Rachel Laudan

Taking a breather before my next rant but meantime let me just thank all for the comments and just a few round up generalizations. Grains.  Maria, really appreciated your insight that Crete may be self sufficient in most foodstuffs but not grains. Subsidies.  Kay and Adam, I wish, I wish I had some grip on [...]

Small farms,  in my opinion, are not the future of agriculture.  I’m asked all the time about why I hold this unfashionable position. It’s a tangled set of issues and I will post about several aspects over the next week or so. But let’s start with my most basic worry. Farming is a business, an [...]

Poi, as anyone who has been to Hawaii knows, was the staple food of the Hawaiians pre-Contact.  Now it’s often the butt of jokes.  Who would want to eat purple slime? Well, before you screw up your nose, it’s worth realizing that the poi now served in Hawaii is the poi equivalent of Wonder Bread.  [...]