Posts with Category Where Am I Eating

Building on the work of other journalists

Yesterday I chatted with a documentarian in Scotland who is working on a film on where food comes from. We chatted for an hour about chocolate, bananas, and coffee.

I think journalism is like science in that community members build on each other’s work. I always take the time to help out a fellow journalist. I think it’s part of the responsibility of this work.

I had a chat with Elizabeth Cline very early on in her process of writing Overdressed. I even introduced her to my friend Dalton, who appeared in WHERE AM I WEARING. I also chatted with Marcus Stern who did a really great piece on child labor in coffee for The Weather Channel and Telemundo.

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A baboon in Ethiopia is named after me

Check out this note from a student who read WHERE AM I EATING a few years ago:

Hi Kelsey! Thanks for the invite for The Facing Project. Can’t wait to look into it more! You spoke to my sociology class with Máel Sheridan at Hamline university after we read your book in 2015. Funny story, and long story short: I’m a Peace Corps health volunteer in Ethiopia and was trying to explain in local language the idea behind your books as it relates to my community (where are all these goods coming from? How did they get here?). A couple weeks later the live-in guard at my health center appeared with a pet baboon. It was then named after you in honor of your books. “Kelsey” spelt differently in afran Oromo…

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9 ways to eat healthier in college

IMG_6726A few years ago I lived in a dorm at University of Illinois for a week as an artist-in-residence. At breakfast there was french toast. At lunch and dinner dessert. I think I put on 5 pounds that week. It’s not easy to eat healthy in college. 

Besides, buffet-related eating issues, someone in your dorm is always looking for someone to go in on a late night pizza. My dad put on the freshman 60! He played point guard on the basketball team at Tiffin University, and pretty much fueled himself on donuts and beer, so the legend goes. 

I asked my friend, Claire Moorman, a dietetics major at University of Cincinnati, to offer some tips on eating while in college. Please share with…

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Why I (kinda) stopped eating Chocolate

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I stopped eating mass-produced Chocolate (note the capital C for Big Chocolate) about 18 months ago.  No Hershey’s. No Mars. No Kit Kat. No…gulp…York Peppermint Patties or Twix.

I’m not healthier or more ethical than you. I don’t think my small act is saving the world. I stopped eating chocolate for me.

It’s just that most of the time I ate chocolate, I thought about Michale, the farmer I met in Ivory Coast and how whether or not he could send his kids to school depended upon the price of cocoa, which swings wildly. I thought about the Solo, the slave, I met and how his parents didn’t know if he were dead or alive.

COCOA FARMERS TASTING…

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Class reads EATING, connects to farmers in community garden

NorthamptonCommunityGarden

A few years ago Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, PA, invited me to campus to speak about my work. Since then, Dr. Pamela Bradley has been using my books in her English class. I Skype in with her class once per semester. (If you use any of my work, I’d be happy to Skype with your class for free, although Pam sent me a box of locally produced goodies!)

This semester Pam had the students read EATING while also working at the campus community garden.

She was kind enough to share more about the experience:

I teach Academic Literacy, a developmental reading and English course at Northampton Community College.  This semester my students have had the experience of gardening while reading Where Am…

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Act: Support Blueberry farmers in Peru

Santos Celestina Carranza Labor leader peru

(Stand with Santos Celestina Carranza, General Secretary of SITETSA, a union supporting blueberry farmers in Peru)

If you trust my opinion on these matters click here and fill out the form at the bottom of the page. 

I’m thankful for the global food economy. One of the reasons is because I like to eat blueberries year round. But the luxury of being able to eat out-of-season produce comes with a cost.  A cost that blueberry farmers in Peru are currently paying.

The U.S. Department of Labor recently released a report on how farm workers are being mistreated–hired on short term contracts, unions being busted by employers–all which are in violation of the trade agreement between the United…

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Mobile phones giving 500K garment workers & famers a voice

The common questions asked when we talk about how to have a fair supply chain include: What laws can governments pass to protect workers? What kind of inspections should brands do?  What are the responsibilities of factories, retailers, and consumers?

But one very important question is left out: How do all of the stakeholders work to empower the laborers themselves to have a voice?

One of the most positive answer to that solution is LaborLink. LaborLink was started by Good World Solutions, “a non-profit social enterprise with a vision that every worker should have a free and anonymous channel to report directly to decision-makers about their working conditions, opinions and needs.” That channel is something most farmers and factory workers have already, they’re mobile phone.

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Join my #BlackFridayFast

For the past few years, I’ve fasted on Black Friday. I don’t consume anything–no shopping and no eating for at least 16 hours.

If you’d like to join me, I’ll be doing it again this year from 12AM – 6 PM on Black Friday. You can follow and/or suffer along with me using the hashtag #BlackFridayFast.

Sixteen hours really isn’t that long. I once did it for 30 hours, and while it sucked, it wasn’t that bad. I wrote about the experience at the end of WHERE AM I EATING? (you can read the excerpt at the end of this post). Sixteen hours is plenty of time to accomplish what I want to accomplish through the fast.

How to get your hangry on

If you are pregnant, a hobbit, or suffer from chronic,…

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How Fair Trade Actually Changes the World

(With kids in cocoa region of Ivory Coast)

You’re standing in the aisle. Before you is a bar of normal chocolate and a bar of Fair Trade or ethically sourced chocolate, or a pair of regular underwear and a pair of Fair Trade underwear, or a pair of regular chocolate underwear and a pair of Fair Trade chocolate underwear. (Just kidding about that last one. I don’t think Fair Trade is in the “novelty” market yet. Someday!)

You have a choice to make: Be fair or be normal?

Choose the product that supports millions of farmers around the world, sets certain social and environmental standards, provides producers with a guaranteed minimum price for their product and a social premium, or…

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