Entry #30: Closing the Food Gap

For my second book review I will be talking about Closing the Food Gap by Mark Winne. This is the third book I've read in the last two years that's made a huge impact on my life, after Food Politics and The Crazy Makers. The author doesn't bullshit around and even accuses other authors, such as Michael Pollan, as only appealing to an upper-class that has an expendible income to spend on better quality food. Mark Winne definitely knows what he's talking about, even though he glorifies a few regions in the Northeast and he keeps a relatively pessimistic tone throughout the entirety of the book.
This book is the first place where I ever really read extensively about "supermarket abandonment" and a more detailed explanation of how bus routes are planned. This book also was my first exposure to certain solutions to getting fresh produce to lower income citizens, such as CSAs, or community supported agricultures. Because of this book I immediately looked up online whether or not there are any CSAs nearby, and I found an organization called City Fresh. After reading about City Fresh I made sure to show up at one of their locations that's relatively nearby and now I volunteer weekly. My only peeve is that most of my fellow volunteers refer to the organization as a co-op, whereas my idea of a co-op is where its shareholders do some work either in the growing or distribution of the product - not just pay a weekly or seasonal share.
City Fresh offers such great quality produce, and all of it is from local Amish farmers - so it's also all organic. I fucking love the Amish. City Fresh is also going to start offering whole grain flower, jellies and jams, black walnuts, honey, and maple syrup - also all locally produced.
Back to the book: I hear the author is also featured in a movie called "Polycultures" that's specifically about sustainable forms of agriculture in Northeast Ohio. I definitely need to get my hands on a copy of the movie.
Even though it wasn't the book's intent, I can speak so much more clearly on why obesity is such an epidemic in low-income areas: from weakly planned bus routes, limited selection in bodegas and corner stores, supermarket abandonment and higher prices in urban areas (also worse quality produce), etc. Most of which is probably common sense, but it's all explained so eloquently in this book.
This book fucking rules, hands down. It's definitely something I'd recommend, especially to fucking science fuck yuppies who think everybody has a fair shot at health or easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

9.6/10

Entry #29: LeBron James

Although this entry has absolutely no relevance to vegetables directly it still relates to the produce clerk profession, because it seems the majority of grocery workers actively follow local sports - which I guess is a general blue collar hobby, since all of the white collar workers are wasting exorbitant amounts of money to get seats at the Staples Center behind Jack because they're too insecure and afraid of disappointment to root for any professional sports teams other than the Lakers or the Yankees. Local sports are at the heart of any business that supports its local workers, and local sports are also at the heart of local businesses themselves - especially when you're from a city that harbors a superstar.

Anyways, I figured I should chime in on the discussion of LeBron James. First of all, it was classless to make the decision on national television and make heated comments directed towards our city such as, "I want to celebrate something other than winning the regular season" - but what do you expect, dude is from Akron. Akron, Youngstown, Toledo: you may as well be born on a mound of dog shit while your mother's afterbirth mixes with her diarrhea she got from her fried chicken and jojos that she bought from the Wal-Mart prepared foods section. I don't expect anybody from Akron to have class - I expect them to have a child before they're out of high school. See, Cleveland isn't thought of as having any class, but its lack of class is shown more through drunken rage and any trashy acts are excused through a feeling of defeat and a nihilistic attitude.

Well, I think Chicago would've been a better choice for Lebron anyways. Bosh is overrated and LeBron and Wade are going to compete for head banana; whereas the Bulls have the youngest player with the most potential in Rose, the top rebounding team in the league last season, a great rebounder in Boozer, the ultimate roleplayer in Noah, and a fucking city that isn't horseshit. If this:



isn't playing 24 hours a day, Shaq isn't motorboating Carmen Electra's ass, and crocodiles aren't attacking nursing homes regularly - then I don't fucking care about your city, Miami.
Why the fuck did Bosh say he refused to come to Cleveland? Oh yeah, because nobody in the NBA has any fucking taste and they'd rather be down in southbeach because they're thinking about parties and beach bitches. As far as I'm concerned, if your main criteria for a city are its wealth, its relative distance to a beach, and its frequency of trashy bitches - then fuck you, you're a piece of shit.

Entry #28: Corn

Corn is one of the shittiest things in nature. If corn played in an organized sporting event against mosquitos, flesh eating disease, AIDs, dick cheese, jealousy, and the LA Lakers I'd be pretty hard-pressed to decide who I'd favor. I almost feel as though there's some conspiracy theory behind Native Americans gifting us their precious grain: maybe they knew the level of misuse and abuse would be so obtuse with the white man and they'd ultimately destroy themselves with maize-mania.
Why do I dislike corn so much? Well, first of all it doesn't even taste that fucking good and it's typical "meat and potato" macho male fare. So many fat fucking dudes with Budweiser-stained NFL shirts come in and dig the fuck out of the corn, throwing ears all over the fucking place searching for "good ones." Guess what? Corn is 10 for $2, that's $.20 a piece. Who gives a fuck whether or not the ear is a millimeter longer or looks slightly thicker? Chances are you're just going to drench it in butter or put it in your mashed potatoes and turkey - it's not like you're going to taste much of its exquisite flavor or differentiate between one ear or another.
Corn fucking sucks because of the farm bill, and the fact that it's heavily subsidized so farmers grow corn instead of other, better products. The end result is type 2 corn being grown and sold to make things like additives, preservatives, HFCS, etc. at a cheap price, and companies trying to extend their usage of corn byproducts. This is not fucking good - at all.
You know why else corn sucks? Third world countries indebted to the World Bank grow genetically engineered corn (along with specialty products) specifically for the world market and to sell to first world countries - instead of being able to concern themselves with sustenence farming. Instead big fucking America and its big fucking technological "advancements" march in and shit GMO corn fields across the landscape - when other grains would fare much better in drier areas, regardless of how fucking much they modify the corn seeds in a laboratory.
Corn has its large, yellow-and-white bulbous dick down Mother Nature's throat. Fuck corn, fuck the people who buy it, and fuck how much it sells.