the end of the day would make more money and maintain the long term growth of the company. I believe it would be helpful when contemplating the idea of Planned Obsolescence to see it, not through the gaze of a conspiracy theorist, but to see it as an understandable method of self-preservation. Planned Obsolescence can take the form of many guises. It can be intentional or just a result of technological advances. It could be your vehicle, that works just fine, but all of a sudden looks old and out of date compared to the new features and the different looks that the newer vehicles have. It could be a cheap blender that you got at a Big Box store that was built poorly and never meant to work well in the first place or last that long. It could be your dishwasher that broke down, but with the cost of repairs and service means that it makes more sense to buy a new one than to get the old one repaired. It could be your phone that you would like to replace because the newer ones have more gigabytes and a better camera. Regardless, of Planned Obsolescence or just plain obsolescence we are creating and destroying at a rate that has never been seen before, and although this frequent turnover helps us to maintain our balance between production and consumption we have now entered a time when we are running into the limits of our resources to feed such a cycle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voyLPXG-EJc&feature=youtu.be That is one point that London got wrong. Our resources are not infinite. London hoped that our process of continually creating and destroying material goods would mimic nature’s own ability to create and destroy. Yet,

  For my own well being I should mention, first, that unequivocally my mom is and always has been a good cook. For sure, there were a few experiments that went awry, but on the whole we ate exceptionally well. That is except for the pork chops. There was nothing good about a pork chop. They were dry, tough, and had as much flavour as a Jesus wafer on a Sunday morning. It didn’t matter who cooked it or whether you were eating at home or at your cousin’s wedding it tasted the same. I stayed away from pork, well, I stayed away from pork except for bacon, ham, pork sausages, and other charcuterie meats. Because there is a big difference between pork and pork that has been salted, sugared, smoked, and spiced. The later is down right delicious. However, for the lowly pork chop and I we did not reconvene our disappointing relationship until I started working in the health food industry. It was at this point that I found out that pork was parasitical. Ahhh...what?  I’ve had many a food revelation over the last few years and that was certainly one of them. For someone who grew up around pigs, who gently goaded them to “Pig Heaven” on Monday mornings, and tried to stomach them on Monday evenings I had no idea. I was also confused. We were selling humanely raised, pastured pork and yet folks were turning their nose up at the pork chops and the pork roasts, and, yet, still thoroughly enjoying their bacon. Was it because bacon was cured and delicious that you didn’t have to worry about getting parasites? And, if pork was so dangerous, why had I never heard of it before? The disease is called Trichinosis, and it would probably be a good idea to premise the following by saying, “It is rare!” At least in North America. There are currently about twenty cases of Trichinosis in the United States a year. And, due to improved pig management there is now a greater chance of getting Trichinosis through the consumption of Wild Game than pigs. The disease is caused by eating undercooked meat of animals infected with the larvae of the Trichinella worm. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “The signs, symptoms, severity and duration of trichinellosis vary. Nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, fatigue, fever, and abdominal discomfort are often the first symptoms of trichinellosis. Headaches, fevers, chills, cough, swelling of the face and eyes, aching joints and muscle pains, itchy skin, diarrhea, or constipation may follow the first symptoms. If the infection is heavy, patients may experience difficulty coordinating movements, and have heart and breathing problems. In severe cases, death can occur. For mild to moderate infections, most symptoms subside within a few months. Fatigue, weakness, muscle pain, and diarrhea may last for months.” The Pigs success over the past ten thousand years of domesticated life is due mainly to its remarkable ability to adapt. Pigs are omnivorous and if left to their own whim will eat anything and that is the problem. The Trichinella worm is introduced into the Pig’s body through the pig eating other infected animals. Trichinosis was a consistent problem within our food chain up until the mid 1950s. Unfortunately, for those of us who are concerned about animal welfare and would like to support free-range, pastured animals it was the pork industry’s move towards the industrialized model that significantly lowered infection rates. Moving pigs from outdoors to confined spaces indoors allowed farmers to better control what the pig consumed--grains and more grains. Along with moving pigs into confined spaces the public was educated on the importance of cooking pork properly. Well, kind of! The Government of Canada, to this day, suggests that consumers cook pork to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. The USDA had the same recommendation until 2011 when it lowered it to 145 degrees. This is because 160 degrees results in dry, tough, flavourless pork. It wasn’t the pork chops fault. It was us all along.

