Monthly Archives: July 2019

How can chefs lead the way towards social justice in our food system?

It was never going to be enough for Chef Nick Wallace to only cook food, even as deeply as the passion to cook has driven his life and career. The Chopped chef is on a mission that includes shaping the way children, especially children of color, relate to and think about food.

Creativity Kitchen, Chef Wallace’s brainchild, was launched to integrate real, nutritious, local food into urban school cafeterias in the South and the appreciation for its importance into the minds and hearts of the children eating it. “We work with kids who may eat their only meal of the day at school.  By prompting them to think about where that food comes from, what it does for their body and how its production impacts the land, we try to instill a sense of agency that they will take into adulthood—a sense that they can choose what to put in their bodies with an understanding of the impacts of that choice,” Chef Wallace explains. Read More »

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Will calamari play an important role in future climate-resilient fisheries?

Global reported squid catches (Millions of metric tons, 1950-2015). While squid catches have increased in recent years, year to year changes have also increased. Data accessed from FAO database. Plot by R. Boenish

Besides being the star in calamari appetizers, squid play the crucial roles of both predator and prey in marine ecosystems. Globally, squid can be found in nearly every ocean habitat from seagrass beds, to coral reefs, to the open ocean. Squid fisheries provide livelihoods and high-quality protein to communities, large and small all over the world. And as it turns out, studying squid can teach us valuable lessons about how to build climate-resilient fisheries. A new paper in Fisheries Research will help fishery managers predict where jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) populations might migrate under different scenarios of climate change, and help researchers understand why some species are more resilient than others.

While overall squid catches (all species combined) have increased in recent years, it is unclear what the future will hold in the face of climate change and other pressures. Healthy ecosystems depend on resilience from all links of the food chain. This research, which I contributed to along with a number of leading marine research organizations including Shanghai Ocean University, The University of Washington and The University of Maine, suggests that squid may play a more important role in improving climate resilience in the world’s fisheries than previously thought. Read More »

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