To know how food is grown — and how to grow it — to know who grows it, how it’s processed and shipped, and how far it might be coming from to get to our plates… we like finding videos that chronicle how these systems happen.
The Perennial Plate is a great resource for not only learning about food’s origins, but how people eat and endeavor in cultures around the world. Chef Daniel Klein and camerawoman Mirra Fine are currently traveling the globe to tell these stories.
From Splendid Table, Mirra and Daniel talk about their experience filming Coconut: Nose to Tail, and how efficient the use of a tree can be:
MF: For the people of Sri Lanka, the coconut is really a source of life. Not only because it is an ingredient that is found in most Sri Lankan foods, but also because the coconut tree itself, from the trunk to the leaves to the actual nut, is used in non-food elements of their life…
DK: They are selling really every part of the coconut. They are selling the toddy to a toddy producer, they are selling their husks to a rope producer, they are selling the oil to an oil producer, and then they use the coconuts for their own cooking and also to build huts and things like that.
Watch another Perennial Plate video: Lifen Yang’s small farm to table restaurant in Kunming, China, and then spend time on some farms around the globe.
Yay!! for clear underwater footage of unusual animals, (yes, even when they’re busy eating each other for lunch), via jtotheizzoe:
The Sea’s Strangest Square Mile
Sit back and let your eyes soak up this goggle-fogging journey to the Lembeh Strait near Indonesia by Shark Bay Films. It’s known as one of the richest homes of odd coral reef creatures on Earth.
Lightning-quick eels! Coral-colored, pregnant frogfish stuffing their bellies with wriggling prey! Baby cuttlefish!! BABY CUTTLEFISH!!!
(via kottke)
More animals with camouflage skills are hiding in the archives. Plus, cephalopods, because.
Two billion people in cultures around the world include insects as a part of their diet, and there are lots of stories about it in the news right now. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has recently recommended that we eat more insects, National Geographic recommends 8 bugs to try, this Washington Post video profiles a D.C. resident that cooks and eats cicadas, BBC News has a video about how insect-farming can combat hunger, and The Guardian has reported on what a healthy and sustainable food source they are:
The cost of meat is rising, not just in terms of hard cash but also in terms of the amount of rainforest that is destroyed for grazing or to grow feedstuff for cattle. There is also the issue of methane excreted by cows. The livestock farming contribution in terms of greenhouse gas emissions is enormous – 35% of the planet’s methane, 65% of its nitrous oxide and 9% of the carbon dioxide.
Edible insects emit fewer gases, contain high-quality protein, vitamins and amino acids, and have a high food conversion rate, needing a quarter of the food intake of sheep, and half of pigs and chickens, to produce the same amount of protein. They emit less greenhouse gases and ammonia than cows and can be grown on organic waste.
In the KQED Quest video above, meet Monica Martinez, a San Francisco artist and proprietor of Don Bugito, the nation’s first edible insect food cart.
