My boyfriend is really into good podcasts and came home the other night insisting that I watch this.  And he was right, Dan Barber gives a charming and very insightful talk about sustainable fishing.  Check it out:

This year my New Year’s resolution was to waste less food, and I guess I was on the same page as, um, God, because the newest video from MyJewishLearning.com is all about Bal Tashhit, the commandment from the Torah that prohibits wasteful destruction. In the past God has appeared to Todd as an orange, a female house DJ, and Flava Flav’s long lost twin borther. But this episode, God upped the ante–he appears as Al Gore.

Cross-posted on From the Ground—the blog of American Jewish World Service (AJWS).

Imagine waking up one morning to find your crops—the food that keeps you alive—completely submerged in water and entirely destroyed. This is exactly what happened along the Sinú River in northern Colombia, a region that has supported a diverse community of indigenous people for generations. The Zenu and Embera people who live by the Sinú banks depend on the river for fish, irrigation and drinking water. But in 2000, the Urrá Dam, built by a consortium of Colombian, Swedish and Russian companies, submerged over 7,400 hectares of land, crops, homes and sacred sites. The dam displaced 2,800 people and continues to threaten the lives of 70,000 by altering vital food supplies. Areas of severe periodic flooding and drought caused by its flow have stymied traditional farming practices. Compounding this reality is the construction of a new dam—many times the size—by the Colombian government, presenting a constant looming threat over this beleaguered rural community.

Thanks so much to Jill Slater for this week’s great parshat on G-d Cast.  Jill serves on the Executive Committee for the 2009 Hazon Food Conference.  Enjoy!

Parshat Masei from G-dcast.com

More Torah cartoons at www.g-dcast.com

Even if you don’t live in Brooklyn, and won’t be at the Brooklyn Food Conference this Saturday, this is a really terrific video you should check out anyway.

MyJewishLearning is proud to present an introspective, intergenerational, intercultural look at the most Jewish of all Jewish holiday activities: eating.

We all do it, but we do it in radically different ways. And with radically different philosophies (for proof, read some of the comments on this very site). And don’t worry, this isn’t a video about how Jews SHOULD eat, it’s about how we do eat, like it or lump it.

Anyway, check it out and let us know what you think.

This video, in honor of Hazon’s Party here in New York with the 92Y Tribeca is pretty cute. But what really caught my eye was just how much food played into it. Food can always be code for identity, but here I found the rapid fire use of mayo (not Jewish), rugelach and bagels and Manashevitz (need I even say, Jewish?), pork (not Jewish) and then the big finale of mayo = shmaltz a pretty funny way of coding the main character’s Jewiness. There are multiple “inappropriate” uses of Jewish foods which mark this little snippet as a Jewish parody of the original. What the original story is here is lost on me and my cultural cluelessness…

From the Hazon Food Conference:

Transforming Kosher Meat in America

Three large meat companies, under the supervision of a few national religious organizations, produce the vast majority of the kosher meat consumed in the United States. These companies slaughter animals in industrial slaughterhouses far removed from major urban centers. The scandal at the Agriprocessors plant in Iowa has forced us to re-examine our modern system of industrial kosher meat production. How do notions of transparency, sustainability, affordability, consumer choice, and ethics fit into our kosher meat production system and whose responsibility is it to determine and enforce these standards? Join some of the most influential players in the world of kosher meat to discuss their visions for the future of kosher meat production in America.

Sarah Newman is a locavore and vegeterian. She works as a researcher and blogger at Participant Media, which is releasing the documentary and companion book Food, Inc. in Spring 2009. She’s also a panelist at Hazon’s Food Conference this year, taking part in “Will Blog for Food” on Sunday. She’ll be blogging from the conference all weekend at Takepart.com, and we’ll be cross-posting her articles here on The Jew & The Carrot.

I just saw the short film Food Stamped, by Shira and Yuval Potash. This middle class Berkeley, CA couple chose to live off of food stamps for one week. After stealing lots of free samples, skipping and skimping on usual items such as coffee, carrots and cheese and thoroughly planning each meal, the couple successfully pulled off a week’s worth of meals on $50.

As you might have read below, our first official dinner at the Hazon Food Conference of 08 was full of conversation starters, though we hardly needed them. The room was roaring with voices, and a few of them were mulling over some discussion questions provided by The Jew and The Carrot.  Like this guy below, pontificating on the symbolism of tangerines:

Find all the questions and another video below.  Diners only seemed to get to number one on our list – the first of which explains why I ate two jelly doughnuts tonight after dessert.  (I’m always looking for reasons to eat jelly doughnuts.)  Join the conversation, and let us know what you’ve got to say on these topics too.

In just two days, 550 people will descend upon Pacific Grove, California for Hazon’s 3rd Annual Food Conference.  Over 4 days farmers and rabbis, nutritionists and chefs, vegan and omnivores, activists and teachers will come together to explore the dynamic interplay of food, Jewish tradition and contemporary life.  Conference themes will focus on Jewish food culture, cutting edge food law and policy, kosher meat issues, health and nutrition, cooking and gardening, and Israeli food and agriculture.

Can’t make it to California this year?  Didn’t know about the Food Conference until just now? Have a loved one attending the conference and curious to know what they’re up to?  Have no fear!

Need a little more Michael Pollan in your life?  How about a little more PBS?  Yeah, I thought so – me too.

Bill Moyers recently sat down with Reb Pollan (pictured above wearing a “Vote with Your Fork” t-shirt) to discuss food policy in the US – where we are now, and where we’re (hopefully) headed.

Watch it here.

Over the last 30 years, Americans have grown accustom to food being (falsely) cheap and abundant – so the recent sticker price hikes have likely come as a shock. But one doesn’t have to look very far into the past to find other times in our country’s history when food was neither cheap, nor abundant.My 85-year old father, for example, grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930s. While he does not recall ever feeling overwhelmingly hungry (his father, a minister, was often paid in eggs and other food, and his mother was known for making a chicken stretch in twenty ways), he does remember the backyard garden his family relied on for a substantial portion of their fruits, vegetables, and other food.

If ever there was a day for foodies to curl up with a mug of fair trade coffee and the newspaper, today’s the day. The New York Times Magazine’s (first ever, I believe) Food Issue hit stands this morning, so if you haven’t already scanned the whole thing online, find yourself a comfortable chair and a couple of hours to savor it the way papers were originally intended to be read.There’s a LOT of good stuff inside – enough to be slightly overwhelming. So before you dig in, take a look at The Jew & The Carrot’s recommendations on what to read, skim, and skip. Get the most out of the magazine and still have some daylight left to play. Below the jump!