Earth Eats: Real Food, Green Living Indiana Public Media

“The dominant vocabulary for talking about restaurants is ‘what food do they serve,what are the good dishes?’ People think that’s the only thing that’s important about restaurants.” Today on the show we talk with Historian Rebecca Spang, about the origins of restaurants, and what they mean to us today. “The experience just of knowing that there are other people and knowing that they have their own lives, they’re talking about their own things, but that you’re not completely alone.”Exploring the experience of dining out-- in this episode of Earth Eats.

“When you begin to zoom out, you realize that in fact palm oil is all around us, and the world, in a strange way, is made of palm oil; and we’re all, in a certain way, made of palm oil–in the sense that we use it to reproduce our bodies and to clean our skin and to live the lives that we live in a globalized world.”This week on the show, a conversation with Max Haiven, author of the book Palm Oil:The Grease of Empire. He traces the history of palm oil production globally, examining its damaging effect on the environment, the labor abuses in the industry and the ill-effects of this cheap fat on the health of people who consume it. An exploration of what palm can tell us about our global economy, climate change and who we areas a species.

“It’s a great thing to be outside, to have birds chirping, to be around green grass, and animals. But the problem has become, that you can’t really be a business unless you are a financially viable business.” This week on the show we explore the economics of small scale farming, and debunk some of the myths of the agrarian lifestyle. We talk with Beth Hoffman, author of Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Farming in America, and we hear from farmers across Indiana about how they’re “making it pay.” This week on the show we debunk some of the myths of the agrarian lifestyle. We talk with Beth Hoffman, author of Bet the Farm and we hear from farmers across Indiana about how they’re “making it pay.” 

“There are a lot of people, they like the faux meats and they want to eat a Carne Asada that reminds of the actual, like, Beef Carne Asada. There are a lot of people who try to steer clear from the faux meats, so we wanted to have plenty of veggie items on the menu for them as well. We really wanted to represent different ingredients and different flavors that anybody can come and enjoy.”This week on the show, producer, Toby Foster visits with one of the owners of Tacotarian in Las Vegas, Nevada. Plus, East Coast style bagels come to Indiana, and a story from Harvest Public Media about too many trees in all the wrong places. 

“It’s not about simply that protectionism and nationalism–that we only want to make sure that we eat Lithuanian food. It is a much deeper sense of urgency that as a state–and its political sovereignty–depends on the ability to produce food and feed its population for a long time.”This week on the show a conversation with sociologist Diana Mincyte who studies food systems in post socialist Eastern European states like Lithuania. And Muddy Fork Bakery’s Eric Schedler guides us through the steps for a traditional yeasted bread–including tips on braiding dough.

“There’s a restaurant on almost every street in our various cities–they are woven into the fabrics of our communities, and they are deeply embedded in our lives.  Restaurants are the places we go to celebrate marriages, to mourn divorces, the places we go to gossip with friends to celebrate after church and they become these places to hear the stories of their community. They’re talking to the farmers everyday, they’re talking to the fisherpeople everyday, they’re talking to the other producers, they’re also getting a sense of what’s challenging about their lives or what’s opportunities within their lives and they hear the everyday concerns of their customers. So they become these great collectors of stories.”This week on the show, a conversation with Katherine Miller. She’s the author of At the Table:The Chef’s Guide to Advocacy. She encourages chefs to harness the power of their unique position in the community and raise their voices for change in the food system.