About a year ago I came across a Canadian charitable organization called--Femme International. An NGO working in Kenya and Tanzania committed to advancing the rights of women and girls through targeted programs that focus on menstruation, sexual health, and feminine hygiene. Through education and the creation of a “Femme Kit” young women and girls are given the means to manage their periods safely and hygienically, central to the success of their “Femme Kit” is the menstrual cup. For many women and girls who live in the lowest economic bracket “having your period” is more than a nuisance. It can create economic strain, and in the most serious of situations prevent an individual from consistently participating in the regular routines of societal life. In Kenya, the average cost of a package of sanitary pads is $1 CAN. Pretty reasonable, right? Well, when you consider the average daily income of an unskilled labourer in Kenya is $1.50 CAN, this means that women must often choose between properly managing their periods or food and shelter. Often, women resort to other means: leaves, newspapers, rags, etc. which either do not work or lead to infections and discomfort. Due to the fact that some young women are unable to access appropriate menstrual products, girls in Kenya miss an average of 4.9 days of school a month--a direct result of their period. The menstrual cup or known by it’s various brand names:The Diva Cup, The MeLuna Cup, or the MoonCup is a medical grade silicone cup that is inserted into the vagina to collect menstrual fluid. They are anti-microbial, do not contain any harmful bleeches or chemicals, unlike the majority of pads and tampons, and there is no threat to Toxic Shock Syndrome. Depending on your flow you may keep the silicone cup inserted for up to 12 hours, and, lastly, if maintained properly one silicone cup’s life cycle could last up to ten years. This means that a young women in Kenya can attend an eight hour school day or go to work without worrying about having to find clean toilets. It means that all women, can save a tremendous amount of money over the long term by switching from disposable products to non-disposable products. It means that every woman can have a positive impact on the environment by completely erasing the garbage created by disposable pads and tampons. However, although the positive impact may be obvious for those in developing countries, who must deal with alternatives that are too expensive and a public infrastructure that is inadequate for their needs, to the average Westerner the change to something better is slow to come. In the United States, an estimated 12 billion pads and 7 billion tampons are thrown out annually. On average, women throw out 300 pounds of feminine hygiene related products in their lifetime. So, why the hesitation? If the option is out there, why aren’t we choosing it? I am going to be abrupt about this--My periods suck! I won’t be coy. For two days out of the five every month I kick back tylenol on the regular to relieve a pain that is intense and unforgiving. The pressure, the bloating, my vagina feels like it is on fire. The pain makes it impossible for me to hide my cycle, so I don’t. I have never missed work, but every time I stroll in and a co-worker asks, “How are you doing?” I tell them. “I am ill. So, if I grimace in pain or lean against a table know why and if you can have some sympathy than that is appreciated.” I suppose because the pain can be great that it has forced me to re-negotiate my relationship with my body. If you can barely feel it and it’s simply an annoyance then perhaps one can just shoo shoo it away. Shoo shoo the negativity, the grossness, and the shame. That’s how I was taught--to give it no mind. When I think about my menstrual cycle or menstrual cycles in general what comes to the foreground are little anecdotes that span my decades. The majority of these anecdotes are saddled with a deep sense of embarrassmen...

Peanuts are pretty ubiquitous. Whether roasted, boiled, or as an oil, we consume peanuts in a variety of manners. This nut that is a legume rather than a nut has, over the past 150 years, infiltrated our cultural arena. We throw a ruckus in the peanut gallery while watching A Charlie Brown Christmas, based off of the comic strip Peanuts. And then think to ourselves, “I wouldn’t pay peanuts for such a sad looking Christmas tree.” Well, the peanut, or otherwise known as the gouber pea, ground nut, ground pea, earth-nut, Pindar nut, and ground bean may have entered our cultural slang, but as we can surmise certainly not in a positive way. It is the ubiquitous foods that interest me the most. For what has always been often is not seen or truly known. What is most fascinating, is that a food’s ubiquity is often not happenstance. It’s qualities were often seen by an individual or a group of individuals and put to use often benefiting entire cultures. There are some that conclude that human civilization wouldn’t be what it is today if it wasn’t for the cultivation of grains in the Fertile Crescent, or that the British Empire wouldn’t have existed if not for the introduction of the potato in England. Similar to grains and the potato, the peanut had a vital role to play, and the most fascinating of individuals set the stage. The peanut is native to South America and as it grew in popularity with the Portugese settlers in Brazil, the peanut crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean along the routes of the Slave Trade. It eventually found a home in Africa and Asia, and in West and Central Africa it became a staple food crop for the citizens appreciated the plants’ resilience. Over the years, as millions of Africans were enslaved and shipped to the United States, they took the peanut along with them. The negative connotation the peanut is saddled with today probably has something to do with it’s time as an “African” food staple and as cheap form of nourishment. Even food can’t avoid the harsh reality of racism. In the 1800s peanuts were eaten by African Americans and pigs--white folks couldn’t be bothered. Ironically, it wasn’t until the American Civil War when Confederate Soldiers were confronted with starvation that white people started nibbling on the unappreciated legume. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBOxw6vbDyo However, although no longer shunned, the peanut was still not a popular food of choice, that is until Dr. George Washington Carver entered the scene. Carver was a prominent American scientist and inventor in the early 1990s, and, side note, he also happened to be African American. He was born as a slave in Diamond, Missouri. At only a few weeks old, Confederate Soldiers raided the farm, kidnapped George’s family and sold them in Kentucky. Only George was eventually found by his previous owner and returned to Missouri. Carver learnt how to read and soon grew an interest for botany and natural pesticides, fungicides, and soil. In his neighbourhood he became known as the “Plant Doctor.” Keeping in mind all of the obstacles that he would have surely had to face, Carver eventually became the first African American to graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree from Iowa State University in 1894. After teaching at Iowa State, Carver became a teacher at Tuskegee Institute. His new position, though lower in pay, provided Carver the opportunity to help poorer farmers in the south, who were dealing with low yield cotton crops due to soil depletion. Carver introduced the idea of crop rotation to the farmers. This is when you plant a particular crop for one year, and then another crop for the next year. Each crop either adding nutrients or taking out nutrients from the soil, and together working in harmony. The alternating crop, which he suggested to these farmers, was peanuts. Peanuts like their legume cousin, the soybean, adds nitrogen to the soil and was easy to grow. Once farmers implemented crop rotation with cot...