Workshop (Asynchronous - Online Only)
The Golden Era of U.S. Newspaper Food Journalism : Ohio Food Editors in the 1950s and 1960s View Digital Media
Poster Session Kimberly Voss
Questions about cooking? Lost a cherished recipe? Planning a holiday menu? For decades, it was the newspaper food editor who answered these questions from readers. The newspaper food editors were important to their communities as they wrote about food trends, popular recipes, and local restaurants. The readers responded with calls and letters to the food section. Prior to the early 1970, these popular editors were almost always female and typically had a background in journalism and home economics. Food sections began in the women’s pages of newspapers. Newspapers had a direct connection to the community that a national magazine or cooking show does not have. Food editors will largely write about local stores, local restaurants, and local cooks. The story of the newspaper food sections and the women who edited the sections is important to understanding the history of American food and home cooks in the post-World War II years. The impact of the high cost of food and the dangers of contaminated food were documented in the food section. The sections also included the stories of home cooks—several newspapers had weekly columns that profiled local women, often in their kitchens. This paper tells the story of three Ohio food editors from the women’s page era: Janet Beighle French, Polly Paffilas, and Phyllis Tamor. It is based on reviews of their food sections and interviews they gave.
Your Avocado Toast Is Funding Drug Cartels: How American Consumption Habits and Anti-drug Policies Made Avocados the New Conflict Commodity View Digital Media
Poster Session Jessica Rudo
The road a Mexican avocado travels from farm to guacamole has increasingly become punctuated with violence. The average American eats over eight pounds of avocados a year. In an effort to satiate the fast-growing appetite Americans have for them, Mexico exports 2.1 billion pounds of the fruit each year. When NAFTA opened the border to avocados from Mexico, the Mexican state of Michoacán was the only area that met required sanitary conditions. The booming avocado business increased the Michoacán farmer’s profit from two and a half pesos per pound to 80 pesos per pound. Avocados have also attracted the unwanted attention of drug cartels that have brought violence to their farmers and industry workers. Drug cartels have capitalized on the $3 billion a year trade of avocados between Mexico and the United States. But with a multi-billion drug market in the United States alone, what leads cartels to encroach into other markets? In short, US anti-drug policies with unintended secondary and tertiary effects that can be credited with the creation and growth of drug trafficking organizations in Mexico. Despite the blockades and prohibitions, American demand to consume marijuana, cocaine, opium, and methamphetamines only grew. In spite of bilateral attempts to bring these organizations down, the cartels have flourished. A byproduct of US prohibition laws, Mexican cartels have steadily expanded over the decades because of American drug use and fruitless legislation. When the strategy moved to combating cartels economically, the cartels simply diversified their portfolios and began extorting the avocado industry.
Michigan Tacos : Mexican Food and Neoliberal Globalization in the Upper Midwestern United States View Digital Media
Poster Session Santos Ramos
The goal of this research is to articulate the cultural survival of migrant Mexican communities in the Midwestern state of Michigan. Through archival research and oral history interviews, the study details how food is used in these communities to retain a sense of cultural identity, nourish connections to Mexican history, and to build spaces of belonging. Additionally, the study articulates the workings of neoliberal philosophy as they play out through the intertwined food systems of the United States and Mexico. It is argued that, as an extension of what some scholars refer to as the “colonial food regime,” neoliberal trade policies have shifted Mexican relationships to land and food. As a result, migrant Mexican people have innovated traditional recipes and agricultural techniques in order to practice cultural continuance.
Discipline-specific Pedagogy and Its Impact on Nutrition Beliefs and Behaviors View Digital Media
Poster Session Gloria McNamara
The purpose of this retrospective study is to examine the impact that disciple-specific pedagogy may have on college students’ nutrition knowledge, beliefs, and behavioral intentions. It is hypothesized that students in the course representing health sciences (Nutrition for Health) may demonstrate higher scores for nutrition knowledge as well as for behaviors and attitudes indicative of personal dietary practices, while students in the course that embodies general education (Food, Culture and Society) may demonstrate higher scores for beliefs and practices that more globally effect the food supply. The validated survey, consisting of 50 nutrition-related statements eliciting a response, was distributed to participating students post-intervention across these two pedagogical conditions. The health sciences (Nutrition for Health) course utilized an academic textbook, and the general education course (Food, Culture, and Society) used historical expository writings throughout the semester. Data is analyzed in the aggregate utilizing SPSS (version 25) to determine whether differences exist between conditions on the measured outcomes. It is anticipated that, although food and nutrition is the course content, different pedagogical perspectives grounded in diverse disciplines may uniquely impact students dietary views. This finding may contribute to the health education field by informing future curriculum development.
