Talking with BBC Radio Sheffield about #JustFood19, Social Eating, Surplus Food and Other Cool Things.

This morning I was on @BBCSheffield breakfast show with Kat Cowan talking about our upcoming #JustFood19 conference, but also Social Eating, Food surplus, and Food Futures. If you would like to listen,  the interview starts at about minute 17.   If you would like to attend the open events, here is the detail.  Continue reading

A Positive Word About the Future of Food

Organic, grow your own mushrooms in Hong Kong

Organic, grow your own mushrooms in Hong Kong. The “Europe tomato” are a european variety but were grown in Hong Kong

It is easy to become anxious and depressed over the state of the world’s food system. Indeed, at a social event I recently attended someone asked me if there was anything positive going on that might give hope. This is a good question as sometimes it is useful to consider not just what the problems are, but to also reflect on some of the creative, interesting, and engaged activities that people are doing that have positive effects on the state of the food system today as there are thousands of examples to be found in cities and rural places in every part of the world.  In this post, I want to highlight just three of these small and sometimes larger scale engagements that seek to redress food insecurity and environmental sustainability that I witnessed while on a recent trip to Hong Kong. While none are going to individually solve the problems we are collectively facing with regard to food security and food justice, together they offer hope for the future of food.

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Hong Kong Coffee Culture

IMG_0180I like coffee.  In fact, I like coffee much more than tea.  This preference was easy to indulge when I lived in Seattle, where getting a cup of coffee is not a difficult task.  It became much more difficult in England, where quite often what is passed off as coffee is actually some sort of instant coffee drink with lots of milk and sugar (to my mind instant coffee is not really coffee).  I didn’t know what to expect when I moved to Hong Kong.  I worried that the cultural residue of being a British colony, combined with the modern relationship with China would mean that in Hong Kong a good cup of coffee would be hard to find.  Tea?  Easy.  Coffee, well what to expect? Continue reading