I want to refer you to an editorial written in May 18th New York Times....  The article points out that, every day in America, a lot of perfectly fine food gets wasted- approximately 1 pound of food PER American citizen gets tossed (That's 1.5 THOUSAND tons of Food EVERY DAY).  This includes slightly parished or blemished food in stores and restaurants, expired goods, and last week's uneaten Chinese delivery.

The article's author points out that, okay, Africa is starving, and by throwing all that food out we as a nation are being royal pigs, and should feel VERY ashamed.  True, no doubt, but not really representative of the real problem here, nor what's at stake.  Definitely, it's TERRIBLE to waste food, and yes, we SHOULD be feeding the hungry.  But what's stands in the way isn't wasteful habits....

It's oil.

Hunger is NOT a problem of supply- there is anough food in this world to fatten everybody up to nice, portly sloths and still have scraps left over for the dogs.  Nor is it a matter of behavior- America isn't eating more food than their due, thus starving the rest of the world. 

Hunger is a matter of DISTRIBUTION- how do you get the surplus food to a place where there aren't any good roads, and no gas stations on those bad roads?  How do you get past the pirates, the juntas, the corrupt officials?  How do you weed through the international red tape BEFORE the food rots?  Easier said, MUCH easier said, than done.

Food prices are shooting up right now in degrees that don't reflect in any way the somewhat diminished crops of the past year.  Maybe there's 2% less corn in the country- why, then, are prices of corn up 25%?  Keep in mind that, unless you're harvesting corn in your back yard, the corn you're eating had to GET to wherever you are, and that took OIL!

I'm not saying that I enjoy wasting food, or that anybody should take it up as hobby.  Waste obviously sucks, and there's no excuse for it.  But waste in Witchita does not mean famon in Gabon.

Posted by iankusc at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What is the plural of the word "Doofus?"  Doofuses?  Doofi?  Is it like "Fish", and just "Doofus?"  Dictionary.com says "Doofuses", but I'm going with "Doofi"- sounds better. 

I bring this word up because of THIS news in this morning's New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/washington/23farm.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Farm+bill&st=nyt&oref=slogin

Too tired to read it?  After reading it, i'm certainly too tired to THINK about it, but here it is in a nut-shell: Congress (both the Senate and House) passed the Farm Bill by an overwhelming margin, offering a proxy middle-finger to the President, who vetoed the bill on Wednesday.  However, Congress being who they are (insert the plural form of "Doofus"), still managed to screw it up....

They passed the WRONG BILL!!!!

Or, rather, passed the wrong VERSION- what they signed wasn't the right copy- it lacked several portions that were in the Vetoed Bill, thus sending the whole process back to square 1.  Consider....

1: Congress takes an additional 8 months beyond what they were alotted to build this bill...

2: The bill, as it stands, is LOADED with Pork...

3: The bill, as it stands, is likewise chock full of corn-fuel energy padding, just when Corn prices have managed to turn ethanol from a kind-of-funny pipe dream into an un-funny waste of billions of dollars worth in research....

4: After all that, the DOOFI of Congress can't even get straight just what they're supposed to sign!!!!

With the House minority crying foul, and the President laughing his lame-duck butt off, and the Democrats looking like they can't even alphabetize the first names of the American Idol judges, I have a stinking suspiscion that the Farm Bill Is CURSED!  A murky cloud of DOOM hangs over it, and as Americans and non-Americans starve and grumble, nothing, Nothing, NOTHING gets done.  It's enough to make a Foodie cry.... 

Posted by iankusc at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So last week, to celebrate the Peeled Snacks move to Brooklyn, I took a trip to Louisiana.  Former French colony Acadia (the term for whose citizens, when mutilated by Yankees, somehow turned into "Cajun"), Louisiana is home to the mouth of this continent's longest river, the worst natural disaster in USA history, lots of tasty food, impeccable Jazz, institutionalized corruption, and most of the US's Sugar Can production.

The history of food can easily be filtered through what makes food sanitary and palatable.  For thousands of years, whole economies and histories were built around the Spice trade.  Populations started exploding after the invention of refrigeration.  And Sugar, that cheapest, most efficient form of a carbohydrate, has driven the American diet since WAY back in the day.

Picture Ben Franklin and George Washington chewing the fat after their victory against the British in 1783.  When Martha served cake for dessert, it was baked with sugar from Sugar Beets.  Same thing with the beer Mr. Franklin so famously brewed.  After the Louisiana Purchase, production of cane sugar exploded, and Louisiana grew 90% of the nation's sugar for well over 100 years.

Now why, tell me, did the entire US agricultural economy shift away from sugar to Corn?  Look on most packaged food's ingredient lists (outside of your local Whole Foods, that is), and you'll find High Fructose Corn Syrup in the top 3 ingredients.  Sugar can't be found anywhere but in "Hippie Food" these days.  After checking out a Sugar Cane plantation, I now know why....

Most of the world's sugar comes from Brazil, which has no Winter.  Almost all of the sugar in the US comes from Louisana, which, contrary to typical Yankee belief, DOES have a Winter, or at least enough of one to curb any chance of a growing season.  Brazil plants sugar cane in August and harvests in May.  Louisiana plants in September and harvests in November....

November, 14 months LATER!!!!

Long have I wondered why US corn-sugar production has "kicked sugar cane's butt" (to quote the cane sugar plantation tour guide), and now I get it- American sugar cane takes TWICE as long to grow, and time is money.  Corn grows tall and bounteous every year, particularly since the feds have subsidized it so heavily.  That's twice the production, which can be seen as half the cost.

There's plenty of other factors, like the fact that Corn can be grown in 40 American states, while Cane can be grown in 4 states or so.  There's the multiple uses of Corn, whereas Cane really only has one use.  And there's the very recent pipe dream of corn-based fuel, but that's hardly a factor to corn's proliferation (and I bet will hardly be a factor in future energy policy, in spite of the hype).

Cane Sugar, as sweet and wonderful as it is, turns out to be a pain to grow in the Northern Hemisphere.  All that American Heritage turns out to come from deep knowledge of the soils and season, lots of hard work, and PATIENCE.  It's that last one that turns out to be bad for business, at least for Sugar's sake (and, therefore, for the sake of the State of Louisiana)....

Posted by iankusc at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As of Monday, May 5th, Peeled Snacks will officially no longer be a New York based company.  Well, make that, we will no longer be a MANHATTAN based company.  Yes, we're leaving the chic, fashionable Tribeca district of Manhattan for the wild, dangerous, exciting streets of....

That's right, we're moving to the County of Kings!  Why, you ask?  Is it for the cheaper rent?  Is it for the hipper attitude?  Is it for the parking spaces?

Thank you for playing, you don't win our grand prize but you DO get a copy of our home-version board-game.  No, we're moving for the LIGHT.  Our Tribeca office has basically no natural light, where as our new Brooklyn home has a 900 square foot Sun Deck, and LOTS of that fun, sun-spun illumination.  We're giving up a fashionable zip code in order to process vitamin D.  And we couldn't be happier about it.

Here's our new address- look it up on Google Maps for a funky picture of the hood....

530 3rd Ave. suite 2R

Brooklyn, NY 11215

See you in the Hood,

Peeled Skinny, MOVING!!! 

Posted by iankusc at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)