food

Sexist Coop Konsum

Coop Konsum is launching an advertising campaign which uses images of vegetables shaped as suggestive female body parts. Their sexist attitude is made even more hypocritical since their message (according to them) is that beauty comes from within (a message which is included on the posters)…

 

 

According to Coop Konsum the campaign is a part in a strategy to present itself as a healthy store which helps its customers choose healthy foods. How come they need to be sexist to be health conscious? Why do they feel the need to lower one standard in order to attempt to raise another? And why does the whole thing feel like a scam â?? maybe because they keep selling the same amount of unhealthy products as they always didâ?¦
Coop writes about their campaign here.

(via Media Culpa)

Posted on by mklang

Meatrix II

Its food politics and awareness served up by Sustainable Table in the form of animated flash films. Sustainable Table wants to make consumers aware of the problems with factory farming and to promote sustainable food.
The followup of the brilliant Meatrix movie is out now. Watch the new movie here!

In an age characterized by mechanization, there exists a large gap between our illusions about where food comes from and the stark reality of industrial meat and dairy production. Enter the Meatrix films. The Meatrix II: Revolting is the sequel to the original smash hit, the critically acclaimed exposé of industrial farming, The Meatrix. Simultaneously spoofing the popular Matrix films while educating consumers about the evils of factory farming, The Meatrix brings the concept of sustainability to a wide audience of mainstream consumers. With a growing audience of over 10 million viewers worldwide, translations into over 25 languages, as well as a 2005 Webby Award, the Meatrix has been an incredibly successful tool for raising interest in Sustainable Tableâ??s unique goals and projects. www.themeatrix.com and www.themeatrix2.com

Check out their earlier movie the Grocery Store Wars.

(via Peter Forsberg)

Posted on by mklang

Seeds of Change

A scary issue which I keep meaning to look more at is the politics and technology of food production, treatment, transportation and selling. Here is a very interesting documentary about GM foods from the University of Manitoba

Everyone has heard both the positives and negatives of genetically modified crops, from biotech companies like Monsanto and from environmental and consumer groups like Greenpeace, yet no one has actually heard from those who actually grow the food we eat – the farmers.

The film can be downloaded from the film website.

The film Seeds of Change is a seventy-minute documentary film made by University of Manitoba (U of M) professor Stéphane McLachlan, U of M PhD student Ian Mauro, and independent videographer Jim Sanders, is a balanced yet hard-hitting exposé of the controversy surrounding genetically modified crops and how they have changed the face of agriculture in western Canada.

Posted on by mklang

Umeå Cool

I have been invited to visit the cool people at Humlab in Umeå in the north of Sweden, on the 28 September.

Amongst other things UmeÃ¥ is involved in workshop for doctoral students with the theme â??Interaction in Digital Environmentsâ?? (21-22 August 2006). This workshop will be arranged by a local doctoral student network (Digital Interaction Research Network â?? DIRN) at UmeÃ¥ University. The network is composed of doctoral students from various departments and faculties with a common interest in the study of interaction in digital environments.

Speakers will be

– Jill Walker, Department of Humanistic Informatics, University of Bergen
– T.L. Taylor, Center for Computer Games Research, IT University of Copenhagen
РPatrik Hernwall, School of Communication, Technology & Design, Șderțrn University College
РPatrik Svensson, HUMlab, Ume̴ University

The workshop arrangers will pay for traveling participantsâ?? costs for food and accommodations. The number of participants accepted to the workshop will be limited.

Posted on by mklang

The Way We Eat

Question Technology always recommends the great books. He has increased my library with some interesting choices. Now he pointed out that Peter Singer & James Mason have a new book out: The Way We Eat – Why our food choices matter. Prepare to be saddened, angered and hopefully goaded into action.

Excerpt via Animal Liberation Front:

Most Americans know little about how their eggs are produced. They don’t know that American egg-producers typically keep their hens in bare wire cages, often crammed eight or nine hens to a cage so small that they never have room to stretch even one wing, let along both. The space allocated per hen, in fact, is even less than broiler chickens get, ranging from 48 to 72 square inches. Even the higher of these figures is less than the size of a standard American sheet of typing paper. In such crowded conditions, stressed hens tend to peck each other — and the sharp beak of a hen can be a lethal weapon when used relentlessly against weaker birds unable to escape. To prevent this, producers routinely sear off the ends of the hens’ sensitive beaks with a hot blade — without an anesthetic.

Posted on by mklang

Standby Power

Question Technology posted this quote from the Economist

STRANGE though it seems, a typical microwave oven consumes more electricity powering its digital clock than it does heating food. For while heating food requires more than 100 times as much power as running the clock, most microwave ovens stand idleâ??in â??standbyâ?? modeâ??more than 99% of the time. And they are not alone: many other devices, such as televisions, DVD players, stereos and computers also spend much of their lives in standby mode, collectively consuming a huge amount of energy. Moves are being made around the world to reduce this unnecessary power consumption, called â??standby powerâ??. (The Economist)

The term standby power used to be called leaking electricity but the term standby is taken to be more correct. This might be a shame since the idea of a leak is something that needs to be fixed. The number of appliances which do not have “real” on/off switches is actually quite large. If you add to this the number of fixtures which need to draw power to ensure that they function when required then the amount of unneccesary power being eaten is very large. In particular when you think about the fact that these appliances are waiting 24/7 every day. (More information on this topic Standby Power Home Page)

Posted on by mklang

Cookyright

Georg at Freedom Bits writes about the proposed copyright for culinaric art – thats food to you and me…

German star-cook Heinz Beck of the restaurant “La Pergola” in Rome asks to introduce a copyright on cooking recipes. His argument is based on cooking also being a creative form of art.

Now Giorgio Assuma considers “culinaric art a serious issue” and asks for a EU directive to introduce a kind of cookyright. One can only marvel at the horrors of a European Cookyright Directive.

Posted on by mklang

Art is garbage

Not for the first time someone is using Garbage as art. Even if this does not qualify as art it is, at least, a very weird souvenir.

garbage

The artist picks up bits of New York garbage (subway tickets, fast-food wrappers, broadway tickets) and arranges them in numbered, dated and signed plastic cubes (they dont smell!). Apparently over 700 cubes sold around the world.

Weird souvenir, but at the same time very apt. Stange Swedish souvenirs I have seen are canned/tinned air! and moose dung in a jar!

Posted on by mklang