Shut Up, Street Art?

banksystreetart:

So cupcakes are up there with bacon as the hip-o-riffic food trend, right? Right? So to make them even HIPPER, you put BANKSY ART on them! Because there’s nothing like taking street art off the street and putting it in your belly.

I should have some deep commentary on the way every street vendor in London seemed to be selling photos of Banksy prints, but it’s early and I haven’t eaten yet. And these cupcakes are making me hungry…

A Cheez-It Without Salt is like a Dead Tear

Beyond its own taste, salt also masks bitter flavors and counters a side effect of processed food production called “warmed-over flavor,” which, the scientists said, can make meat taste like “cardboard” or ‘damp dog hair.’

From Michael Moss’s excellent “Hard Sell on Salt,” in the Times. Among other things, he details attempts by manufacturers to reduce sodium in things like Cheez-Its, Kellogg’s Cornflakes and Eggos, with predictable results. He doesn’t get into the concurrent rise in gourmet salt, which would have been super interesting, but it is still a great piece.

Even the Post Office is not immune.

Shut Up Foodies Grows Up!

Folks, we are preparing to move to a WordPress environment for our bloggings. I don’t  expect this to happen overnight, as we are all easily bored with technical things and have other things going on. If you have us bookmarked, you might want to switch the bookmark to shutupfoodies.com, which now links to the Tumblr and in the future will link to the WordPress.

And if anyone has any tips on converting our old posts to WordPress, let us know via our email (sshfoodies AT gmail DOT com). I’m looking at this as a possibility.

Have a great weekend!

Snacktime

Be an Informed Consumer of Rhetoric, Too

All social movements need a variety of voices, but I argue that food reform requires this diversity even more urgently because it is so universal in its reach. And if we can reach all those voices, then think of all the activists we will have as allies—feminists, anti-racists, interfaith leaders, and so on—interested and involved because food justice speaks to the needs of their communities and their call for action (activists: this is on you too—get on board!). As consumers of this kind of liberal rhetoric, we need to demand that the powers and big hitters in the food world diversify their representations. The food movement can only grow more powerful for it.

Sustainable Food and Privilege: Why is Green Always White (and Male and Upper-Class) | Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop culture

We’ve been criticized a bit for being mean lately, which, I mean—I guess the blog is called Shut Up Foodies, but I think that what we’re more interested in is holding up a mirror to the food movement. OK, that sounds arrogant and half the time we are just having some fun. But in reading this piece at Racialicious, this is what I chose to reblog: not a call for the food movement to stop doing what it’s doing, but a call for it to make sure that it’s truly accessible to everyone. That it doesn’t fall into precious lectures about personal responsibility and becomes a true social movement.

But I’m just a hippie pinko commie at heart, after all.

We Could All Learn Something From Pennsylvania, It Seems

The Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program is a federally-funded service that gives recipients of the Women, Infants, and Children food supplement program extra benefits that can be spent at farmer’s markets. (There is also a program for seniors.)  I’m not sure about this one. It sounds great, but when you read the fine print it’s so little money—families can only receive between $10 and $30 annually. That’s like, one trip to the farmer’s market, if your state participates. (List of participating states and assistance levels here.)

But check out Pennsylvania! With 1,148 participating markets, this wee state accounts for almost half of the 2,662 markets nationwide. Furthermore, the Food Trust operates in more than 30 markets, all located in low-income neighborhoods or those underserved by supermarkets and other traditional food outlets. They all accept EBT (aka food stamps). These people are doing it! They also run school programs and all manner of good things, like the Healthy Corner Store initiative. This is grassroots shit. I donated!

(By way of comparison, of the 44 or so Greenmarkets in Brooklyn, only half accept EBTs)

—Snacktime

I have no idea what this image is, I found it on a website called geekadelphia, and I love Benjamin Franklin, so there you go